Episode 5
1159 Words
“You ever put a knife in someone’s throat, Mouse?”
Bunny’s voice cut through the cold like a blade through wet bark—sharp, fast, and too damn casual for the question.
I didn’t answer right away. My hands hovered over the fire, trying to coax heat from smoke. The flame barely held on, sputtering with each shift of the wind, like it too was thinking about giving up.
“You don’t get to call me that. My name is Evin.” I responded sternly.
“But you’re so quiet, like a mouse.” Bunny said jokingly. ”It's boring.”
Thomir lay a few feet away, wrapped in everything we had that could pass for warmth. His face looked grey under the moonlight, mouth twitching with the fever. Every breath was shallow. Ragged. I kept listening to make sure the next one came.
“No,” I said finally. “I haven’t.”
Bunny snorted. “Figures.”
I glanced across the flames.
He sat with one leg bent, the other stretched toward the fire, filthy toes wiggling in the heat. His shirt was ripped open at the collar, sleeves frayed. Pine needles clung to his wild black hair. He looked like a ghost raised wrong.
“Why ask?”
“No reason.” He yawned, fangs just visible. “You look like the kind of boy who’d ask forgiveness before blood.”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
“Not yet.”
I should’ve been angry. But I wasn’t. Bunny had this way of poking—hard—until he found a soft spot. Then he’d pretend not to notice how deep he cut.
“You have?” I asked.
He grinned. “Many times.”
“You remember all their faces?”
His grin faded.
“No,” he said, quieter now. “Some of them screamed too loud to leave anything behind.”
The fire cracked.
I shifted closer, feeding a few pinecones into the pit. The air smelt like smoke and rotted wood. My stomach growled, ignored. I didn’t have the strength for hunger. Not tonight.
Bunny stared at me for a long moment.
“You’re too still,” he said. “Makes me itch.”
“Still doesn’t mean weak.”
“It usually does.”
I tilted my head. “Are you scared of me, Bunny?”
He smiled again, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “If I were scared, I’d be gone.”
“You keep saying that. But you’re still here.”
He didn’t answer.
***
The fire burnt low. The shadows lengthened. My fingers cramped from holding the blade too long, but I didn’t sheath it. Not with the way Bunny kept shifting, twitching, watching the dark like it whispered things only he could hear.
Then, without warning, he moved.
Fast.
His form shimmered.
I blinked—and where Bunny had sat, there was now something else.
Not quite a fox. Not quite, no.
Sleek red fur with a shimmer like ember ash. Slitted silver eyes glowing faintly. Long, sharp tail curled beside the fire like smoke made flesh. He stretched once, then padded toward me and sat, tail flicking.
I didn’t flinch.
He tilted his head, watching. Waiting.
The fire crackled. My heart thudded—but I didn’t look away.
He sniffed the air.
Then shifted again.
One blink.
And the boy was back—barefoot, shirt torn, grin returning.
“You didn’t scream.”
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Liar.”
I shrugged.
He picked at a hangnail. “People usually scream when I shift. Or piss themselves. One girl fainted. Hit her head on a stump. Died from it.”
“Sounds like a personal problem.”
He laughed—short, sharp. “You’re learning.”
I leaned back, elbows in the moss. The fire snapped louder now, like it was listening too.
Bunny scratched the back of his neck, where skin gave way to scar. I hadn’t noticed before—not properly—but now I saw them. Burn marks.
Not fire-made.
Not natural.
These were symbols. Twisted. Hooked. Like vines forced into words they never wanted to speak.
I said nothing.
But he saw me looking.
He turned away, shoulders tense.
“You know what they did to me?”
“I can guess.”
“You can’t.” His voice was quiet. Bitter. “They didn’t bind me to obey. They bound me to feel. Every command twisted in deep. Every order scratched something raw.”
His hand twitched. “It wasn’t about control. It was about hurt. The kind that keeps echoing after you stop screaming.”
“I’m not screaming,” I said.
“Give it time.”
A long pause stretched between us. The wind stirred again, bringing the scent of wet ash and fox musk.
I leaned forward.
“Does it still burn?”
His fingers dug into the dirt. “Every night.”
Another silence.
Then he whispered, almost like he hated the sound of it, “It wasn’t meant to bind. It was meant to break.”
I swallowed hard.
“I’m sorry”, I said.
He gave me a look. Sharp. Suspicious.
“For what?”
“For surviving that.”
Bunny didn’t speak. Just stared at the fire like it might offer answers.
The flames danced in his eyes. Reflected on the scars.
***
Later, we traded pieces of ourselves in silence.
I gave him a crow feather from my mother’s satchel. He sniffed it, rolled it between two fingers, then tucked it behind his ear like a child pretending not to care.
He gave me a rabbit's tooth tied to a red thread. “Don’t eat it,” he warned. “Or do. Might change you.”
I didn’t laugh.
The silence thickened. Not hostile. Just there.
Eventually, I said, “I’m glad you’re still here.”
He didn’t look up.
Didn’t tease.
Didn’t smirk.
He just sat there, shoulders hunched, eyes glued to the fire like it was holding him together. Like, if he moved, he might unravel.
He didn’t answer.
But he didn’t leave.
***
I stayed up long after he curled into a ball of limbs and whispers beside the coals, half-fox, half-boy, all wound too tight to sleep properly.
Thomir breathed—barely.
Bunny twitched in his sleep.
And I sat there with nothing but the sound of the wind in my ears and the truth clanging too loud in my chest.
I wasn’t just surviving anymore.
I was collecting broken things.
And they were collecting me back.
***
Just before dawn, Bunny stirred.
Not fully awake. But dreaming.
He kept shifting between different creatures. Some I could recognise; most I could not.
And in his sleep, he whispered a name I’d never heard before.
Not mine.
But it was said like it was.
And gods help me—my blood answered it.
- Writer
