HTF Origins: Cuddles

Written by Flaky Ciel

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"A boy who dreams of freedom, who's binds are cut in the depths of hell."

The little yellow rabbit jumped around excitedly in the back seat, looking from one window to the next as they drove on. Cuddles didn't particularly care where they were going, but he was excited to be going somewhere new. "Hey, Mom!" The thirteen-year-old shouted. "What was that place we were taking vacation again?"

"Happy Tree Town. For the hundredth time." She said, a little irritated by Cuddles's behavior. Cuddles sat down.

"Feh. Sounds a little boring to me." He said. "How come we're going there?"

"Because your father and I really need a break from the city." She said, sighing.

"Oh yeah." He said, remembering. His Dad, driving, just ignored the whole conversation.

Cuddles crossed his arms. His parents were both workaholics, he knew. But he didn't particularly care. All it meant to him was that they spent that much less time keeping an eye on him, essentially giving him free reign of the house and his neighborhood, which suited his adventurous urges quite well. Though, it still bothered him that their family was always so stressed out, and almost never got along. His dad had been hollering at him before they left to stop wearing those "stupid bunny slippers." But he liked them too much to listen, and his dad got sick of yelling eventually. They were the most comfortable thing he owned, and they were kind of a rebellious statement on their wearer's part.

They pulled over and started driving along the side road, towards the sign that designated it the road to Happy Tree Town. Cuddles kept vigil over the passing scenery, until finally the little town came into view. He was actually pretty thrilled with how different it was to most of the other towns he'd seen. The buildings were all natural-looking, usually taking the form of trees and other naturally occurring objects.

His parents, though, immediately started picking it apart. "It's bigger than I expected." His Dad complained. A few other comments followed as they pulled around, looking for a hotel. They drove for several minutes, without luck at all. Finally, they stopped to ask a stranger. "Excuse me." The adult rabbit asked as he pulled up. "I was wondering if you knew the closest hotel near here?"

The resident looked at him, strangely. "Well, sir, if I were you I wouldn't be looking for any hotel. Are you new here?" Cuddles's Dad nodded. "Well, you should go down to the realtor's and find a nice house. They're pretty cheap here, along with everything else."

"No, I don't think you understand. We're not staying, we're only here on vacation." He corrected, impatiently.

"Well, my sincerest apologies and pity. But I'm afraid your vacation is going to turn into an eternal nightmare. No one leaves Happy Tree Forest. Once you get here, you're staying."

Cuddles's Dad sighed and rolled up the window, turning the car completely around. "Honey, where are you going?" She asked.

"We're leaving. We'll just stop by some other backwater shithole, since that's where you want to go so much." He snapped, stressed out. She just crossed her arms and let him have his way, and he sped off towards the way he came.

Cuddles sighed, upset. He just stared out the window as they kept driving, and soon passed the same sign they saw going in. However, the awkward silence inside the car only got more uncomfortable when they all one-by-one realized that they were on a different road than before. They drove and argued over where they were for hours, making several U-turns, pit stops, and trying several different roads, none of which were the right one.

Finally his dad pulled over, infuriated. Cuddles hopped out of the van, since they had pulled over at a rest stop. His mom just stayed in the car, while his dad stormed into the bathroom to cool off. Cuddles was left free to wander around, unsupervised as usual. He shrugged it off and decided to have a look around, since he had more than enough time on his hands, and the car ride was as boring as anything he could think of.

He started wandering aimlessly, climbing trees to look around and wallowing through the high grasses of the area. Eventually, he spotted something that caught his eye from a tree branch. He jumped down and ran over to the sparkle, curiously. He moved away the grass and dirt, finding a strange, long-haired golden statue. He picked it up, grinning with excitement. He couldn't believe his luck!

He looked over his treasure gleefully, finding it to have a horrific expression. It didn't matter to him though, since it just made it cooler looking. He spun around to show his parents, but a sudden noise stopped him dead in his tracks. The hair on the rabbit's head and spine stood strait up as he heard some kind of rattling noise. He spun around to see what the problem was and came face-to-face with about a dozen snakes.

They all lunged at the terrified boy, biting him repeatedly and causing him to scream out in pain and surprise, flinging his newfound treasure away from him in the chaos. A few agonizing moments later Cuddles was just lying on the ground, filled to the brim with venom. He saw the hazy outline of his mother scrambling to him, before he slowly passed out and everything went black. In the darkness it felt like his veins were on fire, like he was burning from the inside out from the venom. He tried screaming out but nothing seemed to come out of his throat. It felt like hours until he woke up, sweating, in a hospital bed.

He breathed a sigh of relief, happy to be alive. He examined his body, finding no bite marks or injuries of any kind at all. A nurse walked in, seeing him wake up from the next room's window. "Oh good, you're awake. You can leave any time you'd like." She said, happily.

"S-so you guys got all the poison out? That's it?" He asked, suspiciously. The nurse hesitated, realizing something.

"Maybe I should get the doctor to explain this all to you…" She said, slinking out of the room. Soon a grey-haired old bear walked in, looking worried.

"This may be a shock to you, but you had died before coming here." He said, calmly. Cuddles just raised an eyebrow, mesmerized. The doctor sighed and resumed explaining.

Cuddles learned the shocking truth about the nature of the town. No one was living there when the first people stumbled across it. It was a complete town with no inhabitants, in a state of disrepair. Even the hospital was built before anyone knew about Happy Tree Town. When people started moving there, they realized they were trapped in the world surrounding the town, with seemingly no way to escape.

They had to live in the town, and started fixing it up. But the place was cursed, and all manners of bad luck existed all the time, often being fatal. But every time someone died they were painfully reincarnated in the hospital. Soon other towns were formed in distant places, and whatever building was used to care for the sick or wounded would be the place of reincarnation, and if none were available nearby they'd merely reappear at Happy Tree Town.

But, to their amazement, the place had a seemingly active government, always hidden from the view of the public. When people did their jobs, even their random odd-jobs, a check would appear in the mail and keep them from becoming destitute. They'd even get mysterious trucks of supplies that restock the stores behind the scenes, and keep the community thriving. Of course, the citizens themselves could earn a living doing similar tasks, such as manning the trucks or running the stores, but the community continued to move and thrive regardless, somehow.

Cuddles indeed was shocked, and stumbled out of the hospital after they told him where his parents settled down, dumbfounded. He couldn't believe it, but whatever was going on obviously wasn't a trick. He had felt the reincarnation process already. He kept wandering, dazed, not knowing where exactly to go. He stumbled into the street, not seeing the car coming. It swerved just as he looked up, and it crashed into a nearby tree.

"Oh my God!" Cuddles yelled, running up to the totaled vehicle. "Are you okay!?" He asked, reaching the driver's side door. The person inside tumbled out of the car, eyes spinning but otherwise unharmed. The blue moose stood up and shook his head, his eyes bobbling around idly.

"Whoah!" He yelled, shaking it off. "I almost hit ya there, buddy!" He exclaimed.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" He said, still flustered. The moose waved his hand, nonchalantly.

"Hey, you know what they say. No harm, no… erm… Well, you know what I mean. No big deal, right?"

"But what about your car?" He asked, looking at the wreck.

"No big deal. I'll get it fixed. Nothing like that's very expensive 'round here anyway. Oh, almost forgot! The name's Lumpy!" He said, extending his hand.

"I'm Cuddles." He said, shaking his hand.

"That's a right funny name." Lumpy noted, jokingly.

"Hey, Lumpy's not any better!" Cuddles fired back. "Besides, I am rather cuddly, heheheh." He said, also joking. Lumpy nodded, happily.

"That's true, by lookin' at you. So that means we're officially good buddies!" The blue moose said. Cuddles laughed, happy to have a new friend.

"If you say so big guy. Hey, how long have you been living here..?" Cuddles asked, remembering his plight.

"Uh… let's see…" Lumpy said aloud, counting his fingers. "About…….. three months!"

"So… have you like… died..?" He asked.

"Oh, several times already." Lumpy stated. "You never get used to it. It's unpleasant to be… uh… un-deaded. Worse than dyin' in the first place if you ask me! Well, depending on what kind of death you're talkin' about, huhuhuh. So you should try to avoid being killed if you can."

"Th-thanks, Lumpy." Cuddles said, a little sad. "Well, I'd better go find my parents…"

"Hey! I could give ya a ride!" Lumpy offered. The moose turned towards his car, only to see the wreck. "… Wait a minute…" Lumpy said, thinking. Cuddles chuckled at the dimwit and walked off, looking at the streets and trying to find his parents' new house. He finally saw his dad's van in one of the driveways.

He bolted towards the door, opening it and seeing the shocked and relieved face of his mother as she snatched him up and almost killed him again with a bearhug. "Cuddles! Oh my God! They weren't lying! You did come back!" She said, sobbing. Cuddles, blue in the face, only patted his mom's back, comfortingly.

"I don't believe this…" His dad said, a little stunned. "There has to be a trick… there HAS to be some kind of explanation… This place can't be cursed, those things don't exist…"

"Dad…" Cuddles said, his mom letting him go. "This is real. Everyone here knows what they're talking about. I've felt it."

"Don't you start on me too!" He said, still happy his son was back but just too bewildered to act accordingly.

"Dad!" Cuddles yelled. "I'm telling you! This is real! You saw it, how we couldn't leave. There's no other way to explain this!"

"Both of you stop it!" His mom yelled. Everyone stopped immediately. "SOMETHING is going on here! That we can't help!" Cuddles' dad looked down at the check on the table, unmarked, unsigned, but still legal. It showed up in the mail with no return address. He sighed, defeated.

For the weeks following, Cuddles and Lumpy often met up after school, which, to Cuddles' delight, wasn't a daily thing. Lumpy was an adult, technically, but his simple mind was more than compatible with a child's. Cuddles did learn soon, however, that Lumpy's carelessness and sheer stupidity tended to have a negative effect on those around him. Including Cuddles. But since no damage was ever permanent in that world, it was hard to stay mad at the big lug.

Cuddles' parents didn't fare nearly as well in those weeks. Both of them died in a car crash and were reborn days later, his dad left with a sense of confusion and dismay, and his mom was left with acute paranoia. The final straw was hit when Lumpy accidentally killed Cuddles on the swingset.

As they drove home, picking their son up from the hospital, nothing was said. They got home and went to bed, since it was almost four in the morning at the time. The next day Cuddles got up and practically skipped to the door. "See you later mom! I'm off to school!" He was stopped as she grabbed one of his ears.

"Cuddles, we have to talk." She said, sternly yet timidly. "You're not going outside until we find out what's going on…"

"What!?" Cuddles yelled, his explorative nature getting the better of him. "That's not fair!" He protested.

"Cuddles! I'm your mother! I don't want to see you hurt again… So this is final!" She said.

"You're mother's right. You're not going anywhere." His dad joined in.

"Even if I DID get hurt it's not like it'd stay that way!" He said.

"Well if what these people say is true, you have all the time in the world. Hell, apparently we don't even age anymore!" His dad scoffed, angrily.

Cuddles continued to protest, "There's no way to avoid it though! If I cower here, I'll get hurt and killed eventually, and if I go out there the same thing's bound to happen! This is TOTALLY unfair!"

"Well as long as you're our son, and you live under THIS roof, you're staying here!" His dad said. His mother retreated to the other room, agitated. Cuddles crossed his arms, indignantly.

Cuddles thought for a moment, taking in an idea that he had been bouncing around in his head for a while, but then he had an actual occasion to implement it. "Fine, you're right. If I live here, I have to listen to you." He admitted. "But I read up on this: In Happy Tree Forest, there IS no legal age for you to move out. Anyone can live alone, any time." His dad's face softened, seeing where this was going. "So you know what? I'm moving out!" Cuddles exclaimed, grinning.

"You're doing no such thing!" His dad responded. "You can't live by yourself! You're 13!!"

"You can't legally keep me here!" Cuddles argued. "I checked up on this at school! So if you guys won't let me explore, or have fun, or even go outside, I'm outta here!"

"You know what? FINE!" His dad said, sitting down, flustered. Cuddles' eyes sparkled as he happily went up to his room, gathering all his important belongings, and bolted. His mom looked at his dad, horrified. "He'll be back before you know it…" His dad said.

Cuddles scampered about town, trying to get all his ducks in a row. School could wait, he figured. He was practically giddy with freedom, his fondest dreams come true. The ability to what he wanted, when he wanted. But first he needed a roof over his head. He thought back to what his dad and mom did when they were talking about the new house. "A loan!" He exclaimed. Within minutes he had found a bank, and waltzed right in.

Much to his surprise, Lumpy was behind the counter. "Hey buddy!" He exclaimed. "What brings you here?"

"You work at the bank?" Cuddles asked. "I thought you were a crosswalk guy."

"No, that was last week. I switch jobs a lot, huhuhuh. Everyone does! Gotta keep tryin' somethin' new! So what can I help ya with buddy?"

"Oh, right. Well, I need a loan so I can get a house." Cuddles said. Lumpy nodded seemingly not finding anything wrong with it.

"Okay… just gotta type this stuff in and…. Okay!" Lumpy said.

Two days later, Cuddles was staring at his new home, happy as could be. Sure he was living in a world of agony and pain, but at least he was a free man now. The house he managed to nab was a fairly large, hallowed out tree with the leaves still attached. He grinned happily, as he and Lumpy took boxes back and forth between the truck until everything was all moved in. Lumpy nodded, content, "Mhmm!"

"Thanks, Lumpy!" Cuddles proclaimed.

Months passed, and it eventually became apparent that Cuddles was never moving back in. But when his parents saw that he was actually holding his own, the grudgingly let him keep his independence, not having any legal means to get him back home. Cuddles, who couldn't be happier, occupied his new life with his friend Lumpy, working off his admittedly impressive loan, and the occasional visit to school.

In the months that followed, Cuddles made even more friends. The first was a bewildered beaver named Toothy, who moved there with his dad. Cuddles happily showed him the ropes of the new world, and Toothy surprisingly took to his new life fairly fast, despite the fact that Cuddles routinely accused him of being a "baby". Before long, the two were best friends.

The other person to wind up in Cuddles' list of friends was Giggles, a chipmunk who got lost with her mother and accidentally wound up trapped in Happy Tree Town. The two were almost instantly smitten with each other and became fast friends to boot. Though, they were both 13, and their romantic entanglements rarely ever expanded past puppy love. But still, they claimed the other one as their significant other, and their feelings would only get stronger and stronger as time wore on.

Cuddles happily took to his new lifestyle. The price of freedom would turn out to be fairly great, however, in the form of death and general misery. But, he could still satisfy his urge to explore and adventure, as well as the bit of mischief here and there. He also proclaimed himself the official "guide for newbies", and took it upon himself to show new people how things worked in Happy Tree Forest, whenever he got the chance. In all, he brought a much-needed breath of optimism to a land of hell.

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Notes: Sorry for the lack of activity for such a long time. But I finally got this chapter done . And I'm also sorry that the character stories aren't in chronological order, but it's not too confusing I hope.