Parasite
Prologue
Nick was laughing again. He had no reason to. The train was packed with people, and his sudden laughter had made everyone look at him, as if he was crazy. Well, they weren't wrong. The past few months had been nothing short of crazy. He was going on his way to see his dad, or to phrase it better, decipher his hidden message. It had been almost a year since he had left him and his mom to their luck. He needed to at least know how he was doing.
Studying was technically his hobby ever since the accident. After all of the incidents, he couldn't take being poor one day longer, so he promised himself he would study his brains out and get into a very prestigious college and get the best paying job in the city. No more slums, no more suffering. On his deep thinking state he almost forgot to get off at his station, and sprinted to the exit before the doors closed. He checked to see if he hadn't mistaken the train and sighed in relief. He was now in Bunnyburrow. He had another hour and a half before the next train back to Zootopia, but it was better to not waste much time in it. The place only gave him sorrow and regret. Also an inexplicable urge to laugh.
In just about 20 minutes of walking, he arrived at the Hopps' house, now owned by a Zoomanian family called the Shrewts. Nick thought the Shrewts were very brave to buy that house, but then he thought the Real Estate agency didn't really care for mentioning the cause of its striking low price. Maybe the Shrewts should've zoogled it before buying it. The house is pretty famous now. He could only watch them from afar and think to himself: That could've been us.
It always happened at the exact same time. At 9:00 Pm everyday the Shrewt family would get ready to go to sleep and some minutes after, the lights would flicker, but not in any conventional way. They seemed to have a pattern. A pattern Nick wanted to decipher. He brought his binoculars and a book of Morse code. The urge to laugh came at him again. This time it was genuine. He saw the pattern very attentively and recorded himself saying it. ''Dash, dot dot, dash...:" and so on. After he was done, he looked at the nearby small river that still held the rock, or viewing stone to bring luck and money, as his friend had called it, but he really didn't care about it anymore. It was a rock. There was nothing sentimental or lucky about it. At least maybe it could help his father go through his tough time. He took a last look at the house. His eyes became teary and his frown more visible. If only he would've known his plan would ever go this way, he would've never gone further with it. Now he has to carry with the guilt for the rest of his life. Working towards buying the house is everything that matters to him at this point.
Nick began laughing in the train back home again while also beginning to translate the morse code. It was roughly five minutes of recording, so the message is sure to be very extensive. As he finished, he was already home with the lights all off. The faint glimmer from the window was giving him enough light to read the completed letter from his dad. He cried while he read it, hugging it desperately hoping his dad felt it as well. All of a sudden, all of the memories from the past few months piled onto him like 10-ton bricks. He laid down on the floor, hoping none of it was true. They had been living off of parasites, but in the end... they themselves were still parasites.