Chapter Summary
When you push, and push, and push...whether it be in the name of the all mighty dollar, a uncaring god, or some all consuming cause...do not dare think that something cannot, will not push back.
Chapter Notes
Warning: Written quickly, not beta'ed, and edits are not in depth. Will continue to edit and refine if I spot problems. Wrote this just because I wanted to do something dark, don't read too much into it. OOC behavior is probably here...you just need to wonder, what would it take to break a good person into this.
How long has it been since you were put into this car trunk? Hours? Days? You can't tell, your stomach is empty, and you feel so thirsty. The heat had sapped the life out of you, and you couldn't even pant. Not with the duck tape all around your muzzle. The rough potato sack around your head.
Why was this happening to you!? You didn't do anything to anyone. All you can remember is big paws and lots of stings. Are you going to die here? These thoughts keep you awake, as more and more time passes...the sound of a cell phone dying somewhere behind your head, muffled by the trunk itself greets you.
They're going to crush this thing, like in the movies. You are going to die. You struggle, you would chew your arm off to get out of this. Like what they said the ancient ancestors did. Survival at all costs...you are not so brave...you begin to doze off...
The car lurches and jumps, the engine starts. As big animals get into the driver and passengers' seats. What's going on? They're taking you somewhere. The drive is slow, you can hear traffic now, freeway, tunnels. Then you feel cold. Oh sweet merciful cold. It is like you are alive again...but that's no hope.
You have to fight. That's...that's what you have to do...you have to fight. So that's what you do, you kick and squirm and you thrash when the trunk opens, even if you are so tired, so thirsty, so hungry, you do something. Because all animals want to live. And you want to live.
Those big paws are back, holding you down, dragging you out. Howl, yowl, scream, they don't seem to care as you struggle against the tape.
"Thank you gentlemen." Came a soft female voice, small animal. You can't smell anything, only tape backing and...and water? It's cold here. There are no other words, as those big paws hold you down. They make you kneel.
"You probably don't know who I am." The voice said before the sack is ripped from your head. The light, it's too bright. This place, it's so shiny. Ice everywhere. A big paw smacks your ear and forces you to look at someone.
It's a rabbit...a little girl rabbit. She is sitting in front of you, on a big folding chair. Dressed in what look like thrift store hand me downs. Big purple eyes look down at you...it would have made you bristle, but you are in no position to think about that...she is doing something with some rope in her hands.
"You probably don't even know why you are here...I will educate you on that soon enough..." She looks familiar. You don't know why. You really don't know why. But she looks so familiar. It's on the tip of your tongue. Did you go to high school with this psycho? She locks eyes with you as she works that rope.
"...my grandfather was a monster." She says, you feel a sharp shiver down. This is going places you don't want to see. This doesn't happen to real animals. This happens to freaking Steve Bullscemi and what's his face. Her paws don't stop, and your eyes flicker down to them.
Another smack.
"Don't you dare look away." Came a growl in your ear. Heavy and rumbling, arctic. It promises bad things. The rabbit is smiling over your shoulder when you look back, and when she locks eyes with you again you don't dare look away.
"He was the Exalted Fury of the Sacred Brotherhood of Sint-Niklaas before The Great War, he was a hateful little thug, who did bad things with his brothers. So many bad things. He told me those things, told me of the good old days. He hated animals like you, just because you breathed...he hated animals like you, even when he brought home a Fox after the war. After all his brothers died, after all the young bucks in town died. He hated even when he earned brotherhood with a fox...and I don't blame him. It was a different time." She says, never breaking eye contact, not even blinking. The world is just her two deep purple eyes.
"He showed me the pictures, tried to show them to his grandchildren...show us our...heritage. He died bitter, and only my father went to his funeral...when I was young, I couldn't understand how some animals could be as hateful as him...but...now...now I know that the hate...it runs deep. It runs in the blood...and...well...I thought it didn't run in me." She says as she lets the rope fall off her lap. It hangs there. A noose. A Hangman's noose.
"I thought, I would make the world better, and lock away all the monsters. I would be the hero rescuing the innocent. I thought so many things...I am thinking so many things." She leaps off the chair and she leans in so close she is pressing her head towards yours. A little tiny voice in your head says try and bite her, headbutt her, do something...but you are too afraid. You are afraid, as she takes one of your ears and pulls you closer.
"My grandfather dug foxholes with a fox, he named his son after a fox, and he hated foxes. He hated foxes, wolves, shrews, sheep, rats, mice, cows, pigs, deer, lions, tigers, and bears. He fucking hated everything that wasn't a rabbit...he was a complicated man, I know that now...I accept that now. That things are not black and white, that there is...ambiguity. I know for a fact, he murdered three animals before he went to war. He lynched a wolf that had wandered into Bunnyburrow looking for work and salvation. He burned down the warren of rabbit that rented out to weasels. Shot a carpetbagger trying to get the migrants to organize...I thought I wasn't like him...because...I didn't hate..." She is hissing like the devil, the snake in Eden giving the forbidden fruit of knowledge to the world. She is the devil, come to take your soul.
"Well...that's no longer true...because I HATE you. I hate you with the power of burning vitriol and empty rhetoric that my grandfather clung to when he died. I hate you because it gives me some meaning, it allows me to make some sense in the world...I hate you from the depths of my soul..." She tosses your head back, and stalks away. You can't breath, it's too much. You feel faint, but those big paws at your back don't let you. They tug your ears, and keep you wide awake, and you get to watch as she saunters off and throws that rope up over a shelf support strut. It hangs out, really high, she has to jump up to thread the needle.
"And...that brings me back...to why you are here. You are here...because you are responsible. YOU are responsible." She points at you, and you scramble to think, what could you have done? What could have brought this down on you? This...this has to be a mistake...but it's not.
She comes back.
"You told all those lies. All those lies that got all those animals hurt. You should have told the truth...but no...you were...greedy."
It hits you right then. What she is talking about...that...that shouldn't matter. It was just nuisance stuff. A couple of cut corners, no big deal. It...it was no big deal.
"You got my best friend hurt...you destroyed him...you ruined him...you ruined me...you're the only one that will get to know...because...you'll be the first. You'll be the message..." She motions, and they drag you up...no...no. They can't. You try to dig in your paws, your claws, you scramble. The floor is too slippery, it's too icy. Bears. Bears have you. Polar bears with grim faces. One of them drags the chair the rabbit was sitting on over to the rope. NONONONONO!
"...be glad I am not my grandfather. It will be over all too soon." The Rabbit says, as she climbs up on the shelf, and she loops that rope around your neck.
You remember. YOU REMEMBER NOW. Years ago, on the news, you saw this rabbit. Some big thing back in the Teens. You saw her. What was it about, what was it about?! The rabbit jumps down, the polar bears step away.
She's...she's...She's a co-The rabbit kicks the chair out from under you. You think you hear a crack, before everything just...stops. Darkness comes down. From the edges of your vision...you fade.
"Koslov...thank you...thank you...please...please give Mister Big my thanks as well..." Noise, wisps of noise. You slip away into the big nothing.