I'm not dead, not yet, if I was dead I wouldn't be hungry, thirsty or in pain, but I feel all three.
I have ears, I'm pretty sure I do, when I rub my head against the ground I can feel the grass brush against them, in terms of actually working, I might as well not have any.
What was the last thing I heard? Someone screaming 'Run for your lives!' and then barking, and then panicked shouts, and then I was snatched off my feet, and then I was tossed into the air, and then nothing, instantaneous, shouting and then nothing. It couldn't have just stopped all of a sudden, so it's not the world that has gone quiet.
Fog and dancing lights, that's what I see, I tried to open my eyes but I couldn't, that meant my eyes were already open and somehow the world had turned to this strange bright, foggy landscape. I tried to shut my eyes to allow myself a break from these strange visions and just have simple darkness, but I can't close them either, I can't use my eyelids. It's a strange thing, my eyes aren't feeling dry after having them open for so long, so that means that they are closed, but if they're closed, I should see darkness. If they're neither open nor closed, and I can't feel or use my eyelids...
Then I don't have my eyes.
Oh, Frith. Oh, Frith. OhFrithOhFrithOhFrith. No eyes, can't hear, I'll never see the daylight again, I'll never hear another rabbit's voice, eternal silence and nothingness, I can't live like this, how will I find my way around? How will I ever know what's going on around me? How will I communicate? I'll just shout out into the void but I'll never get a verbal answer back.
Where is my mouth? I've tried to move my mouth, I don't feel my lips touching or my teeth clacking together, use the tongue, feel around. My tongue, it's a stump, a little grain of soil I'm twirling around, just empty air, it can't reach anything. There is nothing for it to reach even if it was full length, if my tongue is gone, my mouth is gone too, how else could it have been cut off without first getting through my mouth to reach it?
My mouth is gone, my nose has to be gone as well, it's between my eyes and my mouth, I couldn't have lost my eyes and mouth without losing it too.
I can't hear, I can't see, I can't smell, I can't talk, I can't eat.
I can't get up.
My left cheek is on the ground, I had to turn my head to feel the grass against the back of my ears, I tried to flip myself onto my belly and push myself up. I can't move my paws, I can't feel them, it's like everything past my neck is just air, but I'm still connected to something. The only movement I can do is to shake my head from side to side. Every time I do, there is this little thread of what might be skin flapping against the side of my right cheek, flap-flap-flap, it's like I have a lop ear the size of a claw growing on the side of my face.
A breeze of air. There's a breeze of air, I can feel it, it's the first thing I've felt other than blades of grass tickling the back of my head. Yes, I was right, I hit it perfectly, that dog has ripped off my face, the air is flowing and I can feel it sculpting out the parts of my body that are still there. A hole, a little depression in the ground that rain puddles form in.
I don't have a face, oh, Lord Frith, oh I knew it, I knew it.
I can't possibly live like this, I have nothing that a rabbit should have to survive, I have no sense except touch but even then it's only for my head. I'm reduced to just a carved head lying on the ground.
The war might still be going on but I don't know, maybe we won, and the Efrafans and standing over and staring at me but I can't tell. Or most likely, the dog is still having an absolute heyday chasing down rabbits, there could be tons of rabbits just like me, littered around the Down, wouldn't that be a grim sight for those who can still see? Maybe I'm luckier than them. Who am I kidding?
Show me the carnage, show me the grass stained red, show me the rabbit being dragged out of the burrow by his feet, just the length of a dog's maw and he's home free but he just fell short. I just want to see again.
Let me listen to rabbits screaming as the dog's jaws crush them, let me listen to the outsiders scream as they are being invaded, let me listen to the sound of Efrafan prisoners being torn apart, I just want to hear again.
Claw at me until I scream, I just want to speak again. Force me to spend the rest of my days doing does work and digging out the warren, I just want to move again. Feed me tree bark that a dog pissed on, I just want to eat again.
I'm not dead, I don't know how I'm still alive after everything that has been done to me, but since I've got no teeth to chew and nobody can bring water to me, I'll be dead soon. Good, if I can't have my sense back then let me die. I've heard that when the Black Rabbit comes to collect you, you lose the ability to feel pain and you feel as energetic as you were in your best years. But would I be able to hear, see, talk, smell and use my body again? Would my soul be full of energy but equally as helpless as I am now? Would I feel full of life but have no outlet for it?
Oh Frith, please no, please don't, please don't, I don't want to stay like this, I can't be like this forever. If it is going to be this way, please just take away my ability to think too, just let me be mindless, let me forget what it's like to be a normal rabbit so I won't remember what I've lost.
General Woundwort, Woundwort, you, I'm here because of you, I'm in this state because of you, one small defeat and you had to choose me to go tear up a warren I don't give two bits of hraka for because you couldn't handle your power trip being interrupted.
What was the point of coming here? You wanted your does back and you wanted to take the outsiders to Efrafa so you can punish them, that's your problem, why did I have to come along? Winning this war would mean that more rabbits would suffer from your rule, we fought this war just to cause more pain, we fought this war for nothing.
I should have refused to go, you would have scratched me up, ordered to have my ears shredded, demoted me to one of your many bottom of the ladder rabbits. Oh, how I would love right now to be sniveling in a burrow with ears like frayed rope. I've changed my mind, let me go back and I'll tell everyone the Council was merciful and sing praises of their endless generosity.
I'm not angry at the dog for tearing off my face, I'm not angry at the outsider rabbits for stealing your does, it's you, I blame you, only you and no one else, you homba-hraka-choking tyrant.
I've lived my whole life seeking the approval of you, I'm the furthest thing possible from a living resemblance of a rabbit because of you, I'm going to die because of you. I dedicated my life to nothing, I'm now good for nothing and I'm going to die for nothing, nothing except to stroke your ego.
I hope the dog gets you too, I hope it's nicer to you than to me, I hope it lets you keep your mouth so you can still eat and drink, I hope the rest of your life is spent trapped in your own head, I hope you'll only see my face and know what you've caused instead of fog and dancing colours, I hope you'll beg to die but they'll hate you as much as I do for you now and feed you, I hope you'll spend every moment wishing your marli and her brother never made you.
Hold on, there's someone, another rabbit, I can feel their presence, like the air is shifting around, someone is here. I'll shake my head, they need to know I'm alive, I'm as alive as you are but I'm also as good as dead, the only difference between me and the dead is that I can move my head and I'm in an incredible amount of pain, so take me all the way to the other side and finish this.
They are right beside me, I can feel them peering down on my writhing head. They just put their paw between my ears, they're trying to keep my head still, that paw, it's too small to be Woundwort's. You, Efrafan or outsider, if you're an Efrafan, do a favour for your fellow Owsla officer and kill me, would you? If you're an outsider, I'm sorry for attacking your warren, but do find it in your no doubt pure heart to grant this poor rabbit right here some mercy, would you?
You just took your paw off my head, and you're... wait, no, come back, where are you going? You forgot to kill me, steadying my head to make me look like I'm truly dead won't actually finish the job, silly, I'm still alive, kill me, kill me Frith damn you. Get back here and kill me you pile of hraka. I'll start to shake my head again, see? I still live, you can't ignore me, I'm a dead rabbit but I can still move, I should be the centre of all interest now.
You've left, you didn't want to acknowledge that a rabbit that looks as horrifying as I do right now could still be alive, you wanted to convince yourself that I'm dead, so you made me look dead, even more than I already am. You don't want to see the grim reality of just how much one can go through and still live. You coward.
Why does it have to be me? Why not someone else? That doe who was chosen as an officer's favourite, she is the type of rabbit that horrible things happen to. Blackavar, that rabbit that failed to escape and was tortured for it, he is the type of rabbit that bad things happen to.
Why not them and not me?
Because I deserve it, I dedicated my life to serving Woundwort and treating those below be worse than maggots. Now, a maggot is worth more than me, because it can go wherever it wants and it can eat, it can do more than I can.
Bad things are expected to happen to anybody else, I don't expect to be the unlucky one because I'm the most important rabbit I know, and how could anything horrible happen to the most important rabbit?
What are the chances? What is the possibility that something like this could happen to me in the first place? How unlucky could I possibly be that I can lose every sense except for the feeling in my head and still be alive?
Whether the chances are a thousand to one, a million to one, a billion to one, there is still that 'one', someone out there had to have that thing happen to them for the probability to exist in the first place, and that tiny little 'one' is me. There is a new possibility in the world.
I'm going to die, no doubt about it, either now or in days, something will kill me, either an outside force or thirst, I'm not picky, just let it be over.
I can feel the wind shift, they're back, they're back, the rabbit that left me behind to suffer is back, you're back, you see me shaking my head, I didn't die earlier, I'm still here, kill me.
There's more of you, I can feel you all surrounding my head, how many? Three? Four? Yes, I'm quite the attraction, now hurry up and kill me.
My head is being held still again, no, it didn't work the last time and it won't work now. I'll keep shaking my head despite your efforts to keep me in place, I won't let you forget that I'm still alive.
Something is on my throat, it's thin, it's sharp, there are two of them and they're being closed together.