Chapter 1
Molaline moved under the Pink Palace apartments with her moler after a bird had attacked their burrow. Her moler had broken her neck and her father had fallen into a coma. When Molaline began unpacking, strange things started happening.
As she unboxed her favorite stuffed Microchaetus Rappi (African Giant Earthworm), she felt something sticky brush against her fingertips. She looked down to see a mixture of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and iron staining her fingertips red. (Since blood is a chemical mixture rather than a chemical compound, it has no formula.)
Molaline quickly wiped her paw on her yellow raincoat and assumed she had accidentally cut herself on something. She returned to unpacking before realizing her moler had been calling for her.
She went downstairs to the kitchen to see her father sitting on a chair. He was slumped over, his eyes ripped off and his mouth hanging open. Flies swarmed him, feasting on his dirty hair and body. He looked as though he were prematurely decomposing.
“Molaline!” She heard her mother call again, chills creeping down her big back. She turned, terrified to see her moler… or the creature pretending to be her.
Sure enough, her moler stood there, her buttons ripped off and the strings hanging from the sockets like optical nerves. Molaline screeched and tried to scramble away from her mother. What had happened to her?
Molaline was even more terrified when she saw her moler, but with no eyes. Molaline had had everything she ever wanted: loving and attentive parents, good meals, good friends, a pet to love and cherish… She was spoiled.
So what is this evil force trying to rip her eyes out?
Her once loving moler’s paws reached out like claws, desperate to find comfort from her daughter as the imposter lurked around the house, waiting to capture Molaline and take her buttons, too.
“Molaline! Help me!” One of them screeched, but she couldn’t be sure which one. Molaline did the only thing she could think of: She gnawed away at her moler’s bony paw until it fell off with a thud.
The chemical mixture humans call blood spurted from the open wound, and Molaline ran so she could keep her buttons. The imposter screamed as she realized Molaline would not be a victim, and Molaline ran far away from the house.
A few hours later, she felt rain on her fur. She opened her eyes and looked around, feeling her face was muddier than usual. She glanced back towards the Pink Palace, seeing a family moving in. There was a girl who looked much like her; a human girl, with two parents looking just like hers. None of them had button eyes… yet.
