Challenge #02127-E298: Cruel and Unusual
"I swear, if you press that button one more time, I will end you!" -- Anon Guest
In all the universe, no instrument of chaos has ever been more diabolical than the demo button. There's certainly a Hell where the damned is a stocker for aisled upon aisles of toys with demo buttons and hyperactive children who press them all as they go by.
Swarm Leader Yrtuq is certain of this as a small child presses a button on a brightly coloured toy. It is the only button the child wants to press, and the child is endlessly amused. Yrtuq is not amused. He is enraged. He is also on the wrong side of an impenetrable barrier. The small child is on the other side. Comfortable, relaxed, and laughing as they press the button with the relentlessness of a true torturer.
The toy, for the record, allegedly sings variations of Old McDonald, but it never gets as far as the reveal of what Old McDonald had on his farm, because the child presses the button before that can happen.
"Old McDonald had a-- Old McDon-- Old-- Old-- Old McDonald had a farm, ee-eye-ee-eye-- Old--"
Raging and frothing at the child had no impact. Well. It had one impact, and that was to make the child press the button again and laugh uproariously at Yrtuq. It took him half an hour, but he eventually ran out of the energy to rage.
"Old McDonald had a farm, ee-eye-ee-eye-oh, and on that farm he had-- Old McDonald had a-- Old Mc-- Old-- Old--"
Eventually, food came. Caloric and nutritionally balanced to maintain Yrtuq's life. There was nothing there to preserve Yrtuq's sanity.
"Ol-- Ol-- O-- O-- O-- Old McDonald-- Old-- Old McDonald had a--"
In three hours, the child finally got blinky and laid down. At this point, a grown Human came to exchange the blinky small child for another. Another small Human child with the same power of relentlessly spamming the demo button.
"Old McDonald-- Old McDonald-- Old McDonald--"
In a further five hours, and the exchange of two more small children, Yrtuq cracked. "I'll tell you anything," he bellowed at the attending adult. "Just make it stop!"
The attending adult swapped the noisemaking toy for a noiseless stuffed object in the shape of an animal. They leaned out the door and said, "Eight hours, twenty minutes, and change!"
There was a distant cheer.
Yrtuq didn't care, because the small human child was ushered out of the room with the thick, soft mat, and more utilitarian furniture was hustled in. Yrtuq watched as a recording device was installed with a desk and some means to take notes.
The adult human sat. "Let's talk about your military installations and where your borders are," they began.
Yrtuq was extremely grateful for that much relief.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / olesiabilkei]
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