Disclaimer: With the exception of Neil Coyle and some other miscellaneous human characters, I do not own any of the characters from Watership Down and the film adaptation, which are the creations of Richard Adams and Martin Rosen. Any similarity to anyone is purely coincidental. Rated PG for some violence in later chapters.
The morning sun shone brightly over the village of Kingsclere, England. It was a fine April morning in 1968. A young man in his late twenties, wearing a police officer's uniform, was riding his bicycle down the main street towards the police station. As he crossed the local pub, a bartender scrubbing the tables of his establishment for the crowd he was expecting that evening, called out to him through the window as he rode by.
"Morning, Neil!" The young, ginger-haired constable waved back, "Morning Hank!"
Officer Neil Coyle was a police deputy in Kingsclere. A native of the historic, picturesque village in the heart of the rapidly shrinking English countryside, Neil was a country boy at heart. In contrast to most of his childhood friends, who had left home to study or marry, he was too attached to his hometown to give it up for a city life. His father had been a local schoolteacher, who had been killed in a hunting accident when Neil had still been a child; his mother, a born deaf-mute, yet very intelligent cattle ranger, had raised her only son alone. Unmarried, his only friends consisted mostly of locals, like bartender Hank Sullivan.
After finishing school, he had joined the local police force. Originally starting out with a desk job, he had quickly risen in position, only recently having been promoted to the rank of deputy. Despite his rather difficult childhood and monotonous lifestyle as a deputy in a village that never saw real crime, Neil couldn't think of a better life for him. His life was just the way he liked it; simple and routine, with occasional brief action, but otherwise peaceful. Little did he realise that it was soon all going to change in the blink of an eye...
He continued on his way, enjoying the pleasant breeze of the Hampshire countryside blowing in his face. Just as he turned the corner of a street, heading towards the station, he spotted a familiar shabby-looking pick-up truck bearing the name of Sanders Fireplace Fuelling Co heading in his direction. It was moving very fast, at least eighty miles an hour, making violent swings as it went.
"Well, well, Bob, been in your bottles again, I see. This time you've done it." He got off his bike, stood in the middle of the road and whistled at the driver to pull over.
Bob Sanders was the town drunk, who run a dingy logging and fuelling business in town. A petty crook and champion road speeder to boot, he had been given tickets twice already by Neil and his colleagues for reckless driving while intoxicated, and fined, to no avail. But this time, enough was enough.
"Strike three Bob," Neil was saying, "It's good-bye to your licence or it will be good-bye to someone's life next... Hey Bob, I said stop!" he shouted, but to his horror the truck only continued to speed straight towards him. Before Neil could even register the fact that the drunken man behind the wheel meant business, the truck was upon him.
With a violent blow, the truck's bumper slammed into Neil, sending him flying. With a sickening bump, his head impacted hard with a nearby signpost, splitting open his skull. As he landed spread-eagled on the ground, the world around him spun before melting away into darkness. The last thing he saw before his universe faded into nothingness, was his own running blood clouding his eyes and Bob's van speeding away down the road, its drunken driver laughing maniacally at having finally gotten even with this nuisance that constantly ruined his fun driving.
Within seconds, passerbies began gathering on the scene, while neighbours looking from their windows cried bloody murder. People gasped at the sight of the bloodied and broken body of the now-unresponsive police deputy Neil Coyle...
After what seemed like forever, Neil opened his eyes, the scent of grass filling his nostrils. He was no longer in Kingsclere; he was lying flat on his stomach, in the middle of a grassy plain surrounded by dense forest.
"Oh…what…where am I? How did I get here...?"
Slowly, it all came back to him: Bob Sanders driving his truck at breakneck speed and deliberately ramming him when he ordered him to pull over. Anger started boiling up inside him, "When I get a hold of that no-good hooligan, I'll have his guts for garters. Oh Bob, I hope your bags are packed; it's prison time for you when I catch you!"
Shakily, he tried getting to his feet. He had to find his way back to the village fast, to alert the station that they had a hit-and-run felon on the loose... But as he stood, he suddenly became aware that something wasn't right. All of the surrounding vegetation seemed mysteriously large, making him feel tiny in comparison. Also, his senses seemed to have somehow changed; his hearing felt much more acute than usual, his sense of smell could pick up scents at a much more sensitive level than he had ever experienced before and even his eyesight had turned colour-blind, with a much wider angle of view. What was wrong with him? Had he suffered brain damage, which was distorting his senses?
As he looked down at his 'hands', he realised, to his horror, there weren't hands any longer, but paws! He blinked, thinking he was hallucinating, but nothing changed. His hands had been inexplicably transformed into a pair of muscular, golden-brown, furry paws. Carefully feeling the rest of his body quickly confirmed his suspicions that he had completely changed. He was furry all over and he could feel a pair of long ears sticking out the top of his head, as well as a fluffy tail out his backside. It was almost as if he was now…a rabbit! Neil wondered if he was going mad.
"No, it can't be! No, this is just a wild dream, a hallucination caused by a concussion," he thought, "Yes, that's what's happening to me. Old Bob really knows how to send people on a trip to Wonderland by running them over with his van... When I wake up, I'll just be my old self again, lying on a hospital bed…or at the bottom of a grave maybe." As if to defy his 'dream', the rabbit Neil curled up in the grass and drifted off to sleep, hoping that when he next woke, this nightmare would be over. Meanwhile, an ambulance back in Kingsclere was loading his now comatose human body onto a stretcher...
Several hours later, Neil woke again only to discover, much to his disappointment, that he was still in rabbit form. As he walked over to the edge of a brook to drink some water, he saw his reflection for the first time: he was now a large and majestic-looking rabbit, a Flemish giant breed judging by his size and characteristics. Not too bad an option for fate to change him into one of the largest and best species of rabbit on Earth...however that was done. All traces of his clothes had vanished, and replaced with a coat of light, ginger fur, not unlike to his own human hair colour. The only other characteristic remaining were his almond-coloured eyes, very unusual for any rabbit.
As the bitter truth slowly began to sink in, utter puzzlement gripped poor Neil. "How did this happen? Is this a...a reincarnation?" The idea of reincarnation, although crazy, seemed the only logical explanation he could think off, "And how am I retaining my memories from my previous life?"
Testing his new body, he realised he could now move in ways impossible in his human form. To test his limits, he broke into a run and had to refrain himself from gasping, as he saw the world move past him in a blur, outrunning even the best human athlete on record. Although his inexplicable transformation was still overwhelming, not to mention impossible to explain, it was still…wonderful. There was just no other way to explain it.
As he continued trying out his new physique, he realised this peculiar combination of a human brain operating in a rabbit's body had certain other advantages. Suddenly, a wild realisation hit him. "If I am reincarnated in a rabbit's body, does this mean I can communicate with other rabbits? A rabbit with a human brain living amongst normal rabbits? By Jove, I could be running my own kingdom within a month!" he half-joked to himself, suddenly picturing himself as a rabbit-god amongst mere mortals. But this was no time for fun and games.
He didn't know what had happened to him; but whatever it was, he had to get moving and soon. He wasn't transforming back into human form anytime soon, that much he realised. And he couldn't just stay here and hope for a miracle. If he was going to find some help, as unlikely as it seemed, it was out there.
And so the rabbit Neil set off in a random direction in search of a warren and a chance to make a start with his new life. He knew not what lay ahead of him, or whether he would ever return to human form. Perhaps he was dead and this reincarnation, or whatever the hell it was, was permanent; in that case, he'd be doomed to remain like this forever, alone, and with only his memories for comfort...
Author's note: Hallo, this is my very first fanfic! Just to clarify, this story was inspired by Watership Down by Richard Adams and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain. But instead of having a time traveller living in the Middle Ages, we have a human reincarnated into a rabbit, while maintaining his memories and knowledge from his human life. All reviews are appreciated and the more I receive the quicker I will update. Enjoy and please review!