Chapter Text
The rabbit walked slowly, delaying the inevitable as the Animal Hospital slowly came into view. They walked past other buildings as they made their way to the hospital for their (already dreaded) new job.
It was late, very late, as the sun had been gone from the sky for hours, and most of the windows in the apartments, businesses, and the like around the city were dark. Occasionally, though, the rabbit would see a window were light poured out, filling the spaces where the street lights failed, and they could catch glimpses of the intricate lives lying just beyond the glass. Some of them where the homes of single animals, the rabbit had even walked underneath a window where they could hear, faintly, the sound of a television leaking out of an animal's open window, a rom-com maybe, and the bubbly laughter that accompanied it. Some were homes of families, where a myriad of chaotic noise unfurled, and the sounds of both fun and frustration blended together. In other homes, there was just two, sometimes more, and the rabbit could hear nothing but the faint noise of devotion and sweet words being spoken between dedicated animals.
It was natural for them to wonder about it all. To wonder about the lives of the normal animals that they had seen those small, almost meaningless in a vacuum, moments from. They wondered, briefly, too, if they could still be considered normal, like those animals up late safe in their homes.
The answer their brain gave them was almost immediate, as the Hospital grew taller and taller, looming over them the closer they got to it. And that answer was no, they could never be normal again, not after…
They didn't want to think about it, actually, so they did their best to push the thoughts away despite them pushing back just as hard and remaining to take up space in their brain until they acknowledged them again.
But that didn't stop their anxiety from flaring the closer they got to their first shift… at a hospital ( a well known one at that!) that they knew they were extremely under qualified to work at. The best medical experience they had was dealing with their own little injuries, like a little paper-cut, or a strained muscle.
The rabbit couldn't help they way their anxiety went to attack their skills. What if they dropped something? What if they accidentally read something wrong? Or worse, wrote down something wrong— worse yet if that was a treatment! God, they were going to mess up, they knew it. The rabbit could feel it in their bones, they were going to be a complete disaster, and they were going to be fired before they could even step foot into the building—
Then, slowly, it morphed, into something far worse; They begun to worry excessively about their condition, and more importantly about how the other staff would react.
It was no secret there were anomalies, as the phenomenon was being called, loose— the rabbit couldn't help but clench their jaw at the reminder, feeling the way the far too many teeth in there sat unnaturally against each other— But those anomalies, when caught, were… captured, or killed, usually both… according to the recent news the rabbit had seen.
They didn't noticed when they stalled, a short distance away from the front doors of the hospital, standing still in the sidewalk.
The rabbit was well aware of the fact of how their body had changed; how their teeth were now too long, too sharp for something that should be a herbivore, how somehow there had grown more teeth between and behind what they had already had, how their tongue sat strangely in their mouth, it being now too long to fit comfortably in the space, how their claws had grown sharp and never seemed to dull properly now, how they had watched as their face morphed into… something different…
They'd learned through trail and error how to cope with it all, out of necessity more than anything. They'd taken to making sure they ate before being around animals, intentionally avoiding talking to hide the too many teeth in the much too small of a space for it all, filed down their claws to be just at the point before it could be considered an injury, they relied coffee to keep them awake and chase away the fatigue that would lead them to leaning too much on instincts that now itched for violent things, and for… things… that the rabbit, in their right mind and body, would never even begin to consider eating.
They knew this hospital had been dealing with anomalies… The rabbit knew too if the staff realized it was… different, and more like an anomaly than like an animal that maybe a taser, or possibly even the business end of a gun, if the hospital's management had decided to provide the staff with it in face of the more violent anomalies, would be shoved in their face and they'd be knocked out, or killed, and then promptly, cleanly, efficiently, disposed of.
They certainly didn't want to die. The idea terrified them just a thoroughly as it had before all of this, despite a certain sector of their mind echoing a sentiment opposing the instinct built into the rabbit's very being to survive.
They'd looked for a job for that very reason! To survive! Before they… changed, they settled on thinking about it like that, they had a job too!
What kind of job they, honestly, couldn't really remember very well. It was head trauma, they chalked it all up to that; every vague fluttering, elusive fact about themselves that they couldn't quite grasp onto, but reasonably should've known like it was their own skin. It was because of what happened to them to cause their condition in the first place.
The memory problems that plagued their sense of being were ultimately because the rabbit suffered a little bump to the head, and it's not like it prevented them from remembering things that recently happened, not at all! They remembered the doctor that interviewed them for this job well; a taller deer, who wore a mask, a white coat, and was quite polite even if he gave them this internal sinking feeling. But really, that was probably just their anxiety speaking during the interview screaming and writhing every time the doctor looked at their face for just a beat too long.
Nonetheless… They lost their original job, something to do with them being gone from work for too long. Understandable on the company's part, but the rabbit couldn't exactly live without a proper income to support themselves, now could they?
But everyone was now so… suspicious of everyone, they guessed was a good way to put it. The rabbit couldn't blame anyone for it either, really they should've been more careful themselves, and even now, anomalies weren't against trying to take a bite or two out the rabbit despite their condition.
But that caused them many problems trying to get a job with their lack luster resume, and their lack luster answers since they remembered almost nothing that was on said resume. That was if they got past the point of walking into the place, most businesses tried to kick them out immediately because of their face… they could never get it to look quite right…
Before they even realized it, they found their paws on their face, carefully feeling for anything that felt wrong… well, wrong-er than what had become usual for them. They couldn't help the worry spiraling in their head; did their face change? Did their eyes shift? Did they look sunken? Oh god, they were going to be spotted right away and they're going to kill them—
Another animal walked past them, bumping into them briefly and sharply scoffing, "Get out of the middle of the sidewalk, idiot." Then, the animal continued walking, bee-lining it into the hospital's doors.
It was enough to snap them out of it, thankfully.
Maybe, it would be so bad… right?
The rabbit sighed, slightly adjusting their hoodie and pulling slightly on the drawstrings.
Better now than never no?
… plus they really needed the paycheck.
New hires weren't common, especially not with the increased amount of injured patients coming in because of… anomalies. Let alone anomalies themselves trying to get into the hospital, for what the Secretary, Sawyer, could only assume was an attempt at getting as easy meal.
Luckily for the hospital, they had security, who wasn't on shift… but they did also have an armed medical assistant. As strange as Mouse (an ironic name choice to Sawyer, considering he was a cat) having a gun was, Sawyer wouldn't be mad about having solid protection against the things that ultimately boiled down to walking murder machines.
Though, the sheep was tired of their job, to say the least, but not exactly enough to quit the job (yet). But that exhaustion was eased with the news of a new hire coming to the hospital to help. Sawyer just had to wait for said new hire to show their face. Though, the new hire would be more of an intern apparently according to the short, very nondescript run down Dr. Harlow had given them before scurrying off to whatever it was he did during his shifts.
"When do you think they're going to get here?" Mouse suddenly pipped up from where he was sat backwards on a chair set up in front of the security cameras. The cat didn't talk much outside of business, really, he more often stood to the side and watched what was going on with his piercing yellow eyes. But… when he did, it was more often than not unserious, despite his typically very serious demeanor.
Sawyer sighed not keen on entertaining Mouse's pointless questions while waiting for the hospital's ever slow, and extremely outdated computer to process the records of the patient patiently waiting off to the side at the check-in window.
Mouse huffed to himself, more jokingly than annoyed, "Maybe they got cold paws and ran off."
Sawyer listened to the clicking of the cameras being flicked through by the cat. They couldn't blame him for trying to joke though, working in this hospital almost required the ability to cope with objectively horrible events in some way, like Mouse attempting to joke about it all.
"Wouldn't blame them either," Mouse admitted with a sigh, his tail lazily flicking around while he waited for something to happen that called for his interference, and his holstered gun, "This place can get pretty… perilous."
The ring of the hospital's glass doors being pushed open made both sawyer and Mouse look up, both expecting to see either an ambulance just outside or an anomaly entering after a suspiciously calm night.
Instead of that though, a… confused looking yellow-orange furred rabbit stood awkwardly in the doorway, looking around. They stood taller than most would expect for a rabbit, wore a white hoodie and gray pants, and, for all intents and purposes, looked overall… disheveled like they'd woke up too late for something to properly get ready for it.
Sawyer had already looked away from the new-possible patient, refocusing on the task of checking in the to-be patient in front of him, waiting impatiently for the printer to function at it's snails pace. Still, out of habit he called to the rabbit, "Please make a line, I will be with you in a moment."
At Sawyer's words the rabbit jumped, seemingly not expecting to be addressed so frankly, and they promptly moved to further stand awkwardly against the wall near the reception window.
Mouse, on the other paw, watched the rabbit carefully while Sawyer worked. He looked for any signs of the rabbit being an anomaly, out of a mixture of habit and necessity. The cat noticed the strange facial features of the rabbit's, uncanny and flat when considered together as whole, and while it was a sign it also wasn't something that made an animal being an anomaly a certainty. Likewise, the cat held back his instinct to draw his weapon, he was well aware, after all, that sometimes animals just looked like that… which was ultimately why anomalies had grown so dangerous in the first place. Mouse glanced at the cameras, looking briefly for where the rabbit showed up. Nothing strange showed on the screen either. So far, the rabbit was turning out to be relatively safe, barring their face.
Thus, Mouse turned to just watch Sawyer do his job and to watch the rabbit wait, the latter of which turned out to certainly be… something. The cat got to watch them fidget, slowly shifting through wringing their hands together, pulling and twisting the draw strings on their hoodie, and even the slightly more self destructive habit of pressing their claws into their paw pads. Mouse was almost relived when all the rabbit's fidgeting never developed into something closer to twitching. They were just a particularly nervous patient, he hoped, not necessarily keen on having to draw his gun tonight.
Eventually, the patient ahead of them walked off, after getting a short explanation about where they should go to get to their assigned room.
"Alright," The secretary called, automatically pulling a new patient form from the stack of blank forms piled up underneath the reception desk. The sheep beckoned the strange rabbit over to the counter, and with a monotone he asked, pen in paw, "What's your name?"
The rabbit bristled, shaking their head, but maintaining the smile plaster on their face.
Sawyer sighed, lifting their glasses to rub their eyes. "Are you not here to be admitted as a patient?"
The rabbit's brows furrowed, and they shook their head again, their smile failing them.
"Visitor, then?" The secretary asked, annoyance slowly seeping into his tone.
And, yet again, the rabbit shook their head, frustration clearly beginning to form.
Mouse hummed, standing up from his chair and coming up to stand to the left of Secretary. His tone grew serious, while a paw rested on his holstered gun, "What for then?"
The rabbit looked around momentarily, a frustrated expression making it's way onto their face before they sighed.
Mouse and Sawyer tensed when the rabbit leaned forward and grabbed both the form and pen from the secretary's paws.
Quickly though, the rabbit flipped the paper over, to the completely blank white side and scrabbled words onto it. Neither Mouse or Sawyer missed how the rabbit's paws shook when they slid both things back toward the two.
The sheep was the first to read what the rabbit wrote in handwriting that was as equally nervous looking as the rabbit themselves seemed;
Sorry. It's supposed to be my first day working here?
"Oh!" The sheep smiled, relaxing and turning to stand up.
The cat caught up quickly, beating the sheep to the door. He hummed as he opened it, gesturing for the rabbit to enter, "So you're the Intern."
The rabbit nodded, walking into the little room for the employees and finding a space to stand quietly.
The secretary laughed lightly, wandering over to the coffee machine. "You scared me for a second there… uhm...?"
The rabbit shrugged. Strange.
"Alright…" The sheep looked away, awkwardness settling into their tone. Sawyer, out of habit, grabbed three out of the many mugs set out next to the coffee machine and began pouring coffee into three of them. Each staff member had their own mug there, Sawyer's was a simple blue one he'd brought in from home, and Mouse's was a gray one with three little lines of fish printed horizontally along the sides. For the new hire, Sawyer was sure their off-shift security, Sherry, wouldn't mind them borrowing her multicolored stripped mug for the time being. Sawyer paused, halfway through filling the third one, and turned to the rabbit, "Sorry, I just assumed— would you like coffee?"
The Intern smiled, a strangely wide but nonetheless friendly one, and nodded.
Mouse had half the mind to be put on edge by it… but nothing else seemed wrong, just their face, and there was almost always more than one sign something was wrong. Plus, why on earth would an anomaly be hired to work at a hospital that more often than not kills the anomalies that turned up at it?
Sawyer gladly finished pouring the coffee into the mugs, and promptly set up another full pot to brew. Then, he handed a mug to not only the rabbit but also to Mouse.
To say the cat was grateful for the cup of coffee was an understatement, and the rabbit seemed pretty happy about it, too.