The Taxidermist was awake, and he had found them.

"RJ, move!" Verne shouted.

RJ however continued to stay rooted to the spot, and as the familiar lyrics of that song continued playing in his head, he felt something move him aside, sending him sprawling on his side. It was that movement that jarred him out of his stupor, and upon looking at where he stood, he saw a crossbow bolt sticking out of the wooden floor. Judging from the trajectory, it would've gone through his head. It was then that RJ looked up at the Taxidermist.

Due to the dim lighting in the room, it was incredibly difficult to make out any facial features of the man above him, but he could tell a few things. For one, the Taxidermist's hair was wispy and appeared to be thin, judging by the few stray hairs standing up straight on his face. It reminded him of The Sniffer in a weird way, although The Sniffer at the very least didn't kill animals in his own home.

Additionally, The Taxidermist was much thinner than the orange jumpsuit wearing man. In fact, the Taxidermist seemed to have a bit of solid muscle on him that was barely visible through the light. Not only that, but his clothes were also dark as well, and didn't seem all that baggy from what RJ could tell. He didn't get much time to look over The Taxidermist's attire, as he was yanked back to a standing position just as the crossbow returned to being aimed right at him.

He barely had enough time to dodge out of the way of the bolt that nearly impaled him, and quickly shot back to a standing position to start scampering out of the house. Thankfully, it looked like everyone else was out, and RJ was about to join them. His heart was beating out of his chest, and as he passed the threshold between the open glass door and the outside world, he knew he was okay.

But he kept running.

The Taxidermist knew they existed now, and for all he knew, he could go out of his way to hunt them down one by one. He knew he could do that easily, without a shadow of a doubt. He had the crossbow, and even more, now that he's seen the handiwork of The Taxidermist close up, he couldn't tell if his final fate was either as a stuffed statue or a mangled mess of a pelt that looked like that raccoon.

There was no way around it, RJ was scared.

He found himself running deeper and deeper into the woods, with each look to his right or left reminding him of either the silhouette of The Taxidermist or the creations he had made. It was right out of a horror movie. RJ ran faster and faster, until he felt his legs start to burn, and his breathing starting to get tighter.

Eventually, RJ came to a familiar tree, the one he spent the night under previously. Feeling like he was about to pass out, he would lean against the tree, slowly sliding down until he was in somewhat of a sitting position, and he would place his hand on his chest. His heartbeat was going a million miles an hour.

He was shaking, his vision was getting blurry again, and once more his heartbeat was beating in his ears. It was just like last night, only without any rain, it wasn't night, and there wasn't a big blob of brown in front of him calling his name.

"RJ, are you okay?"

RJ had a hard time telling who it was, due to his heartbeat overpowering his senses. He could however tell it was female, so that narrowed down the options to at least three. Heather and Stella weren't brown, so that left Penny as the only feasible option. As he continued to try and fail to keep himself under control, Penny just watched him, as if she were trying to find out what to do.

"RJ, listen to me, you're okay." Penny calmly spoke. She initially looked to see if she could place a hand on his shoulder, but decided against it. She didn't want to freak him out even more than he already was.

"You're safe, you're okay, you're not in any danger." She continued speaking. Slowly, RJ seemed to relax a bit. The pounding heartbeat in his head slowly subsided, and his vision started to clear, giving way to Penny slowly backing away to give RJ some space. RJ took a few deep breaths, which also seemed to help him as he calmed himself.

"...thank you, Penny." RJ spoke, his voice drenched in clear exhaustion.

"RJ, what happened back there?" Penny asked. "What's going on?" In response, RJ, on instinct tried to shoot a friendly grin to sort of tell Penny everything was okay, but the unconvinced look on her face caused it to falter very quickly. RJ would finally let out a shaky sigh.

"Ever since yesterday with that raccoon on the road, I've just been…off." RJ replied. "I know, understatement of the century, but that's the best way I can describe it."

"RJ, I think there's something else going on, because this isn't like you to get scared." Penny said.

"I know, I hate myself for it, but I really just don't know what correlation there is." RJ would let out a small sigh, trying to keep himself somewhat composed. "All I know is ever since that whole incident, I've been having these...thoughts."

"What kind?" Penny asked.

"It was the first time I went into that human's house." RJ paused for a brief moment once more, and was about to speak again before Penny cut him off.

"The first time?" Penny asked. "Did you know that human?"

RJ just nodded his head.

"I swear, I didn't know that he was back, if I had known, I would've made sure we never went there, at all." RJ quickly spoke up. "I'm serious, I'm not trying to get you all killed-"

"RJ, it's okay, I believe you, and I'm sure the others do too." Penny replied, to which RJ let out a small sigh of relief. Just hearing that from Penny made RJ feel a whole lot better, and slowly, he would get back to a standing position.

"We should probably head back." RJ spoke. "I'll uh…let the others know what's going on." Upon saying that, RJ and Penny would start making their way back to the clearing. As much as it was weird talking about this, RJ regardless felt great. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders.

"Is it alright if I ask something?" Penny asked. "You don't have to answer if you want."

"Penny, I owe you and the gang a lot of answers, ask away."

"How long ago did this happen?"

Upon hearing that, RJ went quiet once more. Part of it was because he was in deep thought, and the other half of it was because he actually had no idea. Truth be told, this was something he suppressed for a long time, so the details were going to be fuzzy. As he thought about it, something new started to pop into his mind.

It was a tunnel or den of sorts with two other raccoons like him, except they seemed way bigger. It also appeared he was laying down, and in the background appeared to be another road of sorts. There was no way he remembered this; this couldn't have been an actual memory. He didn't know any other raccoons.

Or did he?

The scene in his memory now shifted to a much blurrier sight. Strange, it wasn't like that in the previous scene. He could barely tell however that he was outside judging from how bright it seemed, and the road seemed much closer, only obscured by a lot of green. Upon closer inspection, the two raccoons from earlier were now laying in the middle of the road, and judging by the green, he was hidden.

RJ watched for a while, trying to figure out why this seemed familiar until he noticed a human walking towards the two dead raccoons and picking them up by their tails. The sight of this human just casually picking them up by their tails gave him chills, as if the human had no regard for their life. Slowly, the pieces started to fit together as the human walked off with them, and it was then he came to a chilling realization.

This was the earliest and only memory he had of his old family.

RJ stopped walking to process what he had realized. That raccoon that met its end on the road wasn't just reminding him of when he ended up in that house of that Taxidermist. No, it was even worse.

It was reminding him of when he lost his parents.

"RJ, are you okay?" He heard Penny ask.

"Penny, when we get back, there's something I need to tell the others."


He told them everything. His past with The Taxidermist, the effect the raccoon had on him, his old family, he wasn't hiding anything. RJ knew that once he told this, the whole facade of him being the cool, fearless leader was going to crumble. That didn't matter however, he had to be honest with the gang, even if it meant the possibility of them thinking less of him.

Once he finished, he watched as everyone just stared at him. He wasn't sure what else to say. He just poured his heart out, and now everyone just didn't know how to react.

Verne was the one to break the silence.

"RJ, have you ever...processed this?"

It was a good question, and based on what RJ could remember, as well as the obvious signs, it was clear that he hasn't. In fact, RJ was unsure if he even had the chance to process these events. He was certain that the others had their fair share of tragedies. Ozzie immediately came to mind considering not having a female opossum aside from his own daughter meant the worst. However, Ozzie might've been over it, or he was bottling it up for the sake of Heather, and even if he hadn't, he always had a support system in the family.

This was RJ's first time actually having one that he could remember.

"I... I don't think I have." RJ stammered out. Verne would approach slowly in response.

"RJ, take as much time as you need to process this, okay?" Verne spoke.

"But what about the heists?" RJ asked.

"Listen, we've been on enough heists to know how to handle them." Verne replied. "Trust us, we pay way more attention than you think."

RJ couldn't help but smile at that, before his gaze caught the digital clock. He remembered last night that Stella pointed out that he had managed to talk for a good thirty minutes about the plan, and yet everyone did their jobs perfectly.

All except for him.

"RJ, right now, I think it would be best if you took a break from heisting, let us handle it." Verne spoke. "If you want to help out, you can take requests, and we'll make sure to get a list from you."

RJ paused for a moment. This was asking a lot of him, and the worst part was that he wouldn't be able to keep an eye on them. He wanted to be sure they were safe at least.

"At least stick to the houses we've raided before, no new territory, just places where we know we can get into easy, okay?"

"You got it RJ."

That was all RJ needed to hear.

From then on, RJ would take it easy, just processing everything that happened before he met the gang. It was tough, especially considering this is new territory for him, but he made it manage. Speaking of territory, Verne stayed true to his word. He only took the gang to places they've gone before, and much to RJ's relief, not only were they getting as good of a haul as usual, but they were coming back alive.

It was just as impressive considering that every heist, at least one member would stay back to make sure RJ was alright and if he needed something. It was an idea Penny had, and one Verne agreed with as he didn't feel comfortable leaving RJ alone on the off chance that something happened to him. The three most common were Tiger, Heather, and the aforementioned Penny.

Tiger stuck around so he could make up for the near-death experience he felt he led them into, which RJ had to tell him that it wasn't his fault, and he didn't really blame him for it. In fact, he blamed himself more than anything. It didn't stop Tiger from sticking by him however, at the cost of him missing out on quality time with Stella.

As for Penny and Heather, the former was due to her probably being the most knowledgeable about what was going on with him, which was something RJ greatly appreciated, and he found it really easy to talk with the female porcupine about his past. As for the latter…

…well, he wasn't sure why, although he was grateful she didn't treat him any differently.

All RJ knew was that it wasn't going to be easy, but he could get better.

He just knew it.


I'm not going to lie, this was a bit of a tricky chapter to write solely because I was getting hit with writer's block quite a lot. Plus I'm not good at emotional scenes and considering the developments with Bruce Willis...yeah, I kind of wanted to get this out.

At the very least, Penny got a major role. Don't worry, I have more planned for her.

Also yes, I got inspiration from that panic attack scene from Puss in Boots 2. It's a good movie.

Thankfully the next story will hopefully be more light and funny than dark. I still enjoyed this, but it came out at a bad time in my opinion.