Author's Note

Angel's childhood was going so well, until his favourite aunt abducts him for a dark ritual.

Prologue: Bunny in the Dark

Why?

In the end, that was all Angel had left. That was the worst thing, not knowing. If he could understand, maybe he could make it stop. Or at least see an end.

His aunt, Leliel, didn’t even look up from the workbench as she carefully traced her paw over some writings in a book, scritching and chirruping under her breath. It wasn’t any language Angel recognised. Craning his head, he could just see some unpleasant looking… implements on the table. Occasionally he whimpered, but his aunt’s normally kind face was fierce and hardened, like a granite gargoyle. This was not the bunny he’d known since he was a kit.

They were in some ancient, forgotten part of the family burrow, and the whole area was rank with musty neglect. Leliel, Angel’s favourite from a long list, had suggested they explore the warren. It would be an adventure, she’d said. Angel could barely remember how, but he’d ended up in this dim, cramped, abandoned store-room which bore signs of a very recent re-purposing. Then he’d been sat on a bench. Then chained. It’d seemed all in good fun, somehow. He’d trusted her. Now he felt stupid and betrayed – and scared. More scared than he thought possible.

Leliel finally stood, holding a jar and something sharp that gleamed wickedly. Angel had thought the waiting was bad, but seeing the look in his aunt’s eyes as she approached nearly made him faint. She looked eager, excited to the point of shaking, transfigured into something terrifying. He squeaked and chittered and struggled but her footsteps were unwavering, her expression unmoved. She didn’t seem to be seeing him, really, except as an object, for which she had some purpose. He could feel her rapid breathing on his cheek as she leant close, bringing the jar and blade to his side.

He squealed pathetically as the jar began to fill. Eventually, mercifully, darkness took him.

A soft noise, his aunt’s voice, woke him later, though how much later he had no idea. He felt light-headed, nauseous, and his mind was fuzzy but pierced with sharp pain. With blurry vision Angel’s eyes swayed lazily across the raw dirt ceiling. The odd, rhythmic chanting of his aunt had intensified and roused him from unconsciousness, and he searched for the source of the noise. Lifting his head with effort, he turned and saw Leliel dabbing her paw in the jar and drawing intricate patterns which soaked into the clayey orange earthen floor, staining it a rusty carmine. His usefulness apparently finished, she seemed to now have put Angel from her mind completely. He couldn’t even summon the will to speak; the swirling designs seemed to snake across the earth, hypnotizing him. Finally Leliel stood, satisfied, in the centre of the room and closed her eyes, paws up, swaying with the dancing symbols on the floor. For a long time, nothing happened.

Then he felt it. A barely-audible vibration had crept into the room, penetrating his body and starting an odd juddering sensation in his chest. A strange, kind of invisible blackness clouded his mind and eyes and the room went dim and silent, the air thickening and pressing and probing. His aunt, previously intent and determined, changed her body language completely, cowering and grovelling as the designs around her quickened. They bubbled and mounded, clawing at her. She broke the silence hesitantly, but still nothing Angel could understand, speaking briefly. The heavy quiet gathered and towered, his aunt trembled.

And she died.

Not quickly. Not cleanly or painlessly but crushingly, tearingly, screaming and wailing and spilling. Angel couldn’t watch, but something compelled him. When the cries had stopped, and when the wet crunching died away, the silence brooded once more. He lay there, barely conscious and frozen stiff with fear, as if by staying still he could stop sanity from dripping away with his blood, seeking safety in immobility. But it was no use. The presence saw him. Angel felt weighed and measured, evaluated on some alien scale by an insane intelligence. The room fell away and he was transported to a purple darkness, an infinite sphere with weird angular cutaways revealing distant shapes beyond, rotating lazily in the void. Angel was going mad.

Then he was released, his shackles broken, and the room returned. The vibration in the room increased to a tremor, then a shake, and Angel fell off the table as the room began to disintegrate around him. He was too weakened to care, and the weight of the earth falling down upon him heralded a welcome burial.