Thanks to the excellent Metroidvania game Animal Well, we’ve got hedgehogs on the mind! And so we decided to write a stupid short story about one.

Make no mistake. This is a tale of revenge. It’ll teach you to respect the hedgehogs of your community. Don’t screw them over, okay?

Tales of Destructive Revenge in… The Vengeful Hedgehog

Synopsis: A lone hedgehog vows revenge on a homeowner who DIDN’T leave out a saucer of milk one night for him. The carnage that ensues is totally appalling and will make you look at hedgehogs in a different light. 

Cast of characters:

• An unknown hedgehog 🦔
• Jeff (47) and his family
• Revenge
• Some coppers

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When There Were Milk Saucers

The hedgehog had a nice life. Nuzzling in and around the local neighbourhood, he was used to one house providing a lovely saucer of milk each night for him to lap up. This went on for many months and the hedgehog grew to rely on the milk saucer from this one specific home he liked visiting with the friendly owner and it was all perfect. Too good to be true? Well, as the old hedgehog proverb goes:

“Where there’s a saucer of milk, there’s a saucer of milk.” Aristotlehog the philosopher

Wise prickly nuzzles from the ancient hedgehog philosopher of yore, whom knew a thing or two about saucers with milk in them. Thus it was, the hedgehog went night after night after night after night after night and the saucer was there and the hedgehog was happy about all the free milk.

But then… the MILK SAUCERS STOPPED!!

In the dead of night there was the hedgehog, nose twerking around in anger, dismay, and terror, not safe in the knowledge there was no milk that night.

“Never mind…” thought the hog, “For tomorrow the milk saucer will be here. Perhaps the human is passed out drunk and incapable of providing this fine night. That’s understandable. A blip. An anomaly. All will be fine tomorrow!”

But then the milk saucer wasn’t there the following night.

Nor the next.

Nor the night after that, either, and with each passing night the hedgehog’s despondency verged on psychotic wellings of rage, “No one treats hedgehogs like this…” he grunted and snuffled in hedgehog speak, “NO ONEEEEE!!!” And that final, shrieking snuffle into the dead of night sent a shiver down the collective spines of every human in the community.

Inside that erstwhile milk saucer provider’s house, the shriek made the family of four stop their Tuesday film night. The father, Jeff (47), balding and a bit podgy, put on pause the animated film about a donkey and stared at his wife, “Holy shit… what was that!?” But seeing the terror in the eyes of his family he decided to play down his rampaging sense of horror and panic. He shrugged, “Huh. Never mind… I’m sure it’s nothing!” Then he hit play on the remote and the donkey film continued.

When There Were No Milk Saucers

The hedgehog wasted no time and shuffled into its local hedgehog-based firearms store and loaded up on a bolt action hedgehog gun, capable of firing 300 hedgehog spikes a minute. When struck by one of these spikes at speed, it’s enough to make the likes of a grown human male go, “Jesus! That hurt a bit!”

The hog then went a step further, hiring a tank from the local hedgehog tank emporium and hiring two members of HOG (Hedgehogs Of Gore) vigilante elite squad hogs capable of running faster than any hog in the land, rolling into a ball and causing carnage while bouncing around, and all while instilling fear left, right, and centre.

Later that day, the hedgehog did stop for a moment to think, “Well, that house did provide me with a lot of free milk. Should I really be this enraged?” Then his spikes bristled and he remembered how he DESERVED the free milk. This wasn’t entitlement, this was destiny! To get free milk from humans, consume it, and look cute and innocuous while doing so.

Denied this right, the hedgehog turfed to one side the counter-argument and braced instead for the mayhem ahead that night. The plan:

• Demolish the non-milk saucer home and obliterate the concrete foundations off the face of the Earth!
• Bask in delight as the humans run around screaming!!
• Cackle like a mad hog!!!
• Create widespread terror of hedgehogs, thus ensuring milk saucers are ALWAYS out each and every night!!!!
• Grunt and snuffle a whole bunch (as normal)!!!!!

That night, Jeff (47), sat with his family on another film night. It was just as the aliens started invading that he heard a pattering noise on the living room window. Bemused, he stood up and threw open the curtains.

In an instant, he fouled himself in extreme fear. What he saw on his front lawn was so frightful, so utterly horrifying, he lost control of his bowels and let it all rip as his family, shocked, screamed in unison. Jeff began bellowing in horror as the pattering on the windows continued, for he was looking at the HOGs firing a small hedgehog tank cannon at the window as the fully armed hedgehogs scaled the walls of the window and began bashing the window in with a stick.

The hedgehog’s spikes bristled in anticipation of the annihilation ahead, grunting and snuffling as he furiously eyeballs Jeff and angrily waved its little paw at him in fury. Jeff was at a loss to what was going on, but called 999 for police assistance as he and his family went to hide in the loft.

Police officers duly arrived within 20 minutes and the hedgehogs were arrested. As they move so slowly, it wasn’t very difficult to round them all up. Despite trying to fight back, all the officers received were a few pricked fingers. Otherwise, it was a very successful intervention! Happily, there was a glorious resolution for all as the hedgehog got a saucer of milk at the station while being interrogated.

This satisfied the hedgehog immensely. That is before being jailed for 135 years for attempted murder.