Your next five days don't pass easily.

Of course, you have no way of knowing how much time has passed in the cellar but your own flimsy circadian rhythm, the occasional fuzz of the phonograph upstairs, pinching each of your fingers in search of a new pinprick and counting the plates of chocolate that appear at your feet every time you awaken. The rabbit seems to have smartened since you were last locked down here—or maybe it's just grown angry with you—and decided to take your "meals" down to you instead of letting you upstairs to the dining room. If you'd barely had a way to tick off the hours down here before, you have nothing now.

The bulk but sheer emptiness of those candy meals is starting to weigh on you. It's like swallowing blocks of styrofoam. You'd barely found the time before to worry about what eating nothing but chocolate for weeks would do to your body, more focused on keeping yourself alive, on the rabbit's good side. Well, now that's thrown to shit. You feel full, but hollow. You'd give a gallon of your blood to that thing to be thrown a lick of salt. Your stomach's been turned to putty, your skin cracked and oily, your limbs slack and useless as you keep yourself slumped against the corner, seeing little reason to move at all. You're sure you're growing delirious—though even if you're aware of that, you can't help but wonder if the rabbit and the Witch are just fattening you up to eat. That seems to be their style.

It's no use starving yourself, if they are; you've tried. All that does is leave you weak and miserable.

Twice, you've counted, you were awake when the rabbit opened the cellar door to deliver your food. The light from the stairs, however dim and thin it is, hurts your eyes, and you have to squint to catch the rabbit's silhouette before it slips into the dark and shuts the door behind it, somehow aware that it's been seen. It doesn't say a word to you as it lays the plate at your side, wrappers shuffling and scraping in the silence. The second time it arrived, too sick and exhausted to think, you'd lolled your head to the side at the fairy strapped to the chair across the room and gave her a lazy, sardonic look.

Get a load of this guy, you thought at her lifeless body. Coming to pay me a visit again.

That was the fourth night. You'd heard faint breathing in front of you, too, as it laid the plate down, waited an extra moment and then took off. You knew it was nearing the end then. It didn't seem so cross with you as before. You suspect you wouldn't be as cross in its place, either; you can't imagine looking something like yourself in the eyes and feeling anything but pity.

I feel like I'm dying.

The rabbit comes the next night—day?—and doesn't slink away when you spot it looming by the door. It hasn't brought a dish this time. It stares at you a moment, as if checking that you're awake, and walks towards you, its silhouette growing sharper in your squinted, teary eyes. Its ears are sitting higher on its head, almost perked, and its movements are languid and smoother than you've seen before. It must have had a spa day.

Once it's only about two feet from you, it bends down and lifts one of your shackled wrists. Before you can panic, or jerk your hand away, or even say a word, it inserts a claw into the keyhole and the shackle pops open, giving you a startle. It falls off your wrist and onto the floor with a clank.

You see now by the light from the doorway that your wrist is horribly limp and dark with bruises. The rabbit lifts your other hand and pauses. It lifts its head to look at you again, a long, piercing stare of consideration. You're too tired to move much. You just look back into its empty face, at the frayed pasted-on fur sticking out from its cheeks. It tilts its head, and doesn't move for nearly a minute. You think of what it could possibly be trying to say.

Will you be as much of a nuisance this time?

Will you try to leave?

Have I killed you enough yet?

The rabbit pops off the second shackle just as you're beginning to think it's fallen asleep.

It extends its hand to you. You don't take it, instead pushing yourself up from the wall onto shaky legs. Those claws are too damn sharp.

It touches the small of your back anyway, ushering you forward one small tap at a time. Your feet shuffle along the blood- and fungus-caked floor, towards the painfully bright doorway. You shield your eyes with one arm.

"Have you been terribly hungry, bunny?"

The rabbit's soft and scratchy voice, after five days of silence, sends a jolt through you. You knock your toe on the bottom step and nearly trip. You lift your arm just enough to see where you're going as the rabbit's claw keeps grazing your spine.

"I try to leave you enough for the day," it continues when it sees you won't respond. "You may tell me if there isn't enough."

You know fucking well that's not the problem. You swallow, and say nothing. Your throat's gone so raw that swallowing doesn't hurt so much as it feels that two pads of sandpaper are glued to either side of your throat.

The rabbit leads you out of the door and through the grime-speckled hall that gives way to the parlor. After all this time in the dark, the jaundiced lighting is harsh on your eyes, from the bright canary wallpaper to the chintz's shine. You're forced to squint at the purple tangle carpet as you sit down. The couch's cushion gives a quiet crack under your weight.

"Is there anything you need?"

Water. You swallow again, and your throat cries for it. You squeeze your eyes shut, hands clenched on your knees.

"Water," you muster hoarsely.

"A drink?" The rabbit lingers by the couch before snapping upright. "Oh. What a terrible host I've been!" it mutters to itself. "Wait here," it tells you.

It enters the hall leading to the dining room, leaving you alone in the parlor. Your feet are beginning to itch. You don't let your gaze drift to the front door.

After a minute, the rabbit comes back through the door on the parlor's right end, the black void that TVA infrequently scuttles to. It's holding a tall glass in its claws. It sets it down on the coffee table, the ice giving a small clink against the glass.

Lemonade.

—

You don't want to push the rabbit farther than you already have. It only grows angry with you or, maybe worse, feigns ignorance and twists your words around until they suit its own agenda. You haven't yet asked for any food other than chocolate, but something tells you it'd be a waste. It won't change if you do, and you'll only be asking for another tense and quiet dinnertime. It may even keep a closer eye on you, knowing you're not happy with its accommodations, which would be an inconvenience since you've already planned to break into wherever the rabbit keeps its real food and escape this house.

It's reckless, obviously, and you're no sleuth. At this point you couldn't care less. There are too many secrets in this house. Too many locked doors and hidden rooms and blackened halls that lead to who-knows-where. Since you've been allowed to roam freely again (with the rabbit's eyes boring through you around every corner, of course), now would be the time to see what more you can find.

You know it has the money. It must. Where else could it have gotten all that store-bought candy, the waxy floral furniture, the lilies around the house that never seem to wilt? For a creature that gets its kicks slaughtering children, stealing seems something the rabbit would consider below it.

You know it also needs to eat. Maybe it feeds on those corpses it keeps in the cellar with you. But so far, the bodies have stayed where they are, rotting away, and after all these weeks you've mapped out their resting spots in the dark. The rabbit must eat something. It doesn't eat the candy, and even if it bothered to crunch on a piece or two under its face plate during mealtimes, you wouldn't buy for a second that it doesn't sneak something more while the phonograph is blaring across the house.

Maybe it's been drinking your blood. You did see it slip the vial into its gaping maw that first night.

The rabbit puts the needle on after mealtime and goes upstairs while the other two roam on their tracks. You've never seen what's upstairs. You decide you're lucky if you'll never have to. Right now your hands are clutching the fabric on your knees, your gaze shot straight through the rose-patterned wallpaper, as you try your best to look occupied with your thoughts. The rabbit's steps clunk clearer on what must be hardwood floor as it reaches the top of the stairs. It's usually much softer than that—that is, if you're lucky enough to hear it approaching at all.

The second floor falls quiet, drowned out by the phonograph's shrieking horn.

"Baby, I was cruel.

I was cruel.

Baby, I'm a fool.

I'm such a fool.

Silly girl..."

You stand up and peer into TVA's hall, tentative hands on the doorway's casing. It haunts you how even though the parlor is so harshly lit, you can barely see a foot into the blackness of the hall.

You step inside and keep one arm on the wall. Your heart sinks as you walk farther down, and realize that it won't get clearer from the inside. You're stuck to fumbling around in the dark until you find something of use. As you run your hand along the bumpy wallpaper, the music grows more washed-out, more fuzzy in your head and bounces murkily on the walls around you.

"Shame on you, you told a lie.

Big girls do cry!"

You find a stripe of paint-chipped casing and cautiously run your hand over. There's a door there, and with a very light press you know it's closed all the way. You brush your fingers farther along to find a knob. It's tarnished and chipped as well.

You hold your breath and give the knob the slowest, gentlest twist you can. It jams about halfway; the door is locked.

You let the knob go and brush your hand on a pant leg before continuing along the wall.

You find a corner next. Your heart leaps into your throat. You shut your eyes—they weren't going to help you much, anyway—and round the corner inch by inch, straining your ears for any ticking, creaking, or breathing down the hall.

Nothing.

Farther down, another door. You press with three of your fingers. It's closed shut.

You test the knob.

Click.

You swear that something turns in the walls with that click—something large, maybe with a rumble that will leave the rabbit upstairs privy to your actions. Your shoulders knot and you stand there, clutching the knob and listening, waiting for any movement.

After moments that pass like years, all you hear is,

"Big girls don't cry!"

When Frankie's voice peaks from the phonograph's mouth, you ram the door open with a crack and take a cautious step inside the pitch black room.

The air is old and still, like a glass of water ripe for a mosquito's larvae. The rest of the house didn't smell especially pristine—you think of the cellar with a grimace—but you could tell it'd been lived in, just a little. This room smells like it hasn't been touched for decades.

You hazard to feel around the wall closest to you and find an old, greasy light switch. You flick it up with shut eyes. Something in you expects to find the rabbit there, lurking in the corner. Maybe behind you. Maybe just outside the door. Maybe right in front of you.

You rub the goosebumps back into your arms and crack an eyelid.

You're alone.

The fluorescent light from above hums and flickers on the checkerboard floor. The room is square, small and stained, walls a pale lemon yellow, with no decoration in sight save for the thick mahogany trim banding the room around the middle. A chipped laminate counter held up by some wooden drawers stands underneath a row of cabinets to your right, and to your left, a door. You'd guess that it leads to the dining room; this is the other side of that locked door, the pitch black sliver of the kitchen.

God. Some kitchen this is.

You can hear the music a bit clearer from here. You hope it's enough to muffle your own movements.

"Big girls don't cry.

That's just an alibi."

The drawers all have a small bronze keyhole beside their handles, and you hold in a groan, praying they're not locked.

You give one handle a small tug—cringing at the prints of grease—and to your surprise, it slides open with ease. To your dismay, it's filled to the top with bags of candy, torn open and spilling out to fill every corner of the drawer. Most are chocolates of several name brands. Some are unlabeled, packaged with colorful, waxy plastic twists. Your jaw sets in contempt and you shut the drawer without a second glance. If you have to look at the stuff for one more moment, you might vomit.

You steer your attention to the cabinets. The room's smell is musty, but not very rotten; you expect, or maybe hope, you won't find any decapitated heads.

You open the cabinet to the far left. Glasses, all the same size and shape, stacked unevenly on the shelves, all clouded with the same grease spots as everything else.

You move down the line. Plates. Plain bowls. Floral ceramic bowls. Mixers, whisks.

You've moved to throwing open the cabinet doors by the time you reach the oil.

You blink, startled. A lone canister of mechanical oil, sitting on the highest shelf. Black smears are coagulated around its bottom and the knob of the cabinet. Is this the substance coating the drawers' handles and the lightswitch by the door? Not grease, but oil?

What does this thing do in its free time?

Screw it. You start on the drawers again.

Regular cutlery. A separate compartment for bent cutlery.

Spatulas. Scissors. Meat thermometer. Cooking twine.

Wrenches. Screwdrivers. Nuts. Bolts. Jacksons.

Wait.

"Big girls don't cry!"

Your heart skips a beat.

Money. Stacks of money, lined up in rubber banded rows.

"Big girls don't cry!"

You choke back a gasp and pull the drawer further out. What must be hundreds, thousands of twenty-dollar bills, laid out in front of you. It's beautiful. It's glowing. It's like being led out to pasture after years of being locked up.

"Big girls don't cry!"

Maybe you don't need food. Not from this monster. You could leave this house, take as much money as you can and run—how, you'll figure out later—and the rest is up to you. You could leave this town, this state forever, maybe find somewhere with cheap-as-all-hell renting and start over.

You could actually live.

"Big girls don't cry!"

Your heart races, anxious and giddy. You don't hesitate to grab a wadded fistful of cash. Then another.

A steel hand slams the drawer shut.

"Stealing from me, now?"

The whole room seems to shake.

You whip around, knocking your elbow on the counter, and hasten to stuff the cash into your pocket. The rabbit looks down at you, and at the sight of that empty smile, claws digging into the space of counter beside you, dread pools in your stomach faster than you can blink. It shakes its head slowly and holds its other hand out.

"No," it chuckles, though you sense it doesn't find this the slightest bit funny. "Don't put it in your pocket. Give it to me."

Its stare immobilizes you. Even if you wanted to give the money back, your hand is locked at your side. You were there. You were almost there. Your pulse starts back up again, racing faster than ever, the cold sickness rolling over your shoulders and cheeks and tightening around your throat.

"Big girls don't cry!"

The rabbit hesitates a moment. It then leans in. Close.

"Give me what you just took from that drawer, you little brat," it drawls.

Thousands of words bubble up your throat but your teeth lock them in. You clutch the money at your hip, one arm drawn defensively against your stomach. At last, you muster,

"No."

The rabbit doesn't move. It's fixed in this irritating state again, where it won't do a thing until you cower or throw it a bone. You swallow down a plea and your shoes scuff on the checkerboard floor as you try to back away, the counter denting your spine.

"No. How do you live like this?" you ask tremulously. "Where do you keep food? You have to leave the house. You have to at some point."

The rabbit ducks its head, and the two of you are eye-to-eye. "If it's food you're looking for, bunny, you may wait until dinnertime—"

"Really?" You reach across the counter and throw open the candy drawer with such force that it nearly snaps off its slide. Two of the double twists fall with a clack-clack to the floor. "This?" you seethe. "Is this what you mean? This is not fucking food—"

"Don't test me."

A disbelieved laugh escapes you, and you slam the drawer shut. "Test you. Is that it? That's your limit?"

It stands still. Your mouth twists into a wavering glower.

"What? What are you going to do? Kill me?"

The room falls silent, save for the blare of the phonograph behind the door. The record has begun to skip.

"Big girls don't cry!"

"Big girls don't cry!"

It won't dignify your bluff with a response. It won't even touch you.

After a pregnant pause, you sniff and shake your head.

"No. You won't."

The rabbit is still holding out its hand.

"Give me the money," it says. "Now."

It won't move, either.

You try to sneak a sideways glance at the closed door to your left, at the space below its arm that you might try to duck under. You try to devise some sort of plan under its constant burning gaze, and realize it'd be pointless. You're dead either way. You've already lost.

You stare at the rabbit again. At its palm. Its claws.

Just give it. Give some of it.

Shaking, you clump the two fistfuls of bills into one hand and hold it out apprehensively. The rabbit gives one beckoning furl of its claws. After a moment's hesitation, you drop the clump of cash into its hand—and flatten one bill to your palm with a thumb.

You'll get more next time.

The rabbit's hand clamps over your own. Tight.

"All of it."

You grip the bill with all your might, even though your eyes are welling up and your skin is about to rip clean off, and fix the rabbit with the most challenging stare you can muster.

"I saw how much was in there," you say through a clenched jaw. "You're not going to miss one twenty."

It clamps its claws tighter. Its joints twist the skin on your knuckles thin and raw, and you wince and release the bill before it can draw blood.

It releases your hand in turn. You clutch the limp, dimpled thing to your chest and curl into yourself. The rabbit runs a claw down the center of each bill, smoothing them crisp, and presses the bunch back into the money drawer. It locks the drawer with a click and twist of its claw. You wonder if there are any keys in the house at all.

You look sideways at its face, its pasty blank smile, as it locks the money away. It must be furious. But of course it won't take its face off and show you. It's too afraid.

You hate the rabbit so much that you don't care if it wants to kill you.

It wrenches its claws from the counter—they've left an indent in the old laminate—and after another moment, turns to leave the room. You stare, your blood boiling, at the grime-speckled checkerboard.

"Take your head off."

The Pumpkin Rabbit stops. The air itself stiffens; you feel wasps in your stomach as it, very slowly, turns its head.

"Excuse me?"

Its voice is softer than ever before. You keep your eyes on its long patinated copper neck, wishing you could wring it to scraps.

"Take that rabbit head off," you breathe, "and show yourself. Go on. You won't."

Whoever's behind that face is so yellow-bellied that you want to vomit. You clench your hands on the hem of your shirt and keep staring at the rabbit's neck. You wonder if they're hiding inside its chest, if the head itself is just full of cotton and wire.

"You're a person. You might have this whole house fooled, but not me. Show me what you look like."

The rabbit is completely still. It seems to give that an extra thought, before continuing to walk away.

You give a surprised scoff and lift a shaky finger to point.

"You're leaving. You're—you're running away from me." You laugh again. "You're afraid."

The rabbit flicks off the lights and shuts the door behind it.

Click.

Your heart seizes in your chest, and you run to the door.

"Hey—!"

You grapple for the knob and shake it with all your might. When that fails, you start pounding on the door.

"Hey! Come back and face me!" You choke down labored breaths and yell until your voice strains. "Coward! You're a fucking coward—!"

The parlor music cuts off.

Suddenly your lips are glued together. It takes a moment for it all to settle in.

The eerie, suffocating silence. The dark clinging to you like cobwebs from all sides.

The stench of the bodies.

You shut your eyes and keep pounding on the door until bruises bloom in your palms.

"Come back! Come back and show yourself—!"

The frame gives another click and you freeze, lower your hands, blink in surprise. After a moment, you step back, and no sooner than you do the rabbit opens the door and closes it shut behind itself.

You can barely see an inch past your nose, but you can hear its breath, the ticks and whirs humming from its chest, and you can see the slightest outline of its head, shoulder and ear, where slate-blue light has caught and spread itself tissue-thin.

It stands in silence for a moment. You wonder if it's tired.

It stalks towards you.

You start and take another step back. It's moving so slowly that if not for the clunk of its feet on the tiles, you wouldn't have noticed. Soon your back is to the counter again. You start shuffling to the side and fumble for the doorknob on your left, but before you can move another inch the rabbit has its claws on your neck.

"What if I took your head off?"

Its grip is cold and startling—loose enough for you to pry yourself free, but you've gone still out of fear. You can't move your hands. You can't move your head. Its shallow breathing draws closer.

"Would you like that very much?"

It tightens its grip and you gasp, start digging your fingers into the grooves between its claws in a frenzied effort to loosen them again. This was a mistake. Yelling at this thing, rummaging through the drawers, thinking for just a second that you had a chance of getting away.

Tears bead in your eyes and something coils tight and heavy in your head—you're starting to slip.

"I—"

You can barely wheeze out that one word. You can't breathe.

"First you bother my Witch. Now you steal from me. How much will it take for this to end?"

It scrapes your spine against the counter like a pumice stone. Your hands clutch at its greebled wrist joint.

"Please—I'm—"

"Please," the rabbit whimpers, and its claws tighten again around your throat. "Please, let me go. I'm so sorry. I won't ever dig through your possessions again."

"I-I'm sorry!"

"Are you, now?"

"I won't—!" You gasp feebly. Your voice has gone hoarse. "I won't dig through your stuff again. I promise."

The rabbit isn't moved. Through your tear-blurred haze you make out its faint silhouette, just inches from your face.

You feel lightheaded. It's better than the heaviness before; it feels less like you're being choked and more like you're drifting into a dream. But you know it's killing you.

"Please...!" you muster, your voice cracked and so barely a breath that you're afraid it can't hear you.

A fog has started to creep in from your peripheral, and you'd almost like to sink into it.

Please.

The rabbit is still.

Finally, it releases you, and you drop.

You cough and retch, gripping the countertop to pull yourself up, and fold over the laminate as you clutch your throat and try desperately to breathe again. Your head weighs like concrete on your body as the air floods back into your lungs; it comes dry and in short, jagged gulps. You can't hold a sob from shaking your shoulders.

The rabbit has begun to walk away.

You're empty. You're frail. You haven't had water in days.

You can't keep eating that candy.

You swallow and feel needles in your throat.

"Please," you rasp, and by the way the rabbit's steps falter, you know it can hear.

"I'm so hungry." Your voice breaks again as if you're about to cry. God, you wish you could. Maybe it'll pity you more.

Another heavy silence. It walks back towards you, and brushes your face with the knuckle of a claw. Its touch is far more delicate now; that doesn't stop you from wishing you could swat its hand away.

Its voice crackles low and soft in your ear.

"Wait here."

And it leaves the room.

You don't bother to move. You can't. You have no choice but to wait for it to come back—or until you collapse on the floor yourself. By now you're seeing stars in the black stretch of ceiling over your head. Andromeda in a plumbing stain tucked in the corner. If you fell asleep right now, you wouldn't mind. Maybe you'd have the luck of never waking up.

Five minutes pass, or maybe five years, and the door opens again.

The rabbit approaches you and after a moment, a clink and a rattle from the counter.

You blink, exhausted, and brush your fingers over the countertop until you find a spoon. Your breath catches in your throat; you brush farther along and find ceramic. You start, and touch it all over.

It's a bowl. Warm. Hot. Steaming.

You hang your head over it and take a tentative sniff; nothing.

You grab the spoon off the counter—it rattles in your trembling grip—and sink it into the bowl. Spongy.

Oatmeal.

Your mouth stretches wide, a half-smile, half-grimace. Your breath quickens. It's food. It's a bowl of real, hot food. A tear squeezes free from your eye and rolls down your oily face.

You grab a spoonful and shove it into your mouth. It burns. You don't care. You take another. Soon, you've choked half the bowl down with muffled, guttural sobs. It's heaven. It's painful. Chunks of it drip down your chin, and you can barely lift your hand to wipe them away.

The rabbit's claws brush the nape of your neck and you hunch in even more, startled.

It pets you while you eat and cry.

You finish the bowl and wince as the last chunks of oat go down. Your throat is raw and burning. Your hands are shaking—you're shaking all over. You feel fuller than you've felt for as long as you can remember.

You turn your head towards the rabbit, and find its muzzle is less than an inch from your hair. You back away.

It's silent for a moment.

"Now I've fed you."

You barely process that—the most you can think is God, that hurts; I need to lie down; Why was it so close to me?

The rabbit takes your silence as a prompt to continue.

"I shouldn't hear any more complaints."

You can't speak. If you could, you'd only ask if it can give you another bowl tomorrow, maybe if it has a glass of water for you, too.

It walks away and pauses at the door. You don't get the feeling it's stopped out of pity anymore.

"You won't be coming in here again."

It doesn't need to tell you twice.