[Gallagher]

I have interesting nightmares.

Tricks

The house was full, packed with odds and ends from the last hundred years at least. I knew my family was scattered within it, too, but I didn't have time to worry about them. The beasts were among us, watching our every move, prepared to do whatever it took to stop our escape. I remembered this. As impossible as it was, I remembered this, and I knew our enemy.

I only wish I could say that would have helped us.

We were scavanging the room for supplies. Not to survive. Not to fight. Getting out was the only thing that mattered. But there was nothing here, only distractions.

The door burst open, a wave of shadows flooded in, the forms of monsters blended together, impossible to tell one from another, let alone how many there were. We ran, myself and my friend through the opposite door, my brother through the side. When they went after him, we knew he was lost.

Bicycles stacked halfway to the ceiling filled the next room. It wasn't what we had in mind, but we were out of time. Each of us took what we could, what was in reach without being tangled in the limbs of its bretheren, or on the edge of decay. We could only leave the way we'd come, and hope the shadows were still busy feeding.

Past door after door after door, not daring to follow any screams, acknowledge any eyes, give heed to any movement. Outside, what remained of those we loved waited patiently. Few had found their escape like we had, but it was more than we could have possibly hoped for.

There was hardly time to take count before we heard him. To say it was a laugh that made the ground tremble and that old house shake on its foundations would have been almost believable. It was certainly the closest any beast could come.

The Rabbit was here.

The Rabbit was free.

The Rabbit was tired of playing.

We took to the streets and rode. I led them all, knowing what none of us should have, knowing the only place we might be safe.

I never heard any screams, any crashes, any cries. There was only the thump, thump, thump, closer and closer, and the chatter of insects, chasing their queen, absorbing everything they touched into their numbers.

There, up ahead, a street lamp. That was it. I turned the wheel and skid, the asphalt giving way to mud, the clouds to endless blue, the noise to silence. I stopped, I turned, I met the eyes of The Rabbit, its eyes as bright as its children were black, long ears set back against its massive body, its form almost like any other hare.

We stood in silence.

They were gone. Everyone I knew. All that had hunted them.

We were alone, The Rabbit and I.

I never wondered, "Why me?" I didn't have to ask, "What now?"

I already knew, among those impossible things I never should have. I already knew.

All proper warrens have their chief, after all.