Cursed Bunny(22)

She waits.

“Then she really killed herself …”

She can’t tell whether the thin voice is suppressing a sob or a laugh.

She feels a sharp pain as the brief but intense trust she felt for the thin voice is torn in two. Fear digs into her heart. Carefully, she steps aside a little to the right. The thin voice from her left keeps mumbling as if she isn’t there.

“Life, really, is so unfair. Everyone is born the same way, but some steal husbands, others are sucked dry and spat out like used chewing gum …”

She doesn’t answer.

The thin voice keeps talking. “Isn’t it funny? Two people are in the same car accident, but one lives to tell the tale, the other dies on the spot—”

“You. Who are you?” She cannot suppress the shaking in her voice anymore.

The thin voice casually goes on. “Don’t you think it’s so unfair? Alone when alive, and still alone when dead.”

“Where is this place?” she shrieks. “What’s happened to me?!”

The thin voice on her left gives a thin cackle. “People, you know, they’re so funny. Don’t you think? Just because they’re afraid, they go about trusting in any old voice they hear around them, even when they can’t see for the life of them.”

“What are you?” She is shouting now. “Wh-where is this? Where are you taking me?”

The thin voice continues to cackle. “Following a strange voice around in a strange place, just because it pretends to be kind …”

She cannot stand it anymore. She begins to run.

The voice keeps cackling behind her and mumbling. “She doesn’t even know who she is, or where she’s going …”

She runs. She doesn’t know where she’s going but feels some relief at how the voice seems to be getting farther away, and so she keeps blindly running.

The ground beneath her feet suddenly caves in. She stumbles momentarily. After a bit of flailing she rights herself, and a bright light suddenly fills her vision. Her eyes, so used to the dark, lose all their function in the sudden glare. She freezes in the flood of light.

For a brief second, she sees clearly straight ahead—her own self sitting in a car that’s lost control, barreling toward her, her expression frozen in fear, her hands ineffectually grasping the steering wheel where a third set of five fingers, mockingly casual, are holding the wheel between her two hands.

Then, darkness again.

“—eacher.”

A woman’s voice, thin and frail. She opens her eyes. The voice calls for her again.

“Teacher.”

It’s the voice again. She tries to turn her head to the direction the voice is coming from. Her neck, however, doesn’t move.

“Teacher Lee.”

Before she can speak, a familiar voice answers.

“Yes?”

Hearing her own voice answer the thin voice, she feels like her whole body is convulsing underneath the car. But her body doesn’t move. A slimy mud, or something that is like mud but nothing she can ever know for sure, is making its sticky, stubborn, and ominous way over her ankles to her knees, thighs, stomach, slowly but ceaselessly crawling up the rest of her body.

She can hear conversation from afar.

“Are you there? Who are you? I’m over here!”

“Teacher Lee, are you all right?”

She tries with all of her might. Her right arm is pinned down beneath a wheel. She just about manages to free her left hand. It grips the bumper. Trying to pull herself from underneath the car, she puts all her strength into her left arm.

Suddenly, cold fingers touch her left hand. She makes a fist. But it’s too late. The cold fingers have wrested the round, hard, and smooth ring from her hand.

“No …” She tries to shout it. But her voice has crawled down her throat.

The thin voice whispers into her ear, “You’ve been hurt badly, you really shouldn’t move. Tea. Cher. Lee.” It cackles softly as it moves away from her ear.

She feels slight vibrations from the car that covers her.

“Be careful. One step at a time, slowly.”

It’s the thin voice, from a distance.

She opens her mouth. With all her strength, with all the fear and rage and despair pooled in her heart, she screams.

“What’s wrong?” she can hear the voice ask.

“Did you … hear something?”

“Hear what?” the voice asks again.

“Someone … I thought there was someone there …”

She can just about hear heavy footsteps coming down on soft ground. The conversation becomes more and more distant.

The car sinks. She hears the sound of bones breaking somewhere in her body. Strangely enough, the sound makes her realize she no longer feels pain.

All she can feel is the enormous weight of the car as it drags her down into the unknown abyss.





Snare


This is a story I once read long ago.

Once upon a time, a man walking through snow-covered mountain forests came across a fox struggling in a snare. The fox’s fur meant money, and the man, thinking he would kill the fox for her fur, approached the animal with a knife in hand.

The fox then lifted her head and spoke in a human voice, “Please let me go.”