Chapter Text
Note: This and the epilogue are the only 2 chapters with this specific POV.
You open your eyes and it’s dark.
It’s a dream. You can always tell when you are dreaming. The thick purple miasma obscuring everything around you also gives a bit of a hint that you aren’t where you were earlier. No longer safely in bed at home but instead someplace other .
A deep sigh echoes about the dark and the fog clears, or rather lightens enough to show that you sit in the middle of an empty auditorium. Before you sits a wooden stage, and there's the sound of footsteps tromping across the floor. Except instead of coming from the stage itself the sound emerges from cracking speakers around the room. It gives a sense of empty space and hollow echoes.
A pause. A breath. A beat of time.
And the show begins.
The heavy red curtain raises, revealing a tall man in a white suit standing on an empty stage. His shirt is red striped and matches the curtains on the stage, but the fluttering rainbow ribbons overflowing his pockets flicker a sense of unease in your chest. A spotlight clicks on below his feet, casting a ghastly shadow behind him for a moment, full of sharp teeth and red eyes, before a second light flickers on from the upper section, turning the shadow back into that of a man.
Absently, you note, that while the shadow is of a man he himself is wearing a strange white rabbit mask. Or not fully a mask, as you simply know that he’s entire head is that of a rabbit. Broken and twisted wires stick up below his left ear, showing off a broken black hole in the top of his head. And a second hole, or was it the first?, sits on the right side - just under his eye. Fur is torn and missing, mesh scattered and the hole is… gaping.
It gives off the impression that the mask had been impaled at some point. And you're not entirely certain if it was empty or not when it happened.
A second sigh, as the rabbit bows once to acknowledge you. As he straightens he lifts a hand to reveal a simple white teacup.
“Oh dear… how terribly, terribly foolish.” He says, with a bored laugh. “The sheer idiocy is almost enough to bring a laugh to the fuzzy muzzy of anybunny.” High giggles echo in the empty chairs.
He nods and gestures with the teacup, his voice deep and calm. “I had a bit of time you see, a break of sorts, so I thought I’d whip up a spot of tea for myself, you see. Nothing unusual or strange or different about that at all.”
“But I can neither eat nor drink! Nor stop and smell the roses hips! It’s the head! You see! My fuzzy wuzzy HEAD.” He shrieks out with laughter, jarring and high pitched. Sympathetic murmurs sound from behind and you focus on staring straight ahead.
The mask tilts with his head and a single wire wiggles distractingly. Despondently he continues. “What can I do you ask…? Well… I can stir the spoon the cup..” He brings the cup up to his face and clicks the spoon around inside, as though to demonstrate. Distractedly he continues on. “Whirly twirly. That’s about it. Long and short… teehee whirly whirly… round and round she goes. Where she stops nobody knows.” His voice breaks into song and he repeats ‘whirly whirly’ for several long minutes.
At the end there’s a scattering of applause and you have to close your eyes against the ringing in your ears. When you open them again the rabbit…
No, the man.
No, the rabbit; no longer holds the cup but instead a single red balloon drifting about above his head with a long white string tied to his pinky.
“Eh?” He shouts, hands on his hips. “No silly questions now. None of the nonsense. Not any distractions. We simply have no time. There’s so much to do.” Quieter, and slightly more thoughtfully he adds. “Ahhh, I don’t suppose it really matters though. It all goes round and round in the end. Don’t ask me ‘what does it mean?’ I won’t have such silly things shouted in my presence.” You flinch, as the rabbit's empty masked eyes focus on you once more. His shouts echo and rattle about the room.
“After all. There’s never been even one iota of meaning in this world! No matter what anybunny does or doesn’t do it’s all pointless! Hehe.. hehehehe…. BWAHAHAHA POINTLESS. What a pointless world this is!” He clutches his sides, arms crossed and shakes with mirth. Around you you can hear accompanying snickers.
His speech slows, the words loosening and turning gentle and his laughter fades. Wistfully he sighs out. “What a nice thought. How pleasant and sweet isn’t it? To know what is assuredly to be something of an always. What the future will hold.” Dramatically, he sighs heavily causing the balloon to sway at the motion. “However I must admit, at least between you and me, it could grow tiresome before long. The tedium of existence and pointlessness. It is such hard work. Or perhaps it's not really any at all?”
“Eh? What’s this?” He turns, to stare at the empty white background behind himself.
A light clicks on in the background of the stage. A large black outline of a tree is revealed leaning over the man's shadow. The balloon doesn’t seem to show up at all, instead a single bright green apple perches amongst the black branches.
“Ooooooh!” He cries, gleefully.
Maniacally.
A shattering sound echoes across the stage, out through the speakers and settles around your bones.
The audience murmurs in pleasure but the only thing you feel is cold.
“How DREADFUL. How AWFUL? Another adorable apple, not yet ripe or ready, poised to fall from the tree before its time?!” The man clutches his chest, before reaching up with both hands; hands cupped into claws.
“There’s not a moment to lose! I must scoop it up! I must, for what a waste it would be to let such beauty turn to rot, to be alone on the ground of this cruel and grinding world.”
The apple falls into his hands, and he turns holding it aloft for all to see. Thunderous applause fills the room even as the edges began to blur. You’re not sure why but the tears begin falling from your eyes as the rabbit steps forward to the edge of the stage.
Softly, curiously he stares straight through you. “I wonder what sort of newbie’ll be?” The cold burns inside of you. “What sort of story will they create? What ending will they find? Hehehehe.”
You choke on a scream, his bright laughter like claws around your throat.
And with a final bow, his ears flopping forward in the flourish, you wake.