Chapter 1: The Stillness of Butters

Chapter 1: The Stillness of Butters

The headache was a dull, persistent throb behind Reagan’s eyes, a drumbeat timed to the merciless buzz of the fluorescent lights overhead. It was a Petropolis headache, born of recycled air, the faint, cloying smell of cedar shavings, and the cheerful jingle of the commercial that played on a loop over the store speakers. Another Tuesday, another slice of retail purgatory.

At twenty-six, Reagan felt ancient. The mirror in the staff bathroom that morning had shown her a stranger with her own tired face, the dark hair now threaded with silver strands she was too exhausted to care about. Her blue polo shirt, emblazoned with the cheerful paw-print logo of Petropolis, felt like a uniform for a life sentence.

"Reagan, can you come see this?" Nikki’s voice, perpetually on the edge of a minor panic, cut through the haze.

Reagan pinched the bridge of her nose and pushed herself away from the stockroom manifest. "What is it, Nik?"

Nikki, a few years younger and still possessing a spark of optimism that Reagan envied and pitied in equal measure, was crouched by the small animal habitats. She pointed a trembling finger at the enclosure for the feeder mice. "It's… one of them. I think his leg is broken."

Inside, amidst the churning sea of his white-furred brethren, was a single black mouse with a white belly. He wasn't moving. One of his back legs was bent at an angle so profoundly wrong it made Reagan’s stomach clench. It was a casualty of overcrowding, a tiny, insignificant tragedy in the grand, uncaring machine of bulk pet sales.

"Poor little guy," Nikki whispered, her wide eyes glistening. "I was gonna call him Butters."

"You can't name them, Nik," Reagan sighed, the words a familiar, weary refrain. "You know the rules." She knelt, her knees cracking. The oppressive summer heat outside seemed to be winning its war against the store’s aging air conditioner, making the air thick and heavy. A wave of nausea rolled through her. All she wanted was to go outside, to breathe air that hadn't been filtered through a decade of dust and dander.

That’s when the idea sparked, a grim little life raft in her sea of misery. "I'll take him," Reagan said, the words surprising even herself. "Policy is to take injured stock to the vet for humane euthanasia. I'll do the run."

Nikki looked at her, a mixture of gratitude and sorrow on her face. "Really? You don't have to."

"I want to," Reagan insisted, a grim determination hardening her features. It was a morbid errand, but it was also an escape. An hour out of the store, an hour of quiet, an hour of anything but this.

The process was brutally efficient. Reagan scooped the mouse, now officially christened Butters, into a small plastic carrier, the kind they sold for a few dollars near the checkout. He barely stirred. The drive to the vet was quiet, the only sound the hum of her car’s engine and the stifling wind rushing through the open windows. The little plastic tub sat on the passenger seat, a tiny coffin.

The vet's office was a stark contrast to the sweltering day. It was cold, sterile, and smelled of antiseptic. The receptionist barely looked up from her magazine as Reagan explained the situation. A vet tech, a young man with a practiced, somber expression, took the carrier.

"Petropolis, right? We'll take care of him. Humane, of course. A simple CO2 displacement. It's painless, he just goes to sleep."

Reagan just nodded, signing the paperwork that condemned the unnamed creature to a quiet end. She paid the fee with the company card and left. There was no sentimentality, just a transaction. Another piece of damaged inventory written off.

The drive back was different. The weight of the day, of the task, seemed to lift. The headache was receding. For the first time in hours, she felt a sliver of peace. The empty plastic tub was back on the passenger seat, the lid snapped securely shut. It was a reminder of the grim errand, but also a symbol of its completion. The sun beat down on the asphalt, and she watched the heat shimmer rise from the road ahead. The world was mundane, brutal, and predictable. And right now, that was a comfort.

She was ten minutes from the store when she heard it.

Thump.

A small, soft sound from the passenger seat.

Reagan frowned, her eyes flicking to the plastic tub. Probably just the container settling as she took a turn. She dismissed it.

THUMP.

Louder this time. A distinct impact against the plastic wall. Her heart gave a little flutter of unease. It was empty. The vet had taken the mouse. She had watched him walk through the double doors with it. Had he… put the body back in the tub for disposal? That seemed odd, unsanitary.

Scraaaape.

That was not an object settling. That was the sound of something small and sharp dragging against plastic. Reagan’s blood ran cold. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel, knuckles white. She slowed the car, her gaze fixed on the small, innocuous container. It was still. Motionless.

"It's nothing," she whispered to herself, the sound of her own voice hollow in the car. "You're just tired. It's the heat."

Then the tub rocked.

It was a violent, sudden lurch, as if something inside had thrown itself against the side with impossible force. Reagan yelped, swerving slightly before correcting. Her heart was now a frantic hammer against her ribs. This wasn't possible. This couldn't be happening.

She pulled over, the tires crunching on the gravel shoulder of the road. With trembling hands, she unbuckled her seatbelt, her entire focus locked on the plastic box. It was rocking back and forth now, a frantic, rhythmic banging coming from within. Thump-thump-thump-thump.

A thin, viscous liquid began to seep from under the lid. It was a horrifying, fluorescent green, glowing with an unnatural luminescence even in the bright afternoon sun. It dripped onto the cheap fabric of the passenger seat, which sizzled and smoked on contact, a tiny wisp of acrid smoke curling towards the roof.

Reagan’s breath hitched in her throat. This was a nightmare. A hallucination brought on by her headache and the heat.

With a final, sickening CRACK, the lid of the tub splintered. A tiny, black head poked through the fractured opening. But it wasn't Butters. Not anymore. The creature’s eyes were gone, replaced by milky white orbs that seemed to boil with blind rage. Its jaw was unhinged, hanging grotesquely open to reveal needle-like teeth. And from that gaping maw dripped more of the glowing green ooze, sizzling as it hit the plastic.

A hiss, high-pitched and venomous, filled the sudden, terrifying silence of the car. It was a sound of pure, mindless aggression, a noise that scraped at the very edge of Reagan's sanity. Her carefully constructed world of mundane misery shattered into a million pieces.

The thing that was Butters wriggled the rest of its twitching, unnaturally fast body through the hole. It landed on the passenger seat, its tiny claws leaving smoking tracks in the upholstery. It fixed its blind, white gaze on her.

And it lunged.