Malfunction has a minion!

Cogs the Wrenchett

Pet Spotlight Comments


Name: Malfunction
Nickname: Malfie
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown

Malfie's gears grinded together softly as he sprung into the room beyond, before the door had closed. His little feet skittered against the hardwood floor and as he tried to get his movements to come to a halt, a loose spring popped forth from his arm. "Fiddle sticks..." He whispered to himself.
Little things had slowly been going wrong for him since the day he was created. Slowly he was deterierating.

Carefully he tucked the spring back into place and looked at his clockwork heart.. A tiny stop-watch that instead of counting the minutes of a day, counted how long he was able to function in day-to-day life.

He sighed.

14 days and 13 hours.
He had better hurry and find the man who created him.

Sighing again, He turned to eye a large, rusting bird cage inquisitively, his dull eyes almost tilting too far forward of his metallic skull. Antique shops, full of their wondrously aging remnants of time passed, reminded him of his quest to find his creator more-so than the telltale tick, tock of his artificial heart. There was beauty in age, the sort that his creaking, bolted existence hadn't come to know firsthand yet.

He tiptoed through the store, humming a quiet tune in time with the twanging of his springy legs, unsure of where he was going but so sure that this was where he was supposed to go. Small bursts of steam danced alongside him in wispy clusters, conveying his uneasiness in their shaky airborne patterns.

There were porcelain dolls and patchwork plush toys with beaded black eyes staring at him, eying his every move, smiling with tainted sweetness, and his ears were pulled down as far in discomfort as Malfie could manage without losing one.

The floor made him look like an illusion in his reflection, distorted and pitiful. There were a few stray cogs and small screws littering the floor behind him, and the hardwood looked back at him with mirrored eyes of disapproval. Sometimes he wondered what it was that had prompted his creator to give him such a disadvantageous structure. The humans spoke of everything having a reason, though; no time for thinking when an answer is simply found, so he often pushed these thoughts to the back of his head.

Idly he raised his head and looked towards the back of the store, past rows of collectible coins and piles of old leather-bound books to a small cash register atop an abandoned desk. There must be a worker, perhaps somebody who had seen his creator, lingering around the cramped building.

Moving slowly, Malfie reached the desk and found there a small metal bell for calling the attendant. After surveying his sorroundings once more, he figured the only way to bring attention to himself was to ring it. He reached forward--
*CLANG*

Startled, Malfunction turned towards the sound. A young girl, dressed in a pink flannel nightgown stood just behind him, and a large chamber pot had fallen onto it's side off a large table. Her eyes were as round as saucers, staring at him as if she had just found out a huge secret. As quickly as she had appeared she as gone, with a sweep of her gown around the corner and into a hall that Malfunction had failed to notice before.

Malfunction's neck clinked in wonder as his head tilted in question. What had just happened?
Hurried whispers urupted from down the hallway, their hushed tones resounding off the walls.
"I swear it is here, Daddy."

The girl reappeared, hand clutching that of a grown man, who looked tired and in a state of misbelief.

Malfunction blinked, taken aback and slightly shocked by the sudden appearance of not one, but two people, and quickly ducked behind the cash register, his metallic knees grating against the wooden desktop.

'Sweetie, I told you, it isn't coming back. Are you sure you weren't just mistaking one of your dolls again?' The man rubbed his temples in rhythmic circular motions with his forefingers, squeezing his eyes shut and willing his fatigue to simply fade away. This wasn't the first time his daughter had interrupted what little time for sleep he had with claims of a robotic rabbit running amok.

Malfunction's eyes were glued open and his fine-tuned ears picking up every sound they made, from their words to the slight shuffling of feet against the floor and the sound of the man's hand falling through the air as his daughter let go and took a small step forward. He clutched at his chest and listened for the clock to remind him that this was real.

'No, it was here, daddy! Look, behind the desk!' She was indignant and pointed an accusing finger in Malfunction's direction, scrunching her nose up at her father. Had she not been trying to maintain an image of maturity, Malfunction was sure that she would be jumping up and down in a huff.

The man walked over to his daughter, sighing reluctantly. 'I swear Sylvia..'
His eyes fell on Malfunction and he jumped back with a start.

The little cog filled bunny shivered in fear under his gaze, and shrank as far as he could back into the space under the desk. He was unsure of what was going on but these humans appeared to recognize him. No recognition of his own came to mind as to whom they could be though. Could this man be the one who thoughtlessly threw him together in such a misshapen way? and the girl, what part did she play? and what, if anything, would become of him now? He was starting to regret starting his long search in the first place. His tiny heart ticked maliciously, as if in warning.

The man's mouth tilted into an odd expression. 'Malfunction......? ....a replica?' Malfunction looked up at him at the mention of his name. So this was his creator, but he was supposed to be disposed of? Malfie's paws went to the heart in his chest, unsure of what to do now.

Reaching forward the man put his hand over Malfie's paw and heart. 'My friend, Your heart is not the one which I had created for you. This heart will bring certain death to this town. You must go far away from here. To the mountains, to the forests, anywhere there is no life. Malfunction, your heart is a bomb.'

With the devastating word 'bomb' resonating in his ears, Malfie sprung from behind the desk and leaped for the door, a stream of smoke trailing after him and his heart ticking dangerously.


He skidded along the cracked grey pavement winding into the antique store, clanging and dropping small broken gears along the walkway, legs moving as fast and frantically as possible in his shocked stupor. The world around him seemed to be nothing more than a fever-induced blur, a smudge of oil on canvas. A nightmare.

The words bounded through his head 'Your heart is not the one which I had created for you, your heart is a bomb!' They scampered to every corner of his mind and fell in pitch to a devilish mocking mess of gibberish. Was this, too, a part of his deterioration? But he didn't want to know that; he didn't want to know that he was flawed.

He sat on top of a storm drain, staring down into the black abyss barely hidden by the side of the pavement. Water had once gushed here, he remembered; stormy nights when his gears were particularly rusty and the children all scrambled for shelter. The streets were desolate save for a few small sewer rats scampering between dirtied trash cans. To him, their existence seemed more peaceful than the one the malevolent ticking of his heart-clock reminded him of.

'Hey! That was rude, you know, running off like that!'

Malfunction blinked and looked up, his neck creaking, eyes darting over to the figure of a young girl standing across the dull black road. The same girl from the antique store, no doubt. Her hair glistened in the sun, but her eyes stood out most jokingly. She tapped her foot absently, trying to hide a small smile.

'I really wanted to talk to you...'





Storyline: Tears
Art: PiranhaPettingZoo