The Rabbit

As a blizzard roared and tormented the people in Beaver Creek Colorado, a cabin stood tall against the groaning wind and glassy snow and ice. Little did anyone know that the scariest storm was not the blizzard, but the one taking place behind the pine of the cabin walls.

A family resided in that cabin for the week. They thought a week away in the Colorado woods would be a good way “to get away from it all”. Mistakes and harsh words were said that contributed to this voluntary mess of a vacation. With the bitter cold lurking into the cabin, the family lit a match. This match being a hard, fiery argument. 

A little girl sat in her room, bundled up and criss-crossed by her door. Eyes, ears, and body covered with her favorite Disney blanket so she couldn’t see or hear her violently furious parents. Although the layers on her body kept her warm, her face was cold because of her leaking eyes and nose.

As her parents, outside in the main room, yelled words she wouldn’t understand for another three years, she huddled deeper and deeper into her fragile frame. That went on for another two minutes until she got bored and decided to do something else. So she wiped her green eyes and her red nose with her blue sleeve and got up on her feet. The many blankets fell off her shoulders and onto the wooden floor. She had to step out of the heaps of covers to get a good look at the unique decor of the room. It was nothing like her home in Oklahoma. This room was small, but homely. The bed was large and took up the majority of the room. Wooden carvings of beautiful forest animals crowded the space. One caught her eye especially. It was a small wooden bunny. She stumbled over to it to get a better look at the carving. While the snow and ice flailed and the wind roared, the bunny sat peacefully and stoic. There was something about it that made her stomach twist with hope. She yearned to be like the bunny, but didn’t understand why. The window cast a light reflected by the snow. Not much, but enough to lighten the bunny’s wooden eyes. Suddenly, out of the corner of the girl’s eye, she saw something scurry on the outside of the floor-length window pane. A blush of white, but not enough to blend in with the heaps of snow outside, a small animal tussled its way to the cold side of the glass. The girl giggled with this sign of luck; two bunnies in one day. Her newly refounded joy was then replaced with worry. The bunny was out in the blizzard all by himself. He must feel cold and lonely. She knelt down to get a better look at her friend. He was huddled and shivering close to the glass. His ears seemed to twinge in every direction. Quickly, she rubbed her hands together to create heat. She then placed them on the icy window to leave an impression of warmth for the poor bunny. She worried he would move, but he remained stoic. Her hands felt the burning sensation of the icy stare, but for the first time in a long time, her heart pulsed with heat.

The blizzard eventually lulled to a stop. It continued to snow in a hushed manner. The girl thought it looked like how winter ought to. Her little friend looked peacefully fast asleep. And there wasn’t a single imperfection on the glossy snow. Her parents were no longer shouting and fighting. Unknowingly, she made a mental note of how perfectly calm this moment was. The snow was built up and was impacted three feet off the ground. A dead bush held up part of the snowy deposit and protected the tiny animal. The little girl decided it was time she finally make an appearance to her parents. As she crossed the room to the door, she decided to fold her favorite blankie around for safety and luck. Before she turned the golden knob of the door, she held her ear up to the wood to hear for anything. She couldn’t hear screaming, yelling, or shouting, but she could hear soft crying. Her mother wept silently, but loud enough for a single person to hear. The girl's heart broke, but she feared for the worst if she left her tiny haven. Suddenly, she heard a loud bang of a door closing. She sucked in the cold air as her father yelled at her mother to stop crying. She stumbled back as a fit of rage consumed the room behind the door. Her back hit the headboard of the wooden bed and she slumped to the floor. She felt all the weight in the pit of her stomach swell up and squeeze her heart and strangle her throat. She felt the water well up in her eyes and the threatening ringing in her ears. She felt so lonely and hopeless in that moment. She looked towards the window in her last shred of hope that her friend was outside in his spot. She crawled to the window in desperation as her friend lay there still as a rock. Relief washed over her. He was still there. He didn’t leave her in her time of need. Despite the blizzard being over, he loyally stayed by her side. Then, the relief grew into something more untamely. She felt a paranoid feeling of being watched bubble in her guts. Her strained eyes roamed the windows view for a reasonable answer. At first she couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The forest outside was dark, but the moon was coming out so the obscurity wasn’t abnormal.

Suddenly, a creature of white and black coloration stepped out from behind a large pine. The girl’s insides reverted back to the calamity she knew all too well. A creature from her nightmarse had come to torment her again. She wanted to scream, but the screech got stuck in her throat and burned her breath like an iron. It smiled at her with its foul black mouth. The blackness stressed its razor-like teeth and its pasty nose. A face that belonged to a rabid, dead animal stared into hers. Its long white ears hung towards the ground by its limp grotesque arms. Its feet dug into the snow and left every spot in ruin. She had told it to leave her, but it always came back around when she felt somber. It never spoke, it just acted. It would bite and leave bloody marks. It was worse than the ones her dad left.

She wanted to stand, scream, and run to her parents. However, she couldn’t do anything. She was parralized with fear of the rabbit creature.

The creature fell face-down into the ground and let its protracted arms glide to the surface of the snow. Its distorted nose and eyes hovered slightly over the ice. Slowly, it reached forward and pulled its weight towards the window. The girl shuddered out of her shock and itched opposite to the creature. All of a sudden, the arms started to flail more rapidly, like it was digging a hole. But this hole, would lead straight to the window. She screamed, hoping someone would hear her, but her parents continued their altercation. When she looked towards the door, she took her eyes off the creature. Looking back, complete terror devoured her body. Pressed against the window, was the white face of the creature. She let out the most ear-raking scream, but this did not deter the rabbit. In one alarming second, a black arm slithered from the snow and grasped onto the tiny bunny. She wordlessly pleaded with the creature to leave him alone, but it was no use. With one long jaw, it grasped the lifeless bunny and tour through its chest and neck. Blood sprayed the icy glass as the creature chewed on the raw bunny’s innards. The rabbit looked at the girl through its white bloody face. She was its next meal. She found her bearings and screamed like it had just bit her. She scrambled towards the door and pounded for her parents. The creature slammed its head against the window and little cracks formed in the glass. Its longing eyes peered into the back of her head. Her parents had long stopped their fight, but were no where in the living space.

She screamed for her mother when the vicious creature reared its head against the glass once more. Her parents were nowhere to be seen. So she did what any young child would do, she sat and wailed for help. A few moments later, her mother came in and demanded that she tell her the problem. The little girl lunged towards her mother. Her mother caught her and buried her hand into the brown tufts of hair. She hushed her, but nothing could stop the shivering and whimpering. She could hardly speak, but managed out enough words to encourage her mother to investigate the matter at hand. Her father was nowhere in her line of vision. Her mother let her clinging daughter go as she walked to the dreaded room. The girl watched her mother with teary eyes and waited for the rabbit creature to rope her mother in with his long snake arms. But nothing happened… Her mother came back and shook her head. The creature was gone. Her mother did not see the deadly monster that haunted her dreams. Her mother ushered the girl into the bathroom to dry her eyes with a soft towel. Warmth gathered around her, but she knew it would be back.

She refused to go back into the room, but her mother told her that there was no blood. It was all part of her wild imagination. The girl spent the rest of the day staring at the television and huddled in even more blankets than before. At such a young age, she couldn’t interpret what had just happened, but she understood one thing. Her friend was dead. Even if her mother denies it and even if the creature isn’t real, her innocent friend was lost and there was nothing she could do about it. Innocence always dies. And it dies in the most tragic and terrifying ways possible.