The cool wind against their fur, the warm sun against their face, the lack of any responsibilities whatsoever; yes, it made Crisp and Melvin wonder just why exactly it'd taken them so very long to finally work up the nerve to break with The Collective. Wandering through this small wooded area, the sounds of birds chirping and streams bubbling, they couldn't help but occasionally glance at one another and then chuckle to themselves. They were finally, truly, free.
"I'm so glad we decided to do it," Melvin said, "That place was...just...not for us." "Thank you for convincing me," Crisp replied, "Lord knows without a friend like you, I might still be there, embroiled in the midst of whatever ridiculous thing they're dealing with now. It's always something with them. And here I'd assumed Dodger's death would've been the end of it, but I guess not. There's always an extra mile to go." "Well, now we can go any amount of miles we want," Melvin said, making them laugh. They laughed and snacked and carried on, stopping here and there to look at the various leaves on the ground or pick up new berries, and it was like they'd never been a part of The Collective to begin with. They'd wanted to escape, certainly, and they were happy that The Collective had given them that chance, but they just never really understood why they'd continued to rail against the lab and the people who ran it. They sort of understood it, they recognized the yearning for vengeance certainly, but to put their own lives on the line time and time again, after all the failures they'd faced...it boggled their minds. "How far are we gonna go?" Crisp asked. "As far as we want, honestly," Melvin replied, "This is our life now, we can do whatever we want. We're best friends and the world is open to us." "I feel sort of bad, I admit," Crisp continued, "I mean, they want to save these new rabbits and I...I get why...and I feel bad for leaving before at least trying to help with that. It's a noble cause, certainly. I just...I can't shake the feeling that for everything they try to do, all they're really doing is walking one step closer to the edge of destruction." "They need a purpose," Melvin replied, "They don't have the lab anymore, they don't have THEM, or the tests, so they need something to fulfill their lives, and apparently they've made saving new rabbits their purpose. You're not wrong, either, it IS noble, but it's also incredibly risky to attempt time and time over. One day they're gonna regret it, and by then it'll be too late to try anything different." Melvin stopped and sniffed at something on the ground, nudging the fallen nut with his nose as Crisp continued up the hill, finally cresting the top and stopping in her place. "Oh my god," she whispered. "What? What is it?" Melvin asked, hopping up after her, gasping as he reached her side. Before them lay a gorgeous sun dappled field filled with flowers aplenty, and between those flowers...between the rays of beautiful sunlight...were what looked like hundreds of dead rabbits. "What the fuck," Melvin whispered, as Crisp started to head down the hill, Melvin bounding right after her; "Hey!" he called, "What are you doing?! Is this not creepy enough for you? You need to get a closer look?" "What...happened, here?" Crisp asked. The rabbits were covered in dirt and mud and their fur stained with blood. Some of the rabbits, their eyes had tears of dried blood streaming down their faces, others their mouths simply agape at whatever horror had befallen them. Crisp walked past some and looked into a burrow. "It's full of other dead rabbits," she whispered, "My god there's so many children in here." Her voice cracked, like she was going to cry, but she fought it back, not wanting to do that here. She'd cry later, in private, where the souls of dead bunny children couldn't hear her. Melvin continued and finally came to a large, long, rounded black tube with ridges all the way around it. He put his paw against it and sniffed it cautiously, quickly recoiling in disgust. "Fuck that smells awful!" he said loudly, "Whatever this...this black snake is...it smells terrible, my god, no wonder they died. I'd have died too if I had to smell this god forsaken thing." "There's so many babies," Crisp muttered under her breath, the tears coming on now in full, "There's so many babies. How could this have happened? What happened here?" "I...I don't know, but we'll keep looking, we'll figure it out, we're smart," Melvin said, "We're no Special 7, but hey, we'll get it. Just try to keep yourself together, alright?" Melvin continued into the field, looking at every body he could, pawing at some and sniffing at others. They were all dead alright. Some of them stank to high heavens, just like the stench wafting off the black snake he'd stumbled upon. He finally leaned down and smelled another rabbit; a once beautiful female rabbit with large black spots all over her, like a dalmation. He sighed and shook his head, before turning back to face Crisp, who was staring at him in disbelief. "This is wretched," he finally said, "This is just...beyond wretched. Whatever happened here, it wasn't pretty. This was a massacre of some kind, and I-" And with that, the female rabbit lying beside him screamed. This, in turn, made Melvin and Crisp scream, purely startled by the fact that one of these rabbits happened to somehow be alive. She took in large gasps of air and looked around frantically, before her eyes fall on them. She opened her mouth, like she was trying to speak. "You...no, you need to not talk, okay?" Melvin said, "Just relax, and uh...Crisp, go get some water or something, somehow!" The rabbit mumbled something, but he couldn't hear it. He put his ear closer to her lips, and she repeated herself. "Death...is here," she said, "Run! RUN!" Melvin looked at her and then heard Crisp scream from behind. He whipped his head back to see her running towards him, tears flying off her face, and what appeared to be a human in a full body suit, with a pure black reflective visor over their face chasing after her. "RUN!" Crisp screamed, and Melvin looked back at the female rabbit, who nodded. He took off with Crisp and together they weaved in and out between corpse after corpse, the human in hot pursuit. Finally they found a large rock and hid behind it, no longer hearing the humans pounding footsteps nearby. Melvin peered around the rock and saw the human had stopped and was pulling up the black snake from the ground, tossing it over their shoulder, before looking down at the rabbit Melvin had been talking to. Melvin furrowed his brow, wondering what this person wanted with her. The human opened what appeared to be a pocket on their hip and pulled out a small black pistol, aimed it at the rabbit and fired, with no remorse whatsoever. Melvin was frozen with fear as he quickly ducked back behind the rock. "Oh my god," he whispered, "He killed her, he...he killed her. We have to hide. We have to find a burrow or something to hide in, Crisp." "There, right there," Crisp said, nodding at a burrow only a few feet away from them. "Okay. They seem to be looking around, I don't think they've seen us, on the count of three, we'll go. If something happens to me, just keep running, okay? Get to safety," Melvin said, and Crisp nodded. He counted, and they took off as fast as they could. Within seconds they could hear gunshot after gunshot echoing through the air, dirt clumps nearby flying into the sky around them, showering them with debris. They were so close, so very very close, and that's when he felt it. That blinding red hot pain, as he stumbled into the burrow after Crisp and looked at his back right leg, a hole shot cleanly through it. He winced at the pain from touching it, and decided it was better to leave it be. It hurt, but he could manage. "What if they...what if they saw us?" Crisp asked, "What if they saw us??" "There's a hundred or more other rabbits out there, there's no way they could tell exactly where we wound up. We just have to be quiet and keep moving through the tunnels, eventually we'll find safety, okay?" "I'm so scared, I'm so fucking scared," Crisp whispered, and Melvin nodded, touching her paw. "I...I know," he said, his eyes squinting from the pain of his gunshot, "But it's okay, we're together and we'll be fine, alright?" "We shouldn't have left," Crisp said, "We should never have left, why did you make us leave?!" "Keep your voice down!" Melvin said in a harsh hushed tone, "Keep it cool, okay? We will discuss who's fault all this is later, right now there's a man out there willing to put a bullet through our heads, and I don't know about you, Crisp, but I don't intend to die in a fucking hole in the ground, alright?" She nodded, and he nodded. They seemed to have an understanding. He walked ahead of her, Crisp now noticing the wound in his leg but not saying a thing about it, lest she upset him even more. Besides, it's not like there was anything they could do right now for it anyway. They had to climb over so many dead rabbits to continue down the path, and they weren't even sure which direction was the right direction to go. This wasn't their burrow, they didn't know where they were, and nobody else knew where they were either. "It's so dark down here," Crisp said. "Yeah, it's...uh, not really the best," Melvin replied, "But there seems to be light up ahead, so that probably means there's another opening that we can get out of and head into the woods from there." "This field was enormous, it wouldn't be that close to the woods already," Crisp whispered. "Well, we don't really have a choice, now, do we?" Melvin responded, "We either stay here and argue about distance or we-" And with that, an arm broke through the dirt overhead and grabbed at Melvin. Crisp screamed as Melvins scruff of his neck was tugged, and he reached for her paws. Crisp held onto him for dear life, watching the fear overtake his face. "Don't let them take me!" Melvin screamed, "Crisp! Don't let them take me, I'm sorry! I'm sorry, this was all my fault! Oh jesus, I'm sorry, you were right, we never should've left!" "Melvin, bite him!" she shouted back, and he tried, but his teeth wouldn't go through. "It's...it's too thick! Whatever he's wearing, it's too thick! Crisper!" Melvin said, his voice now a smidge more restrained, his breathing normalized, "Crisper, I'm sorry. Run. Go back to The Hollow, go back to The Collective. You don't deserve to go like this." "I'm not leaving without you, you're my best friend!" Crisp yelled, "I...I won't go without you!" "Crisp, we shouldn't both have to die down here! Now when you let go of me, and his hands are occupied, run for that hole, get to the woods and somehow make your way back to them. Tell them what you saw here, okay? Tell them what happened to all these rabbits, to ME." "Melvin, no, we can still-" "I love you," Melvin said, "You're my best friend and I love you, man. Now go." And with a push of his last bit of strength, he shoved her away from him, their paws no longer connected, and he vanished through the dirt above. Crisp stood there, dumbfounded, in shock that her best friend was now gone. It was quiet, no gunshot, so whoever this was, they hadn't killed him she figured. She picked up her satchel and his and quickly took off down the burrow, fast as her haunches would carry her, sprinting to the other hole. Tears streamed from her eyes, she was going to make it back, for him if nothing else. She'd make it back, and she'd tell Gerry and the others what just happened, and they'd rescue him. When they attacked the lab, she was sure that's where he'd be, and they'd rescue him, and she'd be his hero. She leaped at the burrow entrance, but couldn't grasp it with her paws. She was frustrated, how did these rabbits ever get out of these things? God, they'd spent so long in the lab they didn't know how to get in and out of burrows properly. Suddenly she heard the sound of dirt shifting around her, and glanced over her shoulder. The black snake had been shoved through the dirt, and she screamed, trying desperately to grasp the edge of the burrow entrance and pull herself up. Thick smog like substance began pouring from the black snake, filling the burrow and heading right for her. She sobbed. No, it wasn't going to end like this. She wasn't going to die in this fucking hole, as Melvin had so eloquently put it. Suddenly, when all hope seemed lost, success! Her paws connected with the rim of the opening and with the last strength she had, she pulled herself up onto the ground. She felt the sunlight on her again, the air was clear and clean, and she started coughing from the smoke in the burrow that the black snake had spewed out at her. She couldn't believe it, she'd made it. Crisp rolled her head to the side and nearly shrieked. A rabbit, their eyes missing, clearly eaten by the birds, was staring directly at her. She backed up a bit and then felt a hand grab her back legs and pick her up, lifting her into the air. She couldn't fight anymore, she just stared in abject terror at her reflection in the black visor covering their face. Time seemed to stop. She couldn't hear anything else, her vision beyond her reflection seemed blurred, and she held her breath. Suddenly she noticed they were lifting a hand towards her, and gripped in their hand was what appeared to be a very large needle. She cried silently, realizing whatever was going to happen, there was no stopping it. She felt the point of the needle slide into the side of her neck, and she began feeling woozy. She was then put into a small metal cage, where she spotted Melvins unconscious body. With what energy she had left, with what last working braincells she could manage to use, Crisp crawled across the cage and collapsed up against her friend. As the person turned and headed off, picking up the black snake and tossing it back over their shoulder, the last sight Crisp saw before she lost all consciousness was that field. A beautiful, sun drenched field, filled with flowers.... ...and filled with death.
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The Rabbit Collective follows a group of lab rabbits struggling with their purpose, and hopeful eventual escape. Archives
October 2020
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