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The cold wind of the early morning hit Gramble hard as he opened the barn’s entrance. The doors slammed back into the bugsnax’s pens, spooking them into a frightened frenzy of noise. He grimaced, the sound of the slam causing him to instinctively fling his paw to the side of head as a pulsing ache stabbed into his skull—the loud chattering of the startled creatures did nothing to ease it. Grump, had he been sleepwalking again? That was the only thing that caused him to get headaches this agonizing.
“Little ones, please,” he groaned, trying to get them to quiet down—with little success. “It’s alright, it was just the wind knockin’ the doors back.” Much to his disappointment, the snax continued to yell out, not paying any mind to the grumpus in front of them. Typically, he would have put in a bit more effort to get across to them than that—with this headache, he couldn’t be bothered to do more.
With an exasperated huff, he stepped out of the doorway and into the day, trying as best he could to ignore the throbbing pain that drowned his head. Eggabell had made a comment once when he had come to her for help with yet another headache, teasing him about using up all the painkillers she had brought for the trip at the rate he asked for them. He had been embarrassed, of course, deciding to try and tough out the headaches as best he could to avoid inconveniencing the other expedition members. Speaking of headaches, there was a dark blue one hoeing at the dirt across the path.
“Mornin’, Troubleham,” Gramble muttered, the annoyance in his tone not lost on the farmer—though, the majority of his irritated state was the doing of his migraine, not Wambus. Wambus was simply an unwanted amplifier to an already sour mood.
“Troubleham?” Wambus scoffed, pausing his work for a moment to turn and look at Gramble, the expression on his face turning to one of mild amusement. He set the hoe against the fence, leaning against it in the same manner, eyes glancing down before moving back to Gramble’s face. “What, you taking lessons in being rude from Floofty? I think that only works if you got the brains to go along with the oversized ego, Gigglefunny.”
Gramble gave him a side-eyed glare before beginning to walk away, no real end location in mind. He just wanted to get away from Wambus—the two seemed to be unable to hold a civil conversation for more than thirty seconds by themselves, though Gramble would never admit that sometimes he was the one to turn them into yelling matches.
“I ain’t hanging around Floofty, that’s for sure,” he muttered as he was almost out of earshot—almost.
“Then who’s been feedin’ you?”
Gramble stopped in his tracks, silence filling the air as he contemplated what the farmer had asked. He turned around slowly, looking at Wambus with a blend of confusion and further heightened irritation.
“Who’s been feedin’ me?—What do you mean who’s been feedin’ me?”
He stomped towards Wambus, getting up against the fence to stare him down the best he could from so much lower. “I feed me. I don’t need to be as smart as a darn gastroenter-whatever they are to get myself food! Last I checked, I was the only one who brought any actual food at the beginning of this expedition anyway! It ain’t my fault that you weren’t prepared—or that you can’t farm the Bugsnax! All you got going for you is what Lizbert brings back, what you try to snatch from my ranch, and sauce that grows all over the island anyway! I’m not some incapable child, I’m—“
“Your leg, you grumping idiot!” Wambus cut him off, rolling his eyes at the rancher’s sudden outburst. “I’m talkin’ about your leg. Do you just not look down when you get dressed or somethin’?”
Gramble paused, looking down at himself with utter bewilderment before feeling a chill wash over him. Oh—oh no. Below his knee, what used to be dark pink fur was now the bumpy red of a Razzby—his sleepwalking had evolved into sleep eating. Gramble stood there in shock, just staring off with a horrified look filling his eyes and a nervous noise of confusion. He was silent long enough for Wambus to give up on the conversation and turn around, getting back to his garden work and glancing back a few times with a spot of concern—both for the way Gramble snapped at him and the distraught on his face.
Gramble’s mind was racing, a billion questions going through his aching head as he processed what had happened. Had he done this?—Or did someone else want to mess with him, deciding the best idea for a prank was to feed him what he refused to feed himself? His paw clenched in the fabric of his sweater, rubbing the knit in between his fingers as a futile attempt to calm himself down. His face felt as if it were on fire, almost like the onslaught of his own mind was causing him to overheat.
He took a few steps back from the garden fence, leaning against the cooled wall of the barn and trying to stop his hyperventilating. He could hear the bugsnax inside, still rambling away. He almost felt like they were taunting him, angry at what he had done. Would they be angry? He hated the idea of them being upset with him—he didn’t want to lose another family for something he could never control.
After a few minutes that lasted hours too long, Gramble finally calmed. He slid down the wall, running his paws through the grass to ground himself more. He could bet money that his habit of obsessively questioning himself on things he knew he didn’t have answers to would be the death of him someday. Though, hidden inside that flurry of questioning, was a thought—a thought that filled him with a nauseating sense of guilt for thinking it at all, even though it was nothing but the truth.
This was the first time he hadn’t felt hungry since arriving on the island.