Bunny

oNe

To K, for being awesome, and to A, for breaking my heart twice, in two months.

Something about the light was off, and when they went to investigate, it became obvious what the problem was. They squinted into the abyss, and their eyes burned as something came into view. They clawed at their eyes and hurried back into the darkness. While they waited, blinking furiously at a parade of little lights that just wouldn't go away, they struggled to find a word that had been lost in their mind after so long. Sun, they thought, and whispered it out loud.

At first it had been difficult deciding what to do with all these words that had nowhere to go. There had been utter silence in the dark halls, feeling a sort of sanctity to the emptiness that somehow couldn't be disturbed by speech. Then as the hours went by, the words welled up, and as though there were someone else there listening, a near-constant narration sprung up.

"The first two days have gone rather well. Wondering how long it will take for the sleep pattern to change. Something similar to that was read once-about how people living in caves experience sleep changes, then start hallucinating. It is hoped that this will not happen here. What would be done in that case? Going back? Again, going back is impossible. This will not be thought of. Nothing more than this exists."

They crawled back to the bright spot, this time ready for the assault on their eyes. They tried to look into the light, but it did nothing but burn into their retinas. Nothing was visible. Eyes closed, they groped around the hall, looking for something they were fairly sure was still there. Yes, right there, the rungs of some stairs.

They had noticed the stairs many times, but never touched them. They still remembered what stairs meant; and they had no desire to come into contact with the Out. But this was a special circumstance now, as there had been a breach of the halls, and there was no telling what would happen if it wasn't sealed.

With a shaky breath, they placed their right foot onto the rung. The metal felt clammy and unwelcoming, and they sprung back into the hall, grabbing for the familiar material of the walls. The walls were always comforting, and they sank into them, breathing in their dusty, sour smell. Powder from the wall transferred onto their hands, leaving them slightly gritty, but reassuring them with the wall's substance, its solidity. Their nails scraped into the wall behind them and made flakes of paint sprinkle down around them. This was how they slept, nestled against the wall, cocooned in its solid embrace.

After a deep breath, they stood up again, grabbing for the rungs. It would be all right, they whispered, their throat feeling rough from talking a second time that day. Their feet now climbed up the rungs, the muscles remembering how to climb though the mind had forgotten, and they reached a point where they were just below the spot of brightness. They paused, the pain in their eyes now worse than ever, and they reached a hand tentatively out to the circle of yellow.

They paused, as if expecting the contact with the Out to burn, but the hand slid through easily, and they gasped at the surprise of passing through like cutting soft butter. Accompanying the gesture was a shout of surprise that was foreign to them, something from the Out, and they withdrew their hand, falling to the ground in surprise. They hadn't heard another voice in so long.

The wind was knocked out of them and they lay, wishing with every fiber of their being that they could stand up and run away, but only a hand twitched as the dull, heavy pain radiated across their chest. Suddenly the brightness weakened, and three outlines appeared in the circle of light. They were suddenly struck with the thought that these were people, and in the category of people there was only one thing they'd thought of while inside these halls, and the surprise caused them to hoarsely cry out that name they'd sworn never to say out loud again. "Bunny?"

"Holy shit," one of the people said from above. "There's someone in there."