Flippy was skipping by the time he got back to his house. Next door, Lumpy (who must have snapped out of the hypnosis) could be seen brushing his teeth with a razor, and attempting to shave with a toothbrush. Despite the blood and screaming that ensued, the green bear remained completely stable. A woodpecker was drilling away at a tree trunk, but not a single thought of machine guns crossed Flippy's mind. Now Cuddles, the little daredevil that he was, was testing him from about fifty yards away.

"BANG!" Cuddles yelled. "RATTATTAT BANG BANG BANG! EEEEEEEEEE BOOM!" Flippy stared at him quizzically, and the now mortified rabbit hurried away.

Sure, the former soldier had just gotten run over by a truck, but by now he was used to it. Besides, dying permenantly was definitely preferable to turning into a homicidal psychopath every time you hear loud noises.

But it was all over now. His demon would never trouble him again.

Flippy threw open the door, marched inside, and strode up to the medicine cabinet. He smiled at his reflection in the mirror, and his reflection grinned back. Opening the cabinet, Flippy hunted through the various bottles of cough medicine, Alka-Seltzer, and Pepto Bismol, until he found what he was looking for. He'd been popping these pills ever since he had his first flipout. Now, he unscrewed the child-safety cap and dumped the rest of them down the toilet. Flushing the toilet, he watched triumphantly as they swirled around the bowl briefly before disappearing from his sight. He threw the empty bottle into the trash and shut the cabinet door. For the longest time he simply stood there, grinning into the mirror in perfect contentment, and delighting himself in the fact that his reflection was smiling back serenely. He stared into his own eyes, falling deeper and deeper into his own euphoria.

Something was wrong. Flippy snapped out of his joy and looked harder at his reflection. Yes, something was horribly wrong. His eyes... they were blue.

He blinked, and his eyes were black once again. Shaken, but still reassuring himself, Flippy turned around to go outside for some fresh air...

...And smacked straight into someone he'd hoped he'd never see again.

Terrified, Flippy stared into a pair of gray-blue eyes that glinted with a savage thirst for blood. It was his evil self, his dark side.

His demon.

"No...no..." The word tumbled out of Flippy's mouth. "You're not there...You don't exist! YOU'RE JUST IN MY HEAD!" He tried to back away, but the sink blocked his retreat.

The demon sniggered nastily. "I don't exist?" The words were laced with ferocious malice. "Don't think you can get rid of me so easily, Goody Two-shoes."

Flippy was panting with fright. "Who are you?" he asked fearfully.

The demon's grin, punctuated by two rows of jagged teeth, widened by an inch. "Don't you know?" he replied. "I'm the one who kept you alive on the battlefield. I'm the one who reminds you who you truly are. I'm you."

"YOU'RE NOT ME!" Flippy half-sobbed. "I'M NOTHING LIKE YOU!"

"Yeah, you're right," his evil side agreed scornfully. "Look at you! You're a gutless, cowering little girl. You're WEAK! You're nothing, nothing without me!"

"SHUT UP!" Flippy screamed. "YOU'RE A LIAR! I BEAT YOU BEFORE! YOU'RE NOT EVEN THERE! YOU'RE NOTHING!" Straightening up like the soldier he had been trained to be, Flippy took a hostile step forward. To his surprise and triumph, the blue-eyed demon took a step backward.

"Don't be so sure," the demon snarled, spitting contemptuously on a Greek statue. "But I'm not here to talk. Don't you get it? I'm free."

"What are you talking about?" Flippy narrowed his eyes suspiciously. The demon simply laughed maliciously and turned his back on Flippy.

"Don't worry, I'll get you last. And... you can call me Cthulhu." With that, he left.

Flippy stared after him, trembling with rage and terror. It wasn't until he heard the screams outside, not five minutes later, and was running for the door, that he hadn't looked in the mirror the whole time that his demon was there.

Flippy threw open the door and stared in horror at the scene before him. Petunia hung upside down by her tail, which was nailed to a tree. The upper half of her body was hanging on to her lower half by her unravled small intestines, but that was the only thing that kept her in one piece. Her fingers had been severed from her hand, but they were clearly visible inside her exposed stomach. Her gallbladder had been stuffed into her gaping mouth.

Nearby, Cuddles was on the ground, pinned down by the demon, Cthulhu. The Bowie knife was poised for the kill, and shaking in Cthulhu's grip. Flaky and Giggles looked on in stupefied horror, knowing they would be next.

But they wouldn't. Flippy let out an ear-splitting howl and charged like a small green rhinoceros. Cuddles' would-be killer looked up in surprise as Flippy cannoned into him, slamming him away from his prey. Cthulhu leaped to his feet, and the two of them faced off.

"Get...out." Flippy's voice was a low snarl, and there was a tinge of red in the whites of his glaring eyes. Hissing like a wildcat, his darker side backed away.

"You haven't seen the last of me," Cthulhu snarled. "Someday, I'll be back, and I'll kill all of you." With that said, Cthulhu vanished into the woods.

Heaving a sigh, Flippy remembered that the fight was probably all in his head. He turned around, expecting the other three to look at him in confusion and ask him why he was fighting air, but he was wrong. Cuddles was staring off into the trees, blood dripping down his left ear (half of which was gone), and Giggles had died of a stroke. Flaky came forward uncertainly, looking ready to join Giggles.

"F-Flippy?" she stammered. "Why was there two of you just now?"

"T-two of me?" Flippy's voice rose several pitches. "Then...he wasn't just in my head?"

Flaky glanced briefly at where Petunia hung, upside down and mutilated, and replied, "I doubt it."

Now Flippy's legs gave out, and he dropped to his knees. "No...he's free."

"Free?" Cuddles spoke for the first time. "Flippy, why were there two of you?"

"There wasn't," Flippy replied ominously, glancing up with hollow eyes. "There was just me... and Cthulhu.

Whoo! My first HTF fanfic, and boy did I have fun! And to all of you H. P. Lovecraft readers, yes, I did borrow that name from him. It was my brother's idea, actually. There will be a fanfic after this, involving my character Lucky (see my profile for her bio.)

For those who don't know, Cthulhu is pronounced, K'thoo-loo. I thought it would be cool to name him that, because Cthulhu is this monster thing that tried to destroy the world, and also because Cthulhu is green, and so is Flippy. :)