Chapter Summary

A piece written for someone who wished to see some fanfiction about the fancomic Try Everything.


Chapter Notes

Warning: Written quickly, not beta'ed, and edits are not in depth. Will continue to edit and refine if I spot problems.


Judy Hopps had been stabbed deep, the wound had been duck taped and superglued shut and wrapped in bandages. What little ghetto medicine Nick and she knew, her dad had a scar like she would get, from when he came home from the Nam. Told her stories of how some Navy Corpsman superglued his stomach closed as he lay screaming in a Huey over Saigoat. Those stories were going to save her life, they had to...She was still leaking. That meant inside too probably...she breathed heavy as she leaned against the bars, in darkness. Her paws too weak to pull the curtain down, Nick had weighed it down with something...he was like her, he was good on his paws...thinking...

"NICK! NICKKKK!" She cried, even if each breath felt like lifting a ton off her chest, even if it burned to speak. She screamed for him. Voice raw, throat burning, the taste of copper with every syllable.

He was like her, sometimes it was easy to miss the obvious. Like two floppy ears on her head.

First it was screams, rages, slurred curse words and more understandable shouting, confused rams unsure of what was going on.

It had been five on two, with her guts trying to escape.

Her ears rang, from her bloodloss, her shock, but no...she had to hear...she had to know. She had to keep awake.

Nick's beautiful voice, his easy tone already such a good part of her life, was distorting. High pitched and cracking, dipping, going up and down as he lost his mind. It suffocated her...

It had been five on two...then five on one. Her ears and eyes started to fall. She grabbed a hold of the ancient barred crate, some little niggling part of her mind wondering what it was doing in the innards of a museum.

"What's-what's up with this guy?"

Five on one, Nick was screaming nonsense. Strung together words. She couldn't understand, there was no need to understand, it was madness and hate and killing froth.

"Myeyes!MYEYES!AHHHHHHHH!"

Four on one, someone screaming about their eyes. The sound of a body impacting against wood, in her mind she could make out the difference between shattering bones and wood...

"DOUGDOUGBROTHER!HELPMEHELPME!"

Three on one, someone screaming. The sound of crampons and hooves clicking against the cold concrete floor, wood splinters scattering. A running start, still two legged...

"dddouggggieeee...eee...eee..."

Three on one, someone is not screaming anymore, mewling and shock. The sounds of flesh ripping, horn snapping, keratin splinter, hooves slamming into a padded officer's vest, of feral madness.

"Gethimoffgethi-"

Two on one, the sound of blood dripping, of panic and screams. Of biting. Flesh rending. Bones breaking. Killing. Cowardice.

"RICKY! YOU FUCKING COWARD! COME BACK-AH FUCK!"

One on one. Bodies on the floor. Wrestling. There was only noise now. Only noise. No thoughts. Just survival of the fittest. Plastic crinkling, skittering wood and metal. Panic. She could hear it, still, under the ringing.

One on one. The frantic noises of our most primal selves, where there were no words, no civilization, only the cold fear of a uncaring brutal world. Panicked bleets and screaming howls.

None on one. Something trying to stand, huffing, puffing, a fox's maddened cries. The sound of it collapsing...Nick collapsing, struggling. She could hear it, how he couldn't walk, even on all fours, how his limbs uselessly scratched at the floor.

How he writhed in his death throes...

"Nick!" Judy felt a weight in her throat, her voice a rasp, the taste of copper stronger now. Sparks of light at the edges of her eyes, how could that be? She was in the dark. The ringing was getting louder.

The movements stopped...then they started again...angry huffs, killing intent...trying so hard to drag itself towards the noisy fleshy thing.

Judy Hopps felt like she was that little girl again, afraid under some bully's glare, helpless...but...but she wasn't helpless. She hadn't been then, and she would not be now.

She was not helpless.

The bars on this cage...they were made of wood.

Civilization meant nothing anymore.