Judy Hopps is such a dumb bunny.
And a HORRIBLE friend.
She's nothing but a bloodthirsty monster who almost killed her best friend against his will.
Why did she do that?
She had been doing so good since the first day, making sure she behaved herself…
But had she?
She replays the memories of her interactions with her foxy friend in her decaying mind.
What she thought were fun little games between them of her trying her best to get in and him trying to stop her suddenly have a new light cast on them. Instead of being silly little moments, they start to turn into what they truly are: Nick's struggles to keep his life as she constantly tries to end it.
Judy sits on the window's ledge, her body slumped over as she gazes out at the city of undead mammals below her. The morning light shines through the haze of the rain from the previous night. The swarms of zombies start to make their way around town to wherever they need to go. For the past week, Judy had been looking out at the morning sunrises with nothing but admiration. All those animals, both predator and prey, getting along for once and helping each other get used to their new bodies.
But she can't see that same image anymore.
She starts to pick up on all the little depressing details. So many mammals with limited mobility because of their injuries. So many families with missing members. So many future mothers who will never be. Life can't grow inside of a husk without a pulse, after all.
How many were pregnant when they were turned?
She doesn't even want to think about it.
Just below her, she sees a crowd of young ones following their mother through the busy streets. Judy knows this family from her time as an officer. It's with a heavy heart that she notes three less pups then there used to be in the pack. The family seems happy enough, but she suspects that their contentment with the situation is very much like her own; an influence of the infection that caused them to rise and spread.
Why has she been happy about herself this whole time?
What if Nick is right?
The end of the world came and doped her up with some sort of 'happy drug' to keep her satisfied while the infection finished the job.
Judy looks down at her paws, noting how rotten they're starting to look. She doesn't feel any pain and that pleasant tingle still fills her entire body completely. But she's still a corpse that will fall apart over time. She can finally look at her zombification as anything other than a good thing and the feeling is bittersweet.
The world dims a bit in her eyes, but it feels like a part of her that she lost upon her death is starting to return.
It just sucks that she had to potentially lose her friendship with Nick forever to get herself back.
As the herds of her fellow husks shuffle happily down below, Judy lets herself cry.
She cries for her city.
She cries for the mammals lost to this horrible plague.
She cries for her friends and family, whose fates she hasn't even bothered to fully learn.
She cries for herself.
And she cries for her best friend, who she made feel like he was less important than the sum of his meat. Out of everyone, she knows that Nick has been suffering the most. He's had to stand by and watch all of this play out, without any of the stress-killing help of the infection's influence. Everyone he knows and loves is dead, while he still retains his heartbeat. He's been the only one able to process just what kind of loss the world has suffered.
The forlorn rabbit turns her gaze away from the city and fixes it on the sleeping tod on the other side of the window. The TV has been replaying the home screen of one of the movies they watched last night. Even asleep, Nick looks lifeless.
Since the bite that almost happened the previous night, she can tell that part of her friend has died. He wanted so badly to trust her and act like the world was just a slightly-different version than what it used to be. But all it took was a torn-up glove to shatter that illusion for him.
In a way, last night was an eye-opener for both of them.
Judy started seeing the infection for the tragedy that it is.
And Nick started seeing Judy as the husk she is.
She can't help the painful ache that courses through her at that moment. But it's the fact that she can feel any kind of pain at all that surprises her.
"Huh?" she ponders as she holds a tattered paw over her chest. It...hurts.
Why does it hurt?
Judy's eyes widen and she takes another look at the sleeping form of the fox. And for the first time, she doesn't feel that overwhelming urge to hunt him and bite into his flesh.
She slides over to get a better look at him, just in case she just wasn't seeing him all the way. Even with the sunlight glistening across his russet fur, she can't feel any hunger towards him. The desire for his delicious canine meat is missing.
And it's such a lovely thing to miss.
She...doesn't want to hurt him anymore. Her self-control is somehow back.
She's back!
A feeling of elation passes down her spine and it has nothing to do with the infection's mind control. This is the first time in a week that she's felt happy...TRULY happy. The infection's happiness is just a pleasant high that made her content with everything happening to her. But this new feeling is totally different.
It's actually something she can feel roasting her insides, as if she still had a pulse.
She needs to tell Nick!
Judy hops to her feet and goes to knock on the glass and wake him up, but the sight of the open door behind him stops her dead in her tracks. The wooden door that she had been locked behind for the last week is wide open, all of the locks scattered along the floor. There's splinters of wood from the cracked door frame littering the hardwood.
Something got in.
Nick's not alone in the room.
And he's still asleep!
"NICK!" Judy shrieks, pounding as hard as she can on the window in hopes of stirring him from his slumber. The fox groans and shuffles around slightly, but falls back into full unconsciousness.
Judy's heart, as rotten and dried up as it is, falls in her chest. She can't protect him.
She goes to scream his name again, but two large figures walk in front of the window in front of her face, filling her vision with the ghastly sight of two decaying rams.
Most of the skin on their faces is gone, leaving behind wide-open eyes and exposed skulls. Their horns, as twisted and intimidating as they are, are perfect for bashing doors open. A tingle of familiarity hits Judy all too quickly as she takes in their profiles.
She knows these two.
From...the Nighthowler case. On the train.
Judy almost throws up a part of herself as it hits her.
One of the rams leans down, picking up the chair that had been wedged under Nick's doorknob and places it right in front of the window. The two rams step back and fold their arms, letting someone else take over.
Judy doesn't know what's going on at first, but the blood-stained ball of wool that pops into her vision answers her quickly enough. The stunted, broken form of Dawn Bellwether climbs up onto the chair and stands to greet her.
Judy's blood goes even colder than it had been.
The tiny sheep meets Judy face-to-face for the first time since the case that ended in her arrest and incarceration. Judy can only stare in horror at Bellwether's rotten grin. All in all, Dawn's appearance isn't too bad. She's grey and zombie-like, yes, but has very little in the way of personal injury.
That's what Judy thinks at first.
But then she sees that her tattered blouse barely covers her hollowed out middle section. Whatever got to her first apparently had a feast on her innards and left her like that. Judy cringes and tries not to imagine how much that probably hurt. She definitely didn't have a quick death.
"Oh, hi, Judy! Long time, no see!" Dawn greets in her sickeningly sweet voice. The sheep takes a moment to adjust her glasses, though she probably doesn't need them. The lenses are shattered beyond repair and the frames are bent horribly.
"Bellwether…" Judy mumbles, her body shaking terribly. Dawn's smile grows even more sinister as she sees how much her presence affects the bunny. For her, it's everything she could have hoped. The bunny that foiled her plans and the fox who helped her do it...both at her mercy.
"I'm glad you're here, actually! See, I wanted to talk to you first, but you wouldn't answer your calls! We went looking for you, but that landlady of yours told us you didn't live there anymore. Seemed really mad at you for some reason. Can't imagine why. Aaaanyway, we figured we might as well check up on our little foxy friend over there, since he was such a big help and all!" Dawn explains with her hooves held behind her back like she's an innocent little lamb.
Judy's jaw hangs open, rendering her speechless.
Bellwether goes to say something else, but a tap on the shoulder from one of her ram friends draws her attention away from the trembling rabbit.
"What? I'm busy! What's so-" Dawn starts to reprimand the ram, but he simply points to the couch, where Nick is finally starting to stir. The other ram squats down in front of the fox, his exposed jaws hanging open hungrily.
A flash of realization snaps across Bellwether's face and she's quick to act.
"HEY! No, Jesse! Get back!" she shouts just as the ram goes to take a bite. The muscled guard falters and halts himself, though with great difficulty. It seems that Bellwether has more power over him than the infection does, though, and he backs off.
Judy is pawing weakly at the glass at this point, unable to keep her emotions held in anymore.
Dawn turns back to her with an evil glint in her bloodshot eyes.
"Oh-ho! What's this, then? Keeping this one to yourself, are you? You know, I shouldn't be surprised. I knew you two had a thing going on, but I never thought you would be so depraved as to try out some classic role-reversal," the sheep laughs.
Judy breaks her gaze from her friend and looks to the rotten sheep separated only by a plane of glass.
"H-huh…?" Judy stutters. Dawn rolls her eyes.
"Get it? You know, the predator becomes the prey...he was the predator and now he's the...you know what, just forget it! I'm not going to waste my humor on pests like you, Hopps. I was just planning on destroying him beyond repair, but this is WAY better."
Judy finally manages to get some of her composure back.
"N-NO! HE DOESN'T WANT TO TURN! HE DOESN'T-" Judy screams as she bangs on the window again. Dawn lets out a horrible, snorting laugh that shuts the rabbit right up.
"Pfft HAHAHA! Heh heh...ooooh Judy...who said we were going to turn him? The way I see it, just turning him would be doing you a favor, and we don't want that, now do we?" Dawn sneers at her most hated rival.
Judy's tattered ears perk up in confusion and her nose twitches quickly.
"No no no, I have something MUCH better in mind!" Dawn laughs louder. "Woolter, Jesse! Grab the fox! Bring him to the roof!"
The rams move to comply.
"...AND NO BITING HIM," Dawn screams. The two rams flinch but nod their skulls. Judy can only look on as their undead hooves wrap around Nick's shoulders and lift him right off of the couch.
Nick snaps awake the rest of the way, just to see the horrifying image of the two zombified rams grinning down at him. The scream that he lets out echoes throughout the room and rattles the glass. Judy will never forget the sound.
"Oh, music to my ears! Quite a lovely vibrato he has, don't you agree?" Dawn taunts as she turns back to Judy. The look of pure malice and satisfaction on the sheep's face angers Judy like nothing ever has before. The bunny balls her fist and slams it into the window with enough force to actually crack it. A spiderweb of fractures spreads across the plane of glass, the sudden sound startling Dawn off of the chair. She falls onto her back and her blouse slides up, revealing just how empty her chest is.
There really is nothing left in her, much less a heart.
Nick struggles audibly in the grasp of the rams, but isn't nearly strong enough to contest them. They hold him above the ground so that his flailing paws only scratch air.
"You traitorous little...TAKE HIM TO THE ROOF, YOU IDIOTS!" Bellwether shrieks. The rams bolt out of the room with Nick in their grasp, the poor tod screaming the whole way. Judy's eyes dart up just as the tip of the fox's tail exits the doorway.
Dawn grins up at her from her spot on the floor.
"Ta-ta, Judy! I'd stay and chat, but I don't want to be late for Nick's appointment with the pavement!"
With that said, the sheep leaps to her hooves and scampers after her two thick-skulled companions. It takes Judy a few moments to process what she meant, but then it hits even harder than the tiger that had ended her life.
They're just...going to toss him off of the roof!
And without the reanimation effect from the infection, Nick will...just die.
He won't come back.
He'll just be a mangled mess on the street and she'll never be able to tell her how sorry she is. She'll lose her best friend forever. And he will die hating her.
Judy's feet find traction after a second of slipping on the metal of the fire escape and she takes off up the stairs like a tiny grey rocket. Her body functions on autopilot, using her police training and free-running skills to scale the apartment building at a speed unobtainable by any living being. She can hear her drying bones cracking as she moves, but she doesn't pay them any mind. She can mend her broken bones later, once Nick is safe.
Within a minute, she's pulling herself up over the ledge of the roof. From here, she can see the city below in all of it's gory, glorious detail. The herds of undead are out in full numbers now, living their day without a care in the world.
But she doesn't see Nick or his captors.
She silently limps around, seeing if she had missed them somehow.
But it turns out to just be a matter of time before the two rams and Bellwether come flying out of the access door with Nick dangling limply in their grasp. It seems that sometime between being taken and arriving at the roof, Nick had given up and just accepted his death. A heartbreakingly empty look rests on his face, a look that Judy can barely stand to see.
It's the same look that he wore the night before as he processed her inability to leave him alive.
"Jesse, you block the door! Woolter, brind the fox to the edge! No, not there, over here! Where the city can see! Oooh how about that? If he survives the landing, the dead will finish him off! Yes, yes! I can hear the screams already!" Dawn giggles. The one ram does his duty and props himself in front of the door, as if Judy was going to be following right behind them.
Judy hides behind an air vent. A small tingle of cosmic irony hits her as she realizes that an air vent is concealing her again, but this time it's to save Nick instead of to turn him.
Woolter lugs the hopeless fox over to the edge of the roof, for all the world to see.
Nick stares at the city below with an empty expression, not really processing his surroundings anymore. It doesn't matter that he won't come back. He doesn't want to anymore. Maybe this is actually the quickest and easiest way for him to exit this nightmare for good.
Judy sneaks a bit closer, following behind Bellwether silently.
"You see that down there, Wilde? That's your end. You're just going to end up as a smear on the road for the infected to feast on. How do you feel about that?" Dawn sings.
Nick shrugs in Woolter's grip, his tail flicking lazily from side to side.
"Eh. Better than living as worm food, I guess," he mumbles. Dawn stops laughing and gives him a suspicious glare. Woolter looks down at something distracting him on the street below.
"...That's it? No crying, or begging, or pleas for mercy? Geez, fox, you made it this long. I figured you would want to keep trying a bit harder," the sheep says irritably. It seems she wanted him to react a bit more before her ultimate revenge, and being denied that satisfaction is ruining the whole thing for her.
"What do you want me to say? I'm just done. My friends and family are gone, my life is over and I can't even be in the same room with Judy. I don't want to trade my mind for a bit of extra time to shamble around. If you're going to drop me, just go ahead and do it! It's better than listening to Lamb of the Dead rattle off like a cotton-covered squeaky toy!" Nick barks up at the ram holding him. Woolter shuffles nervously, not liking that a living being is shouting in his face without any sense of self-preservation.
"...You love her, don't you?" Dawn inquires.
"Oh for the love of...YES! YES I DO! AND WHY DOES THAT EVEN MATTER RIGHT NOW?!" Nick shouts back with fury in his voice. The sheep smirks, a sense of well-earned satisfaction washing over her tiny frame.
"Oh, it's just a little something extra I can tell her when she's crying over your corpse, is all. What a romantic little tragedy, huh? Predator falls in love with prey, prey become predator, and they can't even share- WAIT. HOLD ON. Did you...did you just say 'Lamb of the Dead'? Was that supposed to be a movie pun? You...you know my name is 'Dawn', right? Out of all the obvious jokes you could have gone with, you didn't...OOH NOW I'M MAD. YOU COULD HAVE JUST SAID 'DAWN OF THE DEAD', BUT INSTEAD YOU-"
Bellwether doesn't hear the sound of Judy sprinting towards her, her voice blocking any of the sounds that could have warned her of the incoming projectile.
With a startled squeak, Dawn is launched by two flying rabbit feet.
The street suddenly rushes up to meet her.
Nick and Woolter watch as Bellwether tumbles over the edge of the roof, shrieking the whole way down. Woolter sets Nick down and leans over the edge to watch his boss meet the asphalt. Nick, taking advantage of the situation, gives the ram a forceful kick in the tail and sends him flying over the side as well.
Judy scrambles up to her friend as they listen to the screams from their two airborne enemies.
"YAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaagh~"
"B-A-A-A-AAAAAaaaaaaaa-bleh!"
The sound of impact reaches the ears of the two friends left standing.
Thmp!
"Nooooo! The rest of my babies!"
Nick turns away from the massive splatter, his stomach churning from the thought that he was almost down there instead. He's overtaken by the small form of a decaying grey rabbit, who wraps her arms around his waist and pulls him into a tight hug.
He jolts back at the sight of her and closes his eyes tight, preparing himself for the incoming pain of being torn into.
But it never comes.
Nick slowly opens an eye and sneaks a peak at his undead friend.
Judy is snuggling the ever living crap out of him, but she isn't trying to bite him at all. She's just...hugging him. Her mouth is right there in his side, but she isn't biting him.
"H-hey...Judy…" Nick manages to mumble to her. He places a trembling paw on her head, feeling how greasy and stiff her fur is now. But to his surprise, she still feels like herself.
Judy looks up at him with loving eyes, giving Nick his first actual look at her since she died.
And, to his further elation, she doesn't look that bad. She's greyer than she used to be, but she's still just as beautiful as he remembers. In fact, seeing her after everything that's happened...she's more beautiful now than ever before.
She smiles up at him, her expression one of relief and care.
He finds himself smiling back down at her.
And...crap, he said all that with her right there, didn't he?
Oh well, might as well go for it.
Nick starts to close his eyes and leans down, his lips puckering slightly. But before he can fulfill his kiss, a grey paw shoves his muzzle away. He expects to see her giving him a confused look, but she's just smirking at him like she always used to.
"Careful, Slick. The infection can still spread that way, too," she chuckles. With his face heating up, he gives her a bashful look and clears his throat. Well, it was worth a shot!
He hugs her back and the two stand there for a good while, the shared contact the most wonderful feeling in the world for both of them. They both fully expected to never be able to hug each other again, but here they are.
It's the best hug they're ever shared.
After the moment starts to pass, Nick finds his words again.
"So...what changed…?" he asks, giving his zombified bun a curious look. Judy lets out one last huff of contentment before answering him.
"...My perspective, I think...I thought about the infection and how it's...not really as good as I thought it was, and...I just sort of started hurting again. And I got my control back. It's like, once I stopped buying into the influence of the infection, it stopped controlling me, I guess."
Nick tries to follow along, but it seems weird to him. But then he gets another thought.
"That makes some sense actually. Finnick wasn't happy with being turned either, and he didn't attack me when I opened the window."
Judy pulls away slightly and gives the taller fox a glare.
"You jerk! You let Finn in and not me?!" Judy whines, using one of her paws to give Nick a soft punch in the chest.
"Hey! You saw what happened! It's a good thing it was him!" Nick argues, though the smile stays on his face. Despite everything, he's glad to be at the painful end of her bunny punches again.
The tender moment between the two is interrupted as Jesse goes soaring over the edge, bleating his rotten lungs out the entire way down.
Nick and Judy look back from where he came flying from.
Mrs. Thistle stands there, slapping her paws together to rid them of any lingering undead wool.
Jesse makes the final impact of the day.
"EE-!"
Thmp!
Nick waits for the same scream to echo out, but it never does.
"Huh...guess he got the mother that time," Nick says out loud to himself. Judy gives him a strange look but chooses not to question him about it. The bobcat behind them limps up slowly and peers over the side at the carnage below.
"Mrs. Thistle?" Nick questions, feeling a small tingle of fear. Judy might be safe to be around now, but that doesn't apply to the rest of the animals he lives with. But the elderly feline just gives the fox a pleasant smile and places her paws on her hips in triumph.
"Don't mind me, Nicholas! Just taking out some trash, is all," she assures. "Now then, I think I heard you shouting something about your partner here, unless I'm mistaken."
Nick tilts his head in confusion, but Judy catches on and buries her face in his chest.
The tod looks down.
"Oh, that!" he shouts, his face growing even redder than normal. Mrs. Thistle rolls her undead eyes and sighs good-naturedly.
"Yes, that. Silly kit."
Nick gives ones of Judy's tattered ears a rub.
"Oh, geez."