As you walk past the couch to the dining room, stacks of photos crowd the cushions like crooked teeth, some tall enough to reach the ceiling. Behind them, by the front door, is the clock you've seen around the house, the clock's face in place of the belly of a cartoonish purple rabbit. You squint to read the time—the way you strain your face makes it feel as though you have cotton stuffed in your ears—but all you can see on the clock is a blur of line, like string bunched in knots.

You leave it and walk through the hall. You've seen no one else in the house today; not Witch, Billy, or TVA. Maybe the rabbit wants to talk about that. Maybe it'll take off its head over tea, sigh, and say, "All right. The jig's up. You're free to go."

The photos on the walls have expanded to mirror—no, doorway size. The frames are bloated and gaping as if they want to swallow you whole, the image of a boy in a bear costume quivering in wait. You ignore them and keep walking.

The dining room looks eerily bare, not even the usual sad chandelier hanging above the table. At least the rabbit had set out utensils in both of your places. You wonder if the house is being stripped down, or under repair; maybe the jig really is up.

The rabbit is sitting on the right when you walk in. It doesn't bother to point you to your seat; you sit down across from it, and a twinge of amusement hits you, as if you're pretending to sit in on a hushed mafia meeting.

The faint light of the parlor outside is all that illuminates the room. When the rabbit lifts its head after a minute, one large shadow is cast over its eyes. Its voice starts out weary.

"I've been unfair to you, bunny."

You swallow back a loud laugh. Even if it does mean that, a whole lot of good that would do.

"I must let you go."

It takes a moment for that to hit you. You don't believe that. You want to, so badly, badly enough that a hot tear dares to well up in your eye at that simple sentence. But it can't be telling the truth. Your face scrunches in confusion.

"I...you'll..." Your voice is clogged—it annoys you so much that your other eye begins to tear up as well. "...let me go?"

"Of course." It lowers its head, and the shadow across its eyes stretches to the end of its muzzle. "There's just one small problem."

Oh.

Your tears are quelled in an instant. Your mouth goes dry, and your face that had been so tense before slackens at once in exhaustion. Something simmers in the pit of your stomach.

Before you can stop it, it boils up your throat and you stand up and slam your fists on the table.

"One small problem?!"

Rage runs fervidly through your veins; your limbs stutter and twitch with the urge to destroy whatever you can touch in this room. The rabbit stays still. You pound a fist on the table again, as if to get its attention.

"I—fucking of course there is, isn't there? You'll do anything to—!"

"You don't seem to have a home to return to."

Your ears and cheeks burn at that word: home. Though you know you shouldn't, you have no reason to, you're overcome with a rush of shame. You have to swallow a bubble in your throat to speak again.

"That's—that's none of your business. I didn't even tell you that I—"

"You didn't have to."

Something has shifted. The rabbit's voice has deepened, a garbled, underwater thrum. All other sound has been sucked out of the room; an eerie silence stamps the space around its words. You're stunned speechless.

"I could see it in your face," it says. "Your cold, tired, unloved face."

It stands up.

Every fiber in your body screams at you to run—but you don't do anything. You're rooted to the ground where you stand, hands planted on the table. You frantically glance at the doorway, the only point of light, but the rabbit circles the table and whatever light you can see is blocked in its path.

Its next words hum so deep under the surface that you struggle to understand them at first.

"You need someone to love you, don't you, [Y/N]?"

How did—

It draws closer, an indomitable silhouette, and you wrench your feet up from the ground and back away until you hit the wall. You crane your neck away from its reach, as far into the wall as you can, but it reaches for you anyway. You're helpless as it strokes a feather-light claw from the tip of your chin down to the base of your neck.

"If only you had the courage to admit it."

It reaches one arm back toward the doorway casing. You choke on a plea—is it winding up to hit you?—but instead it raps its knuckles once on the wall.

Black.

Pitch black. You're blind.

"Shit," you whisper out of shock. The rabbit's hand is no longer on your neck; you clutch yourself, grabbing for your shoulders, your neck, desperately trying to shield something.

Clank.

No.

Clank.

A small, primal yell rips from your throat and you stumble to the side, fumbling blindly for the table. A chair. Something to grab onto.

"No, no, no, no—no! Stay away from me!"

Your palm knocks against the table's edge and you grip it for dear life. You reach over with your other hand and start to circle it. The rabbit has gone silent again.

"I knew it!" you manage, guttural and anguished. "I knew you wouldn't really let me go, I fucking knew—!"

Warmth envelops you.

"Be still."

Flesh.

You're being hugged. Tight. No longer "it," but "him."

Your arms are locked to your sides. You smell smoke. Sweat. Rot.

Everything is still. You've gone still, out of shock. The rabbit's voice is still muffled, hummed, despite the bare arms around your back, the bony chin resting atop your head. Your ear is pressed to his chest.

Warm. He's so warm.

You snap to your senses and wrestle him away, pushing, seething through your teeth. He pulls you back in and holds you tighter.

"Still."

You can't move.

You notice how warm he is again. How close he's holding you. How dark it is. If you wanted to, you could fall asleep.

You can do nothing but panic.

"You silly thing," he murmurs at last, and the words rumble from his throat to the top of your head. "This is just the way it is. Nothing that enters this house can ever come out."

Witch.

Oddly enough, your mind flashes to her. Not the children. Not you.

"The house is hungry," he says.

The swollen frames stretching wide. The door a gaping maw.

"I am hungry."

Your jaw has fallen wide open, pressed against his polyester chest, and tears start to singe your eyes. This is the end.

After a moment, he chuckles.

"Don't worry. I won't eat you."

Seconds, minutes pass before you begin to allow yourself to believe that. This really is it. He really is just going to hold you. The longer it sets in, the more tempting it becomes to let him have his way. He's still so warm. Outside is so cold.

"You will be so much happier when you accept that there is no escape."

His voice is slipping into a coo—a mumble, so quiet, but so piercing in the silence. Rough, slender fingers stroke your hair, then your face.

Your hand brushes the edge of the table.

"We can play games, eat sweets, celebrate the holidays, dance to the music." He pets his fingertips across your cheek twice, three times. He taps the words into your skin ever so softly. The arm hooked around your back pulls you closer.

"Spend hours, just like this. You will be so happy here."

Your fingers spider their way across a plate. They drift over the table's surface until you've found the handle of a knife.

The man turns his head on your scalp until his mouth is pressed to you. You feel his lips stretch into a grin.

"You're so still. But I can feel you shivering against me." His mouth crinkles against his gums when he speaks.

"When was the last time someone held you like this? When did you last feel the touch of another?" He clicks his tongue. "Poor little bunny."

He wraps his other arm around your neck and toys with your hair, massaging the roots in a way that sends a shiver down your spine.

"You must have been craving this for so long."

Everywhere he touches starts to melt you, bit by bit. The cold pockets of air left empty by his arms bite at your back; though you hate it, you wish he could envelop you whole, absorb you into his warmth.

He's right. You need this.

You crack.

You shudder and sink into his arms, sobs clawing their way up your throat. You curl into yourself, into him, and he holds you steady.

"There we go," he murmurs against your ear. "Sink."

Slowly, once you've gone still again, he prods his fingers under your jaw and gingerly lifts your chin. All you can do is gaze, empty, into the darkness as he cups your face to his.

"You must be hungry, too."

Your fingers tighten on the hilt of the knife and you plunge it into his gut.

—

You've had that conversation before.

That's the first thought that floats to the surface once you come to. The cold cellar floor grounds you rather quickly, a stark change from the rabbit's arms. Of course. A dream. A stupid fucking dream.

You won't bother with the whole sitting up, gasping, looking around wide-eyed waking from a nightmare routine. You don't even bother to lift your head or scratch the crust from your eyes. You know whatever you do will just give you the worst aches, and you could do without that at the moment. You need to think.

You had had that conversation. The rabbit had confronted you in its dining room, reminded you that you had been alone, invited you to be happy, to be loved, to be family. It had cornered you, rapped its claws, loomed over you until you caved.

But here you tried to fight back.

A sense of morbid curiosity overtakes you—you wish to fall back asleep, return to that dream, see how it ends. See if you could really escape by overpowering the rabbit's pilot. Striking him when he least expects it. Hot and cold prickles wash over your face and around the back of your neck; for a few seconds, you're caught in a flood of ecstasy and utter terror.

You wonder what would have happened if you'd just stood there and taken it.

What would he do to you, if you fully surrendered? Nothing good. That's for sure.

Or maybe something wonderful.

No. You don't want that. You'd have to be hammered, or numb all over, or disgustingly lonely to let that happen.

But you'd thought...

No. Fuck whatever you'd thought in the dream. You don't need to be loved. Not like that. Not so badly that you'd actually stay.

You shudder and press your back further into the mildewy wall.

What choice do you have?

—

The next time he visits you downstairs, you're ready.

You're stirred from your sleep to the clunk of the manacles dropping to the floor. The leather hand holding your wrist keeps eerily still. You freeze. You're sure not to open your eyes—what good would that do you, anyway?—and after nearly a minute of keeping them shut, your body still, and your breath steady, the leather hand delicately unfurls your fingers from your palm.

A plastic ring presses against the tip of your middle finger. As luck would have it, this time you can feel the pinprick as it pricks your middle, then ring finger, as well as both on your other hand. You squeeze your eyes shut tighter, queasy at the image of the man filling up all those tiny vials with your blood. You barely keep your mouth from twisting in on itself.

Your cheek is pressed into the shoulder seam of your sweater, and a crick in your neck is starting to form. Your mind races. What will you do once he's put his tools away? Once his guard is down? What could you do? You may have the element of surprise, but that's all.

When will he put them away, anyway? How will you tell?

You hear a faint click—the final vial being closed—and then a zip—a pouch of tools he keeps on his waist, perhaps?—and the scuffle of something on the ground. He's about to stand.

You barely let his hand graze your wrist before you grab it tight, eyes springing open. You lunge up at him with a huff, a surge of impulsivity hitting you, and shove him to the ground with all your might. You keep one hand on his chest, pressing your full weight on him. He sputters and before you can speak, or even think of what to say, the leather glove is tight on your neck.

"Still."

You both freeze. You're not quite sure anymore who has the upper hand.

He lets out a sound that's half a cough, half a quiet, disbelieved chuckle.

"Let go of my hand, bunny, and I won't have to hurt you."

"Like I fucking believe that," you breathe, chest heaving. Your hand tightens on his polyester shirt.

"Who. Are. You."

The man doesn't answer. You decide you'll give him ten seconds before asking again—that, or grinding his head into the floor.

You're at five when he begins to laugh.

It starts off as another light chuckle; then he seems to lose himself a bit. Then he's louder, and louder, and soon he's cackling on the floor while you can only listen on in confusion and disgust. He's mad and shrieking, a far cry from the rabbit. You almost wish it'd return.

Hello? You nearly ask, but each time you pluck up the nerve he only grows louder. His chest is convulsing under your hand, almost as if to shake you loose. He begins to gasp and cough, die down; you hold in a sigh.

"Oh, God," he finally gasps, and his voice drops back to his usual drawl. "Maybe I should have hit your head harder into the wall. I'd rather have a brain-dead bunny than this."

A nauseous chill washes over you—at those words, at the way his voice rises and dips so easily, at his bony chest, real and warm and heaving under your weight. If you keep still, you can feel his heartbeat. It's starting to unnerve you; you swallow and shake your head.

"If you want me to stop—"

"Misbehaved thing," he murmurs.

"If you just tell me—!"

"You really don't know when to quit, do you?"

"I have nothing!"

Your voice rings shrilly through the cellar. You bite your tongue, fighting to keep your composure.

"I have no one. I won't tell anyone," you say, low, through clenched teeth. "I won't do anything. Just tell me."

Your grip weakens on his hand. You want to give it a hard squeeze, or push it into the floor until something cracks, just as a warning. But you're far too tired.

"Just tell me."

The man has gone quiet. Your pulse quickens the longer he stays like that, still and silent; both your shallow breaths are all that can be heard for a while.

At last the man shifts with a small grunt, and you hear the soft shuffle-thud of his head on the ground. He seems to be thinking.

"Will you promise not to talk back?"

He speaks softly, but not very much like the Pumpkin Rabbit. Its voice is slow, knowing, cruel. The man now sounds gentle, a bit scattered, like he's simply thinking out loud. Testing waters.

"Not to bother Witch, not to lash out, not to wander anywhere you haven't been allowed? If I tell you my name...?"

You can hear the pout in those words, as if he's talking to a baby, and you decide you spoke too soon—that's definitely still the rabbit.

"You'll be good?"

Through the disgust rising like vomit in your throat, you manage to nod. Whatever. Anything.

He hesitates, then tugs you closer by the neck, sending spikes through your heartbeat. You recoil when something else brushes you; it must be his hair.

He speaks low and unsteadily into your ear as if to make sure even the walls can't hear.

"My name is Oscar."

Oscar.

You say the name under a cracked breath. Before you can properly turn it over in your mouth—how long has it been since someone's given you their name?—Oscar pulls you lower and something sharp pokes at the meeting of your ribs. Your breath hitches, your mouth clamps shut—in your desperation, you'd let his hand slip free.

"You don't say that name outside here." His voice is barely a breath as well. You want to laugh now. You want to ask if he's embarrassed, what would happen if you shouted that name throughout the house at the top of your lungs while all he could do is watch. That would probably get you twenty more days in the cellar—if he didn't decide to just kill you here and now. Oscar gives your neck a sharp squeeze.

"You understand that," he whispers harshly in your ear. "If there is another soul around, that name doesn't leave your mouth."

Power is the next word that surfaces. You swallow down any stupid remarks that might get your ribs pierced and instead quietly revel in it. How much power the name has over this man—how much power he's just given up to you—it's so marginal but goddamn it if you aren't going to cling to it with every bit of your strength, like a mouse to a corn kernel.

Oscar jabs the thing at you again when you don't respond, barely breaking the surface of your skin.

"Say it."

You suck in a breath and bend as far away from the needle as you can.

"I—I won't say your name. If there's anyone else around," you say tremulously. You feel his labored breaths hot on your ear and your shoulders hunch in a restricted cringe.

"Especially Witch," he says.

What, in the fucking world, a difference does that make?

You furrow your brow and your body relaxes in an instant of confusion. Oscar digs the needle into your ribs, impatient, and you tense again.

"Especially Witch." You start to feel that now is not the time to ask.

Oscar shifts his grip up from your neck—to your jaw, then your chin, then his index finger prods at the corner of your mouth as if to examine your teeth. Despite yourself, despite your nausea and pulse pounding in your neck, you stay still.

"Good bunny." His voice drips with satisfaction, ill-contained glee.

He lets go.

You hesitate. Something in you whines that if you jerk away this instant, he'll hurry to grab you back and the two of you will be caught in another neverending scuffle on the ground. On the other hand, you should take advantage of this before he changes his mind.

You stagger back and manage to stand on shaky legs, backing away with your hands barely raised in defense. Oscar hums; you can't tell if he's still on the floor.

The sound thrums in your head, and you look warily around, knowing it's useless. You can't tell where he is anymore.

"Think I'll hurt you?"

Your face clenches into a scowl as his voice drifts about the stale cellar air. You grind your teeth in a pointless effort to drown it out. Even as a human, he's too fluid, too surreal.

Don't you dare get back inside that suit.

You don't suppose there's a winning angle here; you either keep stumbling around the room like a blind dog, or back yourself into a corner. When your heel touches the wall, you still haven't decided which to do.

You realize it doesn't matter when Oscar's hair brushes your temple again, and something clicks around your wrist before you can move away.

You gasp and thrash against him, ripping your other arm from his grip, but the shackle keeps you tethered to the wall. No matter how hard you try to pull free, all it leaves is a deep groove in your wrist and an ache in your arm. You yell your throat raw and try to punch him—and miss.

He slams your free arm into the stone, his nails digging like razor blades into your flesh.

"IF YOU KNOW WHAT'S GOOD FOR YOU—!"

That's a scream.

You've never heard that before. It's dizzying. You didn't think he could scream, but now, somehow, it makes perfect sense. That's why he keeps his voice so low, so dry.

It isn't fear that keeps you in place, necessarily. Maybe surprise.

You're frozen either way.

Click.

"Oh, there we go," he whispers, as if the gas on his stove has started to work again. All it took was a good kick.

You stand stilted and pigeon-toed against the wall, Oscar's scream still a fresh ring in your ear. You sink to the floor. He sinks with you, a hand on your knee.

"There," he says, his thumb drawing crescents on the fabric of your pants. "I've given you what you wanted. Now, we should be fine." A shuffling sound tells you he's slumped against the wall.

"You won't act out, won't bother Witch, won't wander into any room you haven't been allowed."

His fingertips dig the slightest bit into your leg, and every muscle in your body seizes. You expect him to speak with more teeth, but his voice remains as mellow as ever:

"And you'll never try to leave."

You're flooded with a static, cold sense of resignation. It takes a moment for you to even remember that you had promised him that. Complete obedience.

Your face feels dry and weighed, the horror of the past several weeks dragging down your skin like the jowls of an old dog. This house is hungrily sapping every ounce of happiness, every good and sensible thing out of your body.

You don't have it in you to feel frustrated anymore. You're just tired.

"What if I do?" you mutter, your voice hoarse and empty.

Oscar's thumb stalls on your knee. By his tone, you picture him with a nonchalant frown on his face—whatever kind of face he has. "Well, I hardly see why you'd need to know that. You told me you wouldn't break any rules again."

I shouldn't have.

"But, if somehow, you did," he continues next to your ear, his breath smelling of stale caramel, "I'd be very upset."

Two slender leather fingers brush along the side of your neck—along your pulse—and the memory of the rabbit's claws sears your skin.

"And I wouldn't like to be upset with you again."

Something pokes your hip.

You flinch and breathe in sharply, trying to shift surreptitiously along the waist of your pants. Your heart drops into your stomach when you hear something scrape the cellar floor.

Something thin and plastic.

You shut your eyes. You don't need to guess what it is.

"My," Oscar says. "Is that what you were hiding from me?"

Your hands clench into fists on the grimy floor as he picks the photo up with a shuffling swipe. You can barely keep yourself from snatching it back from his hands as he lets out a thoughtful hum.

"Beautiful. You took such good care of it." He gives the photo a flick. When you hear the sound of the zipper again, you know you've lost it forever.

"You will look so lovely with all the others."