Velvet

Bunny

I stood alone in the most perfect, velvety darkness. A darkness you could press yourself into. A darkness you could lean on.

“Hello?" I called experimentally.

No reply. The air felt soft. Tangy. A scent of sweet earth. Where the heck was I? I couldn’t tell if my eyes were open or closed. I probably ought to be scared, but for some reason, I felt sorta snug, almost like I was a kid again, safe in a blanket fort or something.

“Is anyone there?"

"Hello, Abigail."

I jumped about a foot in the air. The voice came from all around me. A rich, rolling, masculine voice, like a dodgy plastic surgeon or a sleazy politician. A voice used to being in control of things.

I've always been a jumpy person. Carl, my husband, makes fun of me for it, hiding behind doors and then popping out just to see how high I go. He keeps a score on his phone. I don't like it much when he does that.

It was pitch dark, and I was hearing voices. Definitely not a good sign, but still, I wasn't afraid. What had I been doing, before this velvety darkness? I couldn't remember.

"Where am I, please? Am I sick?"

"No, Abigail, you are not sick."

Only my mother calls me Abigail. To everyone else, I'm Abi. Abi Nightingale, the homemaker with the bad leg, popping painkillers and shuffling around the store leaning into the cart. Mother to three grown-up kids who never call. Nice house in the suburbs. Toyota Camry out front. Nothing remarkable about me at all.

Maybe I was sick and people were trying to communicate with me, or else maybe I was in the lair of some serial killer, but seriously, what serial killer would want someone like me?

Maybe I was dreaming. Or dead. That was another option. Actually, dead made the most sense.

"What is the last thing you remember Abigail?"

I tried to remember. It felt like a dream, fading on waking. The doorbell chiming, hobbling to my front door using my cane. Pushing the door open. Saying hello to the woman in the sharp suit who was standing on my porch.

“There was a woman at my door.”

"Good. You remember."

Why had a woman in a sharp suit come to my door? Why was everything dark?

With a sudden shock, I realised my leg didn’t hurt. My breath caught in my throat. I took a step in the dark. The motion was smooth, nothing caught inside. I reach down, touched the place at my hip, where the scars were, where the hip and pelvis were held together with metal. My skin was smooth beneath my pyjamas.

I'm not broken anymore? And pyjamas? I'm wearing pyjamas?

The missing pain was like a hole. Like a piece of meat gone from the middle of me, replaced with warmth. Tears sprang into my eyes. It felt good, but it felt like a betrayal too. My dad hadn't survived the accident. Losing the pain felt like losing a little piece of his memory.

“What happened? Why doesn’t my leg hurt?”

"You have been - reassigned."

The voice came from everywhere, all around me. Rich and close and rolling. Reassuring. Unnerving. How can a voice in the darkness be both reassuring and unnerving at the same time?

“Am I dead? I can’t see anything. Are you God?”

"No, Abigail. You are not dead. I am not God."

What was happening? My body felt so light, almost... springy. Reassigned? Where was the pain? Who was the girl in the suit?

"What do I do, please? I can’t see anything."

"I need your help, Abigail."

“Help? Help with what?”

As if in reply, writing unfolded in the air in front of me. Green writing that pressed itself into the flawless blackness and shimmered. I reached out, trying to touch the screen that logically must be there, but there was no screen and my hand passed right through the words leaving a glowing trail like smoke.

Three words humming in the darkness:

“Defend the dungeon.”

---

Cat

"What the actual fuck?"

The last thing I remembered was marching up that woman’s drive, latte in one hand, divorce papers tucked under my arm. Knock knock. Dumb blonde opening the door, all pyjamas and messy hair. Stupid woman had no idea she was about to get served. No idea her husband was leaving her.

Dumb kid should have paid closer attention to business.

I paced through the empty darkness. I could see nothing with my eyes, but somehow, I could still sense what was around me, a pillar here, a ceiling somewhere very high above. I could hear the sound of water dripping a long way away. I could sense small creatures moving somewhere nearby. They were afraid of me, trying to be quiet. I could hear them anyway, I could almost smell them.

“Hey!"

“Hello Katherine.”

The voice had come from nowhere and everywhere all at once. I couldn't help but laugh, shit was actually pretty terrifying.

"Hello? Weird voice? What’s going on? Why is it dark?"

There had better be a pretty good explanation for all of this. I had a busy Tuesday lined up and I was in no mood to be fucked with.

“What is the last thing you remember, Katherine?”

I ignored the question. People don't ask me questions. I'm the one that asks questions.

“What the fuck is going on?” I said.

There was a pause.

“Please answer me, Katherine. What is the last thing you remember?”

“Yeah, I don’t need to answer you. I know my rights. You’d better let me out of here right now or things are going to get ugly for you.”

“I need your help, Katherine.”

“Yeah, that’s not happening. You’re going to turn the lights on, and you’re going to show me where the door is, or I’m going to make bad things happen in your life. Don’t fucking test me on this.”

Writing started to unfurl in the empty space out in front of me like some sort of sci-fi hologram. I stalked around it, studying it from all angles. The edges of the letters wavered as I got in close. I swiped a hand through the message. It hummed like something electrical.

Three words were written there, hovering in the dark like a unix terminal. Not that I’d know what a unix terminal is, I hate that nerd shit.

The words were an instruction. I don’t take too kindly to being bossed around, but these words were interesting. They said:

"Destroy the Dungeon"

---

Bunny

...and there was light. And I could see where I was.

I was standing in the most glorious little limestone cave with chandeliers of hanging stalactites and bright sparks of aragonite all up the walls. The roof was a beautiful mess of soda straws, with bright beads of water clinging to their tips. I could see the carbonic acid weathering from eons of seeping rainwater. The floor was lined with flowstone, smooth and undulating. Helictiles spiraled from the walls like lilies.

I’ve always loved caves. At school I was the kid who would bring square faceted salt crystals to science fair. I travelled a good deal in the French Dordogne when I was a teenager, zipping from gouffre to grotto in a ratty little hire car. NArrow roads between cliffs. Glorious trees and fairytale chateaux. Later I spent a wild few years studying Geology at Cornell, but then I met Carl and had the kids and all that had to stop.

I wouldn’t change anything of course. The kids are a blessing, but sometimes I do wonder.

There was something on my head, flapping around, nagging at me like a hat. It caught in my hair. Before I could check it, the voice spoke again, very smooth and professional, like a dentist about to pull teeth.

“Welcome, new user Abigail. You have been assigned a role.”

New user? Was this a VR game? I touched my hand to the crystal wall. Little spikes of mineral pressed into my fingertips. It certainly felt solid.

I wouldn’t put it past Carl to buy some brand new type of PlayStation and jack me into it without telling me. Carl likes a practical joke, but was there a console that could feed images directly into a persons mind? I hadn’t heard of anything.

“Carl, are you there? Do I get a weapon? Are skeletons going to come and try to eat me?”

“No, Abigail. Skeletons will not come and Carl is not available in this environment.”

“Carl, this isn’t funny.”

“Carl is not available in this environment.”

“I don’t know what you mean!”

I touched my hands to my face. There was no headset. My chest was hurting. I didn't feel safe anymore.

“Carl is not available…”

“I think I’d like to wake up now, please.” I interrupted. Although the voice didn’t stop talking. It spoke right over me as though I hadn’t said anything.

I put my hands on my knees, breathing. I was in a cave by myself with no pain and I was hearing voices. It had to be a dream.

But did I really want to wake up? Back into the real world where I had to hobble from couch to kitchen, sucking pain killers every four hours? Limping around the store for Carl’s dinner.

“Assignment complete. Please pay close attention to the system prompt.”

"System prompt? What..?"

The air shimmered, and new writing appeared, this time floating in the middle of the cavern. There was no screen and no obvious projector. Clearly it was computer generated, but how?

“New alignment: Evil. Level zero. Job title: Dungeon Mistress.”

Another shimmer. Words appeared and the voice spoke in my mind. This time it sounded a little less reassuring. There was a manic edge to it, like a corporate executive contemplating an open window.

“You are tasked with defending the dungeon from adventurers. Protect the core! Failure means death. Your death! Good luck, Dungeon Keeper. I've seen the competition, and I'm pretty sure you’re gonna need it!”

Yet another shimmer. This time the words were huge, right on top of me. I couldn’t see round them:

“CORE INBOUND. Be ready to catch! If you drop it, you might actually die!”

A sudden brightness sparkled like a little star near my face. I could hardly see around the enormous writing. I snatched at the brightness, fumbled. It rolled down my front. I let it hit my slipper to cushion the fall. It rolled across the floor. As it tipped, I felt vertigo.

It was a white crystal shard, no bigger than my hand, lit from within by some inner fire.

As it rolled, it was as though I was turning over and over with it. Rolling with the bright stone across the floor. I sank to my knees, feeling queasy.

The voice spoke again. It's tone was breathless. Very much not reassuring.

“You have been granted control of the core! Boy, are you in trouble now!”

The voice stuttered and glitched. A system error chime sounded, loud in the little cavern. Words appeared in the air. The box was different this time, bold red text on a textured grey background.

“Critical exception! Out of memory! System going to reboot! See you later!”

“Are you a computer?"

The voice said nothing.

“Are you still there?"

A little computer shutdown tune played. The popup disappeared, leaving me alone.

Try not to die? The crystal lay on the floor near my hand, quite still now, but still pulsing with light. There was something - attractive, about it. I was drawn to it like hot cocoa. I tapped it with my fingernail. It was an extraordinary sensation. I could feel the tap, as though I was poking my own skin. I lifted the rock and held it to my chest. I could feel my own hands wrapped around, warm and safe. It pulsed in time with my heart.

Holding it was like holding a baby bird, except the baby bird was me somehow. Like I was holding my own soul, made afresh. A new life. A do-over. I had tears in my eyes. Why was I crying over a rock? I brought it up to my face and pressed it to my cheek. It pressed back.

"Are you the core?" I asked.

I didn't need to ask, I knew it deep inside. Someone was coming to hurt it? I might actually die? I kept my hands tight around it, picked a tunnel, and began walking.

Cat

At least there was actual light now, not just the weird spatial awareness I had experienced before. I still had that, stashed in the back of my head somewhere. I’m not sure how I knew it, but I knew it.

“Hey motherfuckers, I can see in the dark,” I yelled. No reply, but I could sense movement somewhere off in one of the tunnels.

“Yeah, you’d better hide,” I muttered. "I'm coming to fuck you up."

A weapon would be sensible. I hunted around for something suitable. Even a stick or a rock would do. I had a Glock in my car, but that wasn't much help now. This whole thing was probably a halucination, but I wasn't taking chances.

Drugs. That was the best explanation. Someone had spiked my coffee. I was probably passed out on the lawn with that blonde girl staring down at me and the paperwork all spread out on the grass. Well that was fucking awkward. Heck, I had enough enemies.

I work for a company that handles, what you might call, “asynchronous divorces”. That is divorces where one party wants no fuss, and the other party - usually the woman if I’m honest - has no idea that their comfy little world is about to be shredded.

Steve, the CTO, calls it “divorce as a service”. The client fills in a few forms on the website and we handle everything else, from serving the paperwork to negotiating the settlement. The client goes out in the morning and basically never has to see their partner again, except for the final hearing, or unless there are kids, which does complicate things quite a bit.

Steve calls it "Streamlining the flow of romantic capital". Steve is a dick, if I'm honest, but he pays well.

I don't like my job, if I'm honest, but fuck it. Someone's got to do it.

This client had been pretty standard. Some middle class asshole called Carl decided his wife wasn't doing it for him anymore, but was too chickenshit to do the deed himself. Boring house in suburbia, one unit in a grid of thousands, all the same. The deal was he would go out to work, we'd do the dirty, then he'd move into a hotel until the financials were complete.

Knock, knock at the door. Boom. Life over.

Maybe the blonde girl shot me and now I was locked in my own head? That would explain the voices, probably doctors trying to communicate. I was going to take someone to the cleaners for this. The motherfucking cleaners. It was going to be brutal.

Maybe this whole cave thing was some kind of metaphor for coming out of a coma.

There was something caught in the back of my trousers, spoiling the line of my suit. Something in my hair too, spoiling the do. No time to worry about hair.

“Hey! Motherfucker! Talk to me."

The voice didn’t reply,"

"Hey! Asshole!"

“Hello... Katherine... Please stand by...” the voice sounded a lot less smarmy. It sounded kinda broken. The pitch was all off, and it kept freezing.

New writing appeared, floating in the tunnel in front of me.

“Alignment: Good. "Level zero. "Job title: adventurer. "Racial ability: blindsight.”

It was like the games of DnD I used to play with my dad, back before dumb little Kat realised that life is hard, and people never really love you. Fuck 'em all.

"Why would I care about this shit?"

More words appeared, this time in a different font. The voice read the words aloud. Its tone was a lot less polished. It sounded a little - unhinged to be honest.

“Welcome adventurer to Challenge Dungeon World! New objective: Smash the Dungeon Core! All you've got to do to escape this hellhole is break a little rock. Just like breaking hearts, except with more physical violence. You should be great at this!”

Was that meant to be some kind of joke about my job? Someone was going to pay for this. The whole mental anguish angle was shaping up nicely.

"You trying to be funny? I'm going to fuck over your life when I get out of here."

I contemplated just sitting on the floor and refusing to move, but sitting on the floor has never really my style. I like to run.

I could break things. I could break a rock, if that was what it took. It legitimately didn't sound too hard.

I just had to find it and hit it with something heavy.

No Mario for me

Bunny

I walked the tunnels at random. They twisted and turned every which way. Always on a flat plane though, never up or down, which was odd. The light made no sense either. There were no lamps I could see, and yet everything was illuminated and there were multiple shadows under me, as though there were hundreds of invisible point light sources all around.

Every few hundred meters the tunnels branched off to the left or the right. I could be going in any direction. I should be panicking, but something about the tunnels felt... homely. It was an odd sensation, like a warmth in my chest that mirrored the warmth in the crystal that I still cradled close to my heart.

And there was no pain! The raging misery in my hip that had eaten my life for so long was gone! I was so light, I could almost skip, but I held the crystal close in two hands and walked carefully.

There were some beautiful calcite deposits here. I leaned in to look at them. A small rectangular popup appeared. It was not bright and mysterious like the green writing had been, just ordinary writing in a white box that hovered a few inches in front of the wall.

I pulled my hand back, but the popup remained. There was an X in the corner with a countdown timer next to it, as though it would self close if I did nothing. It was slightly translucent, I could see the minerals behind. I leaned in to read the writing.

Purchase map tile y/N
Mana cost: 1
Starting mana: 100

It was just like a computer game, but it was real somehow. I was actually here, walking about, whatever that meant. Carl had never much liked computer games. I had owned a Nintendo when I first met him, but that was just one of those things that I needed to cut from my life, after we bought the house and things got hard. No Mario for me.

I put out a cautious finger and poked at the popup. It flowed out of the way, and my finger touched the limestone behind.

Purchase map tile? It was a nice mineral deposit. Could I actually buy it and take it home? Was this some sort of collect the minerals quest? Would I get a screenshot or something?

I tried stabbing at the letter "y" but the popup flowed out of the way again. I had no keyboard, no desk to put a keyboard.

"Y," I said experimentally, and suddenly my mind unfolded.

It was like stepping into a warm bath, everything unrolling and unravelling and opening up. Like a stretch that just keeps getting bigger, out and out until it can't fit inside your body. Like a Jacob's ladder, rolling around forever.

I could feel the tunnel. I could sense it like it was a part of my body. I understood the curve of it, and the branch up ahead to the left, and where that would take me, towards a big cave, a big open space with pillars, just on the edge of my awareness.

I stumbled, my hand going to my chest. I could feel my heart humming there. I could feel the bright crystal beating in time with it. I could feel the minerals and the strata, the tunnel driven through the strata, a naive imposition onto the perfection of it. It was all me. Everything was me.

It was intoxicating, the size of myself, and I could just hop around for joy.

There was still something stuck to my head. Time to care about that later. I set off through the tunnel that was part of me, headed for the big cavern.

Cat

Dumb tunnels everywhere. Each one going nowhere, curving back around. The big cave went back a long way, full of pillars and weird broken statues. I kicked at a rock and hurt my toe. My morning latte felt like a lifetime ago. I hadn’t even finished it.

Dumb blond girl hadn’t even let me finish my latte before drugging me or shooting me or chucking me down a hole, or whatever this was.

“Dungeon core to the north, mistress."

Something whispered in my ear, very close to the side of my head. I felt the puff of its breath on my neck.

“What! Get off! Get the fuck off me!"

I clawed at my shoulders and felt something slimy there, like a cold glob of snot stuck to my jacket. I hurled it away. It tumbled and fell with a little plop. Damp residue clung to my fingers.

“Ugh! What the fuck?"

The thing was lying on the floor completely still. A misty little grey shape. I nudged it with my toe and was rewarded with a whimper.

“Did you just talk to me?"

The little thing didn’t reply, just lay there crying.

“If you can talk, I want you to talk to me."

It was sobbing now, little shudders going through the misty body, and a pool of wetness spreading around it.

“I’m ordering you to talk to me," as if that would do anything. Still, I couldn’t think of anything else to try.

“Mistress is angry," whispered the little blob thing.

“You’re darn right I’m angry. What the hell? Why am I here? What the ever-loving shit is going on?"

“Mistress is confused..."

“I’m not confused, and stop calling me mistress. I’m no one’s mistress. You can quit quivering."

The blob thing uncurled and stood. It was a lumpy little man, six inches tall, made out of goopy grey stuff with misty edges.

“What were you doing on my shoulder?"

“Please, mistress, I dropped down while you were not looking. I waited in my hiding place. Waited so long, so many centuries all the same."

Creepy little thing.

“Well, you can go back to your hiding place and wait another century or whatever. I don’t care."

“Mistress does not want me?"

“Mistress certainly does not want a goopy little dwarf clambering around in her hair."

“Dink is not dwarf. Dink is tunnel sprite. Dink not touch hair yet."

“You better not touch my fucking hair. Go crawl back into your, wherever you came from. Wait, is your name actually Dink?"

The little creature nodded its head. “Dink, mistress. It is a good name? Dink chose it himself, so long ago."

“You could have chosen any name, and you chose Dink?"

“It is a strong name. Dink is hero to his people."

You’re mad is what you are. I didn’t say it out loud. The weird little slug might know things.

“Maybe, I will let you help me. What is this place? How do I get out?"

“You complete the quest, mistress. Mistress knows about quests?"

Of course, I know about quests. I used to love quests. “No, tell me about quests. Don’t do any crying, just the facts."

“Green words say DESTROY THE CORE. Mistress must destroy the core, then mistress ascends."

“Ascends?"

“Mistress leaves. Dink will be all alone again." The rubbery little thing spoke in a sing song voice, like a person who’s seen some shit, then spent altogether too much time hugging their knees and singing to themselves. It curled up on the floor again, its blobby shoulders shook.

“I said no crying! Show me where this core is so we can get this over with. I’ve got a whole Tuesday scheduled."

"Dink can ride on shoulder?"

"Fine."

"Dink can touch hair?"

"Don’t fucking push it."

---

Bunny

The thing on my head was really bothering me, but i didn’t want to put down the crystal to deal with it. There was something stuffed down the back of my pants, too. It was a double whammy of uncomfortableness.

I brushed another wall section with my elbow.

Purchase map tile Y/n
Mana cost: 1
Mana: 91

“Purchase" I said, feeling my consciousness expand out into new space. It didn’t seem to matter what i said, as long as i didn’t say no. There was a metaphor there somewhere.

It was addictive. I was still me, inside my own head, but I was everything else, too. The big cavern was just up ahead. I could sense it, though it wasn’t a part of me yet. It was a dim outline in my mind, a misty edge.

The tunnel became wider, grander. There were little arches carved in the wall where candles could go, if I had any candles.

Purchase Candles Y/n
Mana cost: 0

What?

“Purchase," I said, and the tunnel was bathed in warm flickering light. All the little rock formations sparkled. It was... homely.

Someone had clearly made this place. The paths looked random, but were obviously too random. The sort of random you get when someone picks three or seven, rather than something more orderly sounding but equally likely like one or ten.

No natural cavern has flat floors for walking. Natural caverns are three-dimensional voids in the living rock, carved by water over millennia. This was more like a mine made to look like someone’s vision of a natural tunnel. Someone who had never been inside a real cave.

I, on the other hand, had studied Geology at Cornell.

There was a change in the air up ahead, a coldness, and then I was out, breathless in a space that made me giddy.

I was a hall full of pillars, arching up, curving up, into a valuted spider’s nest of ribs and bosses around the ceiling.

It looked, to be frank, almost exactly like the Mines of Moria. I hummed the Lord of the Rings theme to myself.

“Bummm ba ba bummm ba ba bummm"

But I wasn’t alone.

There, off in the distance, was a girl.

---

Cat

And there, just as Dink had said, was a girl.

Or something like a girl, anyhow. It had a strange way of walking, and were those ears on its head? Like it was wearing some dumb furry hat.

“Mistress should take care," Dink whispered. Creepy little thing had got in close.

“Why?" Maybe the nasty goblin did know something useful.

“It carries the core. It is the keeeeeeper."

“So, what, I smash the core, and then I get to go home, right?"

“Mistress is talking too loudly."

---

Bunny

The girl was wearing a smart business outfit. It was the same suit who had knocked on my door earlier, carrying a stack of official-looking paperwork. She was crouching a little and seemed to be whispering to herself.

Were those cat ears? There was a tail too, poking out the top of her suit pants, twitching. She had whiskers and a pink-coloured nose.

“Hello," I called out.

The cat girl seemed to notice me. She smiled and began stalking towards me. Her face was friendly, but her tail was twitching.

“Hello," the cat girl said. She sounded like a lawyer, cool and reasonable.

Cool and reasonable as they take away your house, Dad had said once, before... Before the accident that had left me in permanent pain, and my father...

Carl had been driving that day. Carl, my loving husband, who had somehow managed to walk away from the crash with only cuts and a broken nose from his airbag. My airbag hadn’t gone off, and there had been none in the back seat where my father had been. The crash had messed me up pretty badly. Dad hadn’t made it.

“It’s good to see someone else," said the cat girl. “Can you help me? I’m completely lost." Still, her tail twitched.

---

Cat

Stupid rabbit cosplay thing. Who dresses up as a rabbit? She had golden brown velvety ears on her head, poking out through the messy blonde hair. She was wearing tartan pyjamas. She looked familiar.

Wait a minute. Was this the girl on the doorstep? The dumb blonde whose husband was leaving her? The one who had drugged me or shot me or whatever?

She looked different with the bunny makeup and the twitchy little nose. It was definitely her though, I was sure of it. Right, gloves off then.

“You’d better listen carefully," I said. “I have friends. If you don’t let me out of here right now, I can make very serious problems for you. Do you understand?"

“Very good mistress," whispered Dink. “Lead with threats."

The rabbit girl hung her head. She seemed really tired. She was holding some sort of glowing crystal in two hands, close to her heart like it was precious. It pulsed with light.

“The coooooore," whispered Dink.

"What?" I whispered.

"Smash the cooooooore. Smite Eeeeevil."

OK, whatever, but I did want to get out of here.

“I'm going to have to ask you to hand over that rock," I said.

The rabbit girl just clutched it closer to her chest. She wasn’t looking down anymore. She was looking right back at me. Right in the eyes, defiant.

"Look, we can be reasonable. I've got you on at least a dozen major counts of kidnapping, false imprisonment, cooercian and duress, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Give me the rock and maybe we can talk about it."

“You can’t have it, said the girl."

“Give me the fucking rock," I said. "I’m through playing. Give me the rock now or I’ll knock you the fuck out and take it from you."

She didn't even reply, just clutched it close like it was her baby or something. Like it was her soul. I was so completely done with this bullshit. I walked up to her, nice and slow. She wasn't talking, just watching me warily. She was a good bit older than me, and she didn't look like she worked out too often. I kept a friendly smile on my face, arms to the side. Nothing to worry about here...

Bunny

The cat lawyer suit girl sprang at me. It was completely unexpected. One minute I was standing, and the next I was on my back with the cat so close to my face, scratching at me with claws, were those real claws? A sharp sting across my cheek, and then a blow to my jaw. It didn’t hurt. It was a hard jolt that made my vision jerk around. Again and again. I was being punched, no one had punched me since school.

“Get off me!" I yelled, trying to push her away

But the girl wouldn’t get off. She began prying at my fingers, trying to get the crystal. The cat’s nails were so sharp. I was bleeding from a lot of little cuts on my fingers. My hands were slippery with blood. The crystal was slipping from my grasp, and then the girl was up, off me, sprinting away down the hall, tail high behind her.

Cat

A rock, or something. I needed something heavy to smash the crystal. Maybe I could just bash it against a pillar, or throw it on the floor? I didn’t want to throw it, what if it bounced and rolled away?

The stupid bunny girl was hopping along after me with blood coming out of the scratches I had left on her face.

“Smash the coooooore," whispered Dink again.

“I’ll be glad not to see you again."

Over there, a chunk of fallen masonry, about the size of a brick. Perfect for smashing. I ran to it and snatched it up.

The bunny girl was standing nearby, not chasing me any more. She was leaning up against a pillar. Giving up already? Dumb little bunny.

Dumb Bunny leaning into the pillar.

Dumb Bunny, head down, talking to herself.

Stupid Rabbit.

“Purchase," whispered Bunny, and suddenly the hall was bathed in light.

For a moment, I was dazzled. My fingers tightened around the rock. I gripped the little crystal in one hand, the big lump of grey stone in the other. All I had to do was bring the two together, hard.

“Doooo iiiiit," whispered Dink.

---

Bunny

The hall was mine. Candles bloomed in every alcove. My mind washed into the space as a river rushes into a bucket. I sensed every pillar, every stone, as clearly as my body.

The cat girl was over by the wall, my precious core held in one clawed hand, business suit untucked at the back, hair wild and high around her ears, little snaggle teeth poking out of her grin.

I could feel her dirty fingers touching it, wrapped around my secret soul.

“Give me that back."

Cat girl wasn’t listening.

“It’s mine!"

I could feel the girl’s claws digging into the core as though it were my own flesh, It hurt so much, and suddenly all the rage in the centre of me, every slight from every bully. Every unkind word Carl had ever said, all came bubbling up.

“Give! It! Back! Now!"

There came a crack from overhead, and something fell.

It was a piece of ceiling about the size of a car. I hadn’t meant to do it, but once it was falling, I didn’t stop it. It took about a second to come down. There was a wet smack, and a moment later a splatter of red chunks and a pink mist that made my nose twitch.

The core bounced across the floor and rolled to a stop at my feet.

“Crap."

---

Cat

And everything went dark. And there was a message.

"You have died. Respawn? Y/n"