prologue and first two chapters

Prologue

The tin can spun unceremoniously in stellar space as the great, blindingly white rock stared at its crew just beyond the side hatch. To an onlooking spacefarer, its service module and propulsion system might well have resembled a child’s make-believe rocket fashioned from a can of pork and beans.

The three man crew, behind a shield of steel and systems, buzzed reports through headsets that transposed their voices thousands of miles away to a room full of anxious engineers in a tight spot. It was now or never, if the Apollo mission was a failure there would be no time left in the decade to fulfill Kennedy’s outrageous proclamation. With tensions high during a moment of radio silence, the capsule communicator jested to the crewmembers who were nigh entering lunatic pandora.

“Among the headlines concerning Apollo this morning is one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit.” Confused eyes shifted to the direction of the speaker and his nonsense comment. “An ancient legend says a beautiful girl named Chang-O has been living there for 4,000 years. It seems she was banished to the moon because she stole a pill of immortality from her husband.”

His remark was met only with silence from the engineers, but the crewmembers faces, lit by the shimmering space rock, were struck with silly smiles.

“You might also look for her companion, a large rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.” Radio chatter died down a moment more. A chuckling astronaut who went by the name of Collins eventually responded, his amusement audible still even in the tinny, poor quality transmission.

“Okay. We’ll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.”

The Eagle separated from its commanding vantage and slowly set upon its landing; pirouetting through the starlit void and into the moon’s orbit. The two crewmembers aboard the landing craft, Aldrin and Armstrong, surveyed the surface through their instruments as the surface passed below them, and noted they were passing a few seconds ahead of schedule.

“Houston, we are long,” Aldrin reported.

A minute later, the navigation system broke into alarm. Something was not right; the system was overloaded, it had regressed to performing only critical landing functions. Red lights filled the small landing craft, its crew shaken both by the momentum of the fall and the apparent emergency.

“Houston, the computer is indicating an executive overflow.”

“It’s safe. Continue your descent.”

Unease settled in as they ignored the warnings. Armstrong again looked outside, greeted by a boulder-filled crater some distance from their originally planned landing zone; their craft drifted off course in the sudden panic. He grasped the controls, taking over for the automatic pilot. Only a few moments of fuel left; a slow and easy descent was necessary, lest the landing gear crash into the rocks below.

A light flickered on above Aldrin’s head; one of the probes hanging from the Eagle’s footpads was scraping the surface.

“Contact light!”

Armstrong brought the Eagle to a full stop, announced to the vacant space with a wet splash audible even from where they were sitting. Armstrong was suddenly very confused, but Aldrin did not appear to have noticed.

“Shutdown,” Armstrong said, taking his hands off the controls.

“Okay, engine stop. ACA, out of detent.” Aldrin immediately responded.

“Out of detent. Auto.” Armstrong acknowledged, and Aldrin continued. “Mode control... both auto. Descent engine command override off. Engine arm-- off. Four-one-three is in.”

The speaker at mission control acknowledged them dutifully, a bead of sweat running down his brow.

“We copy you down, Eagle.”

Armstrong reported the completion of the landing checklist, and then spoke with some bravado into the microphone.
“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

There is a collective sigh of relief among the engineers, especially among those who had been holding their breath. They’d finally done it-- they’d put two men on the moon.

Hours later, Armstrong opened the hatch clad in a suit of armor crafted to shield one from the vacuum of space. He held in his hand a flag covered in stripes and stars. He was expecting to see a white rocky plain, covered in dust. Instead, when he poked his head out of the Eagle’s entrance, he noticed it was half submerged in the restless shallow tides of crystal clear water, just off some kind of coast. In the distance he saw waves, highlighted with sparkling reflections of starlight, shifting back and forth in tune with cosmic wind. His eyes opened wide; mission control suddenly noticed record high beats per minute coming from Armstrong’s heart monitor.

At the beach’s end were rolling green hills, dotted with leafy trees. Mountains could be seen in the distance, reaching into the sky toward the blue earth which hung in the twilight. Some kind of building laid curiously beyond the stretch of water before him. A complex, manmade structure. A white, shining ivory tower jutting out into the star-filled void, as if to call onlookers to the gates of Heaven.

He noticed something quite closer approaching the craft from the beach; small, white, fuzzy creatures, their eyes gleaming red. A circle of them formed just before the water, staring onward ominously. Armstrong felt cold sweat run down his back and his blood froze to ice as he saw the group part, making way for a figure coming down the beach. A tall, pale thing in some kind of ceremonial dress. He tried to make sense of it, tried to picture what mistake mission control had made - could this really be the moon? - it slipped further away from him with each thought. The world darkened, his senses dulled. He could no longer see, he could only hear his own breath, echoing back to him inside his helmet. So very, very alone, so far away from everything he knew.

“Armstrong? What’s wrong, you okay?” His copilot’s voice buzzed in his earpiece. He looked again out at the desolate landscape, the shining white rock he now stood upon, lined with boulders and covered in dust. The past few hours had been a blur, having forgone sleep and been up since the early previous morning.

“Armstrong, can we get a statement?”









The White Rabbit

A drop of water touched my nose and I awoke again, standing amidst hazy streetlights on the corner of late night and early morning. When you sleep as little as I manage to, wakefulness is a vague and distant thing; the dreams seek you out even when you stand firmly on two feet.

I found myself breathing the wafting vapors of rural smoke and drizzling rain. You couldn't see the moon, but the overcast sky was a myriad of dull blues and reds. The city was sleeping silently and I felt for all the world like a lone man drifting through an abandoned metropolis, listening to light pitters and patters of water touching down onto the earth.

There was a place in town that never closed and its unfortunate employees could be seen at all hours of the night, eyes sunken and dry, waiting for patrons that might never come. I couldn't stand waiting in line when all I wanted was canned coffee, so the only logical thing to do was wait until it was an ungodly hour of the night when nobody in their right mind would carry money on their person while walking around - the functional equivalent of calling ‘please mug me’ until some shadowy vagabond happily complied - and go shopping.

The building was like a sanctuary of corporate consumerism, its fluorescent lights shining beacons of needless spending, visible from blocks away. As I stepped through the oversized parking lot I noticed a white furry thing laying in the middle of the asphalt. It was lying in a puddle of blood, soaking into its fur, motionless. A rabbit. It must have been someone's pet that fled from its owner, only to be torn to bits by a stray cat or some other prowler in the night.

The building was empty save for me, the lighting that was destroying my vision and a mile of processed food and sugary drinks. There were of course the zombie employees, but their pale, sickly skin and dead eyes resembled no living person. I paid the nearest unliving employee and left with my can of wakefulness.

The place always left me feeling filthy, like a torrent of consumer brainwashing powder fell from the ceiling of the building, and I reflexively shook myself off to resist its psychotropic influence. As I began to leave the area, my eyes were drawn to the blood puddle from before. The rabbit was missing. Whatever attacked it must have come back to drag it off, perhaps I'd scared it away when I was walking into the parking lot.

In the middle of that thought I felt something soft underneath my foot. There it was, barely breathing, clinging to life, and I was one thoughtless movement away from finishing the job. It wasn't very white anymore, much of its coat was stained the rust red color of dried blood.

Kneeling down to get a better look at it, I considered my position. This is a dying animal. It might have a disease. There might not really be anything I could do for it, save for what I was about to blunder into a moment before and end its pain. Yet, watching its tiny movements, seeing its body rise and fall in rhythm of its breathing, I felt I could not just leave it there to die.

It did not resist as I scooped it up into my arms, and I worried that any incorrect movement I made would injure it further. I hurriedly stepped away from the building functioning as a city nightlight behind me, hoping that no passerby noticed the wheezing red ball of fluff. It very nearly blended in with my red jacket, so from a distance I might have looked like I was simply walking around with my arms folded.

I lived in a hole in the wall on the poor side of town and it was a lucky night if the complex was bereft of peddlers reeling in another hooked client for their very legitimate businesses. I suppose I had returned at a late enough hour that the only souls still awake were inside their apartments burning the midnight oil in a glass pipe.

It wasn't a big place. Two small buildings, four rooms on each, and an office. Each room a tiny studio with a bathroom. My door was unlocked. I was either naive or lazy - I couldn't decide which - and had put good faith in the upstanding citizens living in the slums around me that no thief would wander in to steal my hand-me-down clothes, rickety old furniture or obsolete electronics.

Stepping inside my door I took a paranoid moment to look back upon my entry path, checking the dark corners for any ominously glowing eyes. I had a peculiar feeling like I was holding something valuable and may have been followed, but I reasoned to myself that the smell of the animal might have attracted some stray cats or dogs and that was what worried me-- not some stalker in the night.

I set the meekly wheezing rabbit down on the counter near my sink and ran some warm water with the drain plugged, causing a makeshift miniature bath to form. Holding it upright, I eased the rabbit inside and began to slowly rub its fur under the water, the blood rinsing off like a layer of burdens that was waiting to be lifted. The rabbit went limp, and I worried that its condition was deteriorating; but it continued to breathe, slowly and weakly. Something that was rather odd was that even though the rabbit appeared to be smaller than my quite large sink, I had trouble fitting it inside. I must have been tired, and the rabbit must have been larger than I initially thought.

As I cleaned it, its coat took on a lustrous white color once more. In fact, it seemed to shimmer in the dull light of my room, as bright as a full moon on a clear night. This made it easy to find the wound; a large gash on its underside, like smeared red paint on a pure white canvas. I retrieved some gauze from the medicine cabinet in my bathroom and gently wrapped it over the wound and around the small creature's body, taking care not to wrap it too tight. The creature looked at me as I did so, and in its eyes I found myself perplexed. While I was sure that the rabbit couldn't really know what I had done for it, I had a strange sense that it was acknowledging me. That deep within its black pupils there was some form of recognition for me and my rescue, such as it was.

I filled a small dish with water and another with some old lettuce from my mostly empty refrigerator, still green enough to be eaten; placed them alongside a folded towel on the floor, and seated the rabbit on top of it. I didn't have anything like a cage, so this would have to do... and even so, I didn't think the rabbit was going anywhere. While it was moving around a bit more, breathing more steadily, a great escape didn't seem likely.

I turned around, fell face first onto my bed still fully dressed, and lost consciousness moments later.

A bright, white, luminous light paints the darkened sky. In the center a perfect featureless orb stands as a guardian between heaven and the earth, as if looking down and judging all the denizens below as they participate in their greed, their filth, their impurity. The days pass endlessly and without note or consequence, and the omnipresent orb watches forever, silently abiding each atrocity it witnesses. As time flows on, bright glowing stars fill the white sky, one after another, innumerable, until the twilight is a twinkling ocean of heavenly bodies. Then, all at once, they begin to fall. Streaks of stardust paint over one another, the earth is overcome with light; to all who would gaze upon it, fire was raining from the heavens, striking the earth with holy vengeance.

A small voice I'd never heard before spoke quietly from the window of my room in words I don't understand. No, they didn't even sound like words. It was a series of foreign high and low pitched squeaking tones, like a machine might make. Opening my eyes slowly, I turned my head to see the most bewildering sight.

Settled next to my window was a small girl whose hair was very white, and as the sunlight touched it, seemed to faintly shimmer. Seated upon a stool that had been sitting around my apartment, she was peering into a very strange contraption I am positive had not been there when I went to sleep. The closest thing I could compare it to was a computer, but it had too many screens and they were all filled with incomprehensible symbols I'd never seen before. There were no buttons or any discernable input methods of any kind on it. All across its body were what I can only describe as veins, pumping light back and forth. It was grafted onto my wall and windowsill and something resembling an antenna was sticking out of it, pointed toward the heavens.

I sat up slowly, as silently as I could, and began to approach the stranger. She was distracted with the machine, making odd noises into it. I took a single step towards her, and she twitched, directing my attention to something about her I had overlooked in my sleepy stupor.

Atop her crown, blending in with her sun-touched hair, were two white, fuzzy protrusions and as she turned to face me, I could see quite clearly they were oversized ears... like a rabbit would have. I froze, staring.

She was wearing a plain pale blue blouse and skirt, with a silver crescent moon pinned to the chest of her blouse. She was barefoot, and her hair was a mess. Her eyes were a bright red-violet color and looked at me with quivering uncertainty. I had seen those eyes before. She opened her mouth to say something to me, but the only sounds that came out were more of the strange machine squeaks and tones. She went on for a moment like this seeming distressed, a series of nonsensical noises. Then she quieted down and seemed expectant of me to reply.

"I, uh..." I stammered. She was raising her eyebrow at me. "What? I don't understand."

She turned around again and detached a small piece of the contraption in my windowsill, one of the machine's many screens. She held it up to my face and unintelligible symbols swarmed back and forth, responding to my every movement. The girl made another squeaking noise, as if commanding me to say something.

"Wh-what is this thing?" As the words left me, the little screen filled with letters I could read.

LANGUAGE RECOGNIZED. EARTHLING LANGUAGE: ENGLISH. ORIGINS DATING BACK TO THE SPLINTERING OF THE TOWER OF BABEL. WIDESPREAD USE THROUGHOUT WESTERN CONTINENTS.

She then pulled the device away from me as it continued to fill with words.

HUMAN. MALE. WHITE. ANGLO-SAXON HERITAGE. 25 EARTH YEARS SINCE BIRTH.

She connected it to the machine again and placed her hand atop its body, closing her eyes. As she did, the machine began to glow a blinding blue color, then dulled as the light seemed to somehow ‘transfer’ into her hand and flow into her body. When it faded, she stood up, turned to me and frowned. She opened her mouth to speak, but several awkward seconds passed soundlessly-- her face contorted, her mouth opened and closed and I saw her tongue dancing behind it.

"T... Th... is..." She quietly murmured, experimenting with the syllables. "T-t-t-this... la-lang..."

I waited patiently, perturbed but fascinated, as she sounded out the consonants and explored the vowels. It took her a minute or two, but she was finally able to form a coherent sentence.

"Th... this lang... language does... does not m-make any… any sense." She had a soft, quiet voice, with an odd sort of rhythmic tone. Every word that came from her mouth had a synthesized lisp, as if her voice were simulated, but I could tell it was not. It was too human, too deliberate, too many errors to come from anything but a living thing.

"Who are you? Why are you in my apartment?" I questioned, hoping to make some sense of the situation, not yet ruling out the possibility that I was still asleep. She thought on my words a moment and I watched the gears almost visibly turn in her head as she slowly pieced together what I had asked.

"You b-brought me... here." She folded her arms, frowning. The way she was looking at me seemed to imply I’d forgotten something. "Re... member?"

"What? No, I never bring anyone here. I think I'd remember if I--" as I stumbled through my words she peered into my eyes, an icy stare that was unshaken by my denials.

"L-look..." She lifted her blouse past her stomach. There, below her chest, was a wrap of gauze accented with a deep red stain in the center.

I was having trouble grasping what I was seeing. Last night, I’d brought an injured white rabbit home with me and patched it up-- and that's all. Somehow, that was actually this girl?

"Th-this, the earth ra... rabbits did t-this to me. They, they f-found me after I fell to ea-earth, and..." Her words were full of shame; she stared at the ground as she spoke. "L-left me for dead. I've fail... failed my master. My people..." Her shoulders tensed and she quietly sniffled. She was on the verge of tears.

I was almost sure I was asleep. I pinched my arm and my nerves reacted, informing me I was in fact awake. Sympathetic though I may have been, I was having trouble wrapping my head around the idea of a rabbit-person standing barefoot on my dirty carpet, looking at me with tear-filled eyes, swelling in their pitifulness. What was I to do with her?

She stood in front of me, shivering and staring at my floor, her hands clenched in fists at her side. I tentatively reached my hand over and placed it gingerly on her shoulder. She shuddered, but didn't resist.

"Is there, uh… Some way I could help you?" I asked, my words uncertain. She searched me with her eyes, placing her gaze in mine as if to discern my intentions. She sighed, and then returned her gaze to the floor.

"I, I h-have no way to re... turn on my, my own. I fell from my--" she stopped herself mid-sentence, as if she was about to say something she shouldn't. She composed herself again, and continued. "I h-have contac-ted my super... super-iors. I must sur-vive un... until help c-comes."

Every time she spoke the situation became less coherent. Contacted? This machine is some kind of communications device? Survive? As in... whatever attacked her before is going to try again?

"Li-listen." She took a step back from me and gave me a cold look. "I sh-should not be here. Living among h-humans... that is what earth r-rabbits do. Sep, separatists..."

Her gaze on me was troubled, glaring as if trying to force some kind of hatred into me.

"W-why?" She stuttered through clenched teeth, her eyes reddening with moisture. "Im-pure. I am im-pure... now."
Her body was tense and trembling, and she stared at me with a combination of confusion and malice. Her piercing red-violet eyes sank their sight into my being; I couldn't look away from her and her terrifying, mesmerizing, bright red eyes.

A rabbit. A white rabbit, scared and hurt, trembling before me. I'm frozen in place, I know if I make a single move it will run away, as any stray animal that believed itself in danger might. But something is different about this rabbit. It's crying. Pearlescent tears roll down its sheer white fur and onto my floor. It knows it is trapped, it knows there is no going back to the rabbit hole now. It has been tainted, its kin will not accept it now. It is crying.

Eventually, she softens. Her brow furls into worry, or perhaps defeat.

"I guess I… I would be... d-dead if not for you, so..." She trailed off, and slowly turned toward her machine, resigning herself at my stool. The room grew quiet. Left standing there, still very confused, I turned as well and remembered the can of coffee I had bought the night before, waiting for me on my counter.

With a practiced, nearly automatic motion, I popped open the can. A small trail of vapor escaped the opening and the aroma of coffee beans and vanilla met my nose. I took a long swig, and then two or three more, downing half the can in a few seconds. Though it quickly brought me wakefulness and though I could feel the chemicals invigorating me and causing dopamine to rush to my brain, still I slumped in my chair, at a loss.

Every day the world consumes three hundred tons of caffeine, enough for one cup of coffee for every man, woman and child. I read that somewhere. Myself, I drink around three and if I don't drink a cup in the morning I feel a bit lethargic for much of the day. Maybe I should stop.

The girl across the room was absorbed in her machine. No matter how I looked at it I couldn't make any sense of it. It was like staring into a kaleidoscope, the incomprehensible mixtures of shifting colors and imagery spilling into my retinas. Instead I just watched her.

She looked crestfallen. Her... ears... were drooping. She was staring into that contraption, as if it were a window to another world, one she was pining for that I couldn't see nor understand. She was being very quiet, seemed whoever she had been talking to before was no longer there; the only sounds in the room were the muffled tapping of rain on the roof and her breathing.

I hadn't noticed it before, but her skin was very white, as if she had never been in the sun in her life. Where did she come from? I hadn't really grasped what she said before. 'After I fell to earth,' what did that mean exactly? 'Fell' from where?

"So, uh..." I started, scratching my head. She turned to face me, her eyes looking heavy and tired. I wasn't sure what to say and our last conversation wasn't particularly productive. I still didn't know anything about her, not even her name.

"Help me out here," I requested, setting down the coffee can. "Who are you? How did you get here?" She averted her gaze, looking at the floor. She seemed to be thinking about how to respond.

"My n-name is ☆☽★." The noise she made is hard to describe. It was as though her vocal chords became wind chimes for a few syllables, and the wind of her voice blew the chiming into a word. I blinked a few times.

"I, uh, I think I might have some trouble pronouncing that." I scratched my head again.

"In your e-earth language, I think it m-means..." She fidgeted, searching for the words. "I, I think it means, 'the Star that is Bright During the Full Moon.'"

"That's very pretty," I leaned back in my chair, "but it's kind of a mouthful. If you're such a bright star, I'll call you 'Luminous' instead." She raised her eyebrow at me again.

"Lumi for short. Okay?" I smiled at her, feeling very clever. She just looked confused.

"Lumi-nous," she repeated, like a child learning a new word.

"How'd you get here, Lumi? You said you 'fell.' Fell from where?" I asked, and she suddenly looked very uncomfortable, her body tensing. She turned away from me.

"From... a very high... place. High enough that we can see e-everything that happens. On, on the earth." She placed one hand on her device again. "We do not get i-involved with things on the e-earth often, but, there has been a inc... inci-den..." She stumbled and tripped over the word, not sure how to pronounce it. She was clearly not comfortable with the language, which made sense considering she'd learned it from her machine just a few minutes prior. I played that thought over in my head a few times, pondering the absurdity of it.

"It would be, ah, easier if you j-just... just put your hand here. It will be... exp-lained." She turned her gaze to the machine where her hand was resting, gesturing for me to do the same. As I stepped over to follow her instruction, I examined the thing more closely. The 'veins' of it seemed to pump light directly into her hand, and when she looked at it, perhaps to give it instruction, the light flowed in a different direction; toward one of the myriad of screens, and information - that I couldn't understand - would flood the surface. As I moved my hand close to hers, I paused.

"I asked you before, what is this thing? How did you get it in here?" I asked, my hand an inch from its surface.

"I s-suppose in English it would be called, ah, called..." She looked at the system again and it responded with more nonsense symbols. "This is a... Selenocentric Information Computation Processor." She gave a weak smile, like she considered it a small achievement to pronounce all that.

"These, ah, systems, are con-nected to a... data... base..." Every time she used a somewhat difficult word, she stumbled over and thought about it for a moment. She quickly grew impatient, however, and shook her head. "Just! Just put your hand there!" She blurted out and grabbed my wrist, pulling my palm into contact with the machine.

I felt a rush of warmth flood my hand as the machine reacted to me. Blues and greens raced from the 'veins' into the spot my hand was sitting, and looking closer, they were flooding into my arm. The strange symbols from the screens were printing onto my arm, climbing up from my hand. I could feel them, the markings etching into my skin, like a thousand insects crawling over me; swiftly replaced by different symbols and colors, an unbearable tickling sensation. I panicked and I tried to jerk my arm away, but my hand would not budge, some unseen force held it to the machine.

"Relax," she soothed. "It won't... hurt." She turned to one of the screens, silently directing me to do the same. As I gazed upon it, my consciousness began to melt away. I was losing grip on where I was, what I was doing, how my body felt. For a brief moment, I was no longer myself; I was a weightless entity being sucked into a lightless void where I could neither see nor sense. As I stared into the infinite blackness, slowly, one by one, things crashed into being. In the distance, a frame of glowing wires in the shape of a mountain range formed and then filled in, a deep purple color. From behind it and over the horizon arose a violet orb, painting the black sky a dark blue tint. All around me, trees, roads, buildings and finally people began to materialize, all sporting a blue outline that highlighted their being. The people passed back and forth in a blaze of light, never slowing down, and it was hard to get a good look at any of them. I did notice however that they all bore the same fuzzy protrusions coming from their hair, ears like Lumi's.

From below me, legs formed, then a torso and arms, and I could feel that I was no longer a floating soul but tethered to a body once more. I felt something new, however, and reached above my head to feel a thin, sensitive ear that was attached to me, one just like it nearby. Reflexively, I attempted to move them and I found that I could twitch them back and forth, bend them downward and slightly to the side. As I was exploring these strange appendages, I felt someone touch my hand. A small girl, with white hair that seemed to shine in the light, violet-red eyes, considerably shorter than me though I was not particularly tall. Lumi. She was wearing a jacket and tie over her blouse, and her hair was done up in twin tails. She flashed me a shy smile.

"Where are we?" I tried to say, but it didn't come out that way. Instead, a series of squeaks in high and low rhythmic tones was what Lumi and anyone else listening heard.

"Come with me," a squeak from her mouth that I automatically interpreted, despite having no knowledge of her language. She tugged my hand and pulled me in the direction of one of the large glowing neon buildings. Several other rabbit-people were entering and we followed behind them somewhat nonchalantly, though Lumi was tugging my arm to its full length, looking eager to take me inside.

"Welcome sir and madam," a chrome figure near the door called to us in a robotic voice, repeating this line adjusted to gender for every person who entered. Past him was a spacious room filled with tables adorned with decorated cloths, flowers, and drinks of various neon colors. I watched an exchange between two people for a moment and noticed something odd. As they spoke, pictures and videos materialized in the air and they would stop talking to look at them. Something I was seeing a lot pop up between groups of people was what appeared to be a rabbit's face, ‘drawn’ by aligning computer symbols in a clever way. Lumi's grip on my hand tightened and we began to walk over to a filled table.

"What kind of place is this?" I questioned, attempting to orient myself. She put a finger to her lips in thought.

"I guess in the earthling language, they'd call this an... 'internet forum...?'"

We sat next to some other rabbits talking at a large table. They didn't seem to notice us, at least not right away.

"It's really happening," a thin, male rabbit-person exclaimed as he leaned back in his chair, bringing his drink to his mouth. "The invasion! The earthlings are finally getting what's coming to them."

"You gotta stop going to those right-wing sites on Lago-Net. You don't honestly believe that shit, do you?" His dark haired friend replied, looking skeptical. "EAR’s just blowing smoke up the net's collective ass. That's all they ever do."

Lumi offered me one of the drinks on the table and beamed at me. I gave her a questioning look.

"This is just virtual booze, right? Just 'for fun?'" I asked quietly, as to not disrupt the patrons near us. The girl didn't answer, merely pressed the glass to my mouth. Steadying it with my hand, I took a long swig. I could taste it, which was odd in itself. It was a green neon drink and tasted like apple juice, with an odd sickly sweet aftertaste that made my head spin. It hit my stomach hard, and in an instant I felt very tipsy, like I'd really been drinking alcohol.

"You're blind, man. Why do you think that emissary was sent down there? It ain't 'cause the separatists are peaceful. They need somebody to go in and cover it up when earthlings start dropping like flies." It was becoming harder to completely grasp what they were saying as I felt my head getting lighter. Lumi took a sip as well, but I think she must be used to the stuff. If I took another drink I'm sure I would have lost all higher brain function.

“Have you read that propaganda about a ‘Heaven on Earth?’ They’re trying to start a war, that’s what they’re doing. This is how the invasion starts!” The thin one went on. The odd thing about the rabbit language is how they would incorporate rhythmic ‘beeps’ into their words. It sounded like auto-tune, or a synthesizer. I mistook the noise for a computer the first time I heard it as I didn't think any human had the range to make such a sound, but they could replicate it again and again, as if they could modulate their voices at will.

"If that's true, that emissary girl is dead by now. I guarantee that." The dark haired rabbit person downed the remainder of his glass. "If the separatists got her, she's lucky. Imagine what some shit eating earthling might do to a royal emissary. Ain't like she could come back after that."

“But that’s just it, man! They kill that chick and we’ll end up nuking those fuckers back into the stone age. They’re asking for it.”

"Hey, I'm getting bored. Let's go play Defense of the Carrots." They stood up, looking woozy. They must have drank quite a bit. They began to saunter away, supporting one another as they walked.

"That game sucks, dude, and the balance is all over the place. Icehare has no idea what he’s doing."

Lumi looked at me, her brows furrowed. "Everyone knows, now… I haven’t been gone even a day."

“What is EAR?” I asked, putting my hand to my mouth to stifle a burp. Lumi snickered, but her brows furled at the question.

“Earth Aggressor Rabbits, the separatist group. They have no official name, so we just call them ‘the separatists,’ usually.” She took another sip of the glowing green liquid in her glass. “And I’ve been assigned to--”

“T-they’re plotting something like a Heavenly Earth? Wh-what?” I stuttered, my speech slurred.

“Come with me,” she softly requested. She stood up and took my hand in hers to guide me out of my chair. I gave a cursory glance around the room as we left; one common thing I saw being shared appeared to be rabbit people mocking a motivational video from our internet, some drawing rabbit ears and buck teeth on the speaker, with ‘just chew it!’ and a carrot next to him.

We passed by a table of rabbits who seemed to be playing a board game. Each had a handful of cards and a small collection of glowing miniature stars in a plastic container next to them. There were symbols on the board I didn't recognize, and looking at them made my head hurt... but somehow, I understood that they read ‘100% Carrot Extract.’ One of the rabbits rolled the dice and his player piece, a female rabbit wearing what looked like a red Santa Claus outfit, landed on a red square. A hologram appeared of a giant, midnight-skinned but otherwise featureless male. The table became tense. The holographic creature rolled a die, and the number seven appeared. The player rolled his die around in his hand, afraid to let it go-- until it slipped out of his hand onto the table, landing on a one. He groaned loudly and the table exploded in laughter. Lumi dragged me away.

I was stumbling with each step, and Lumi slowed her quick and careless gait to make sure I didn't fall over. She led me from the building down a grassy path glowing neon teal and toward a large intersection. Each path leading to and from it were streaming an uncountable number of rabbits passing back and forth. Lumi guided me to a bench and sat me down.
"Are you alright?" She squeaked. I guess she expected me to hold my liquor better, but I was wobbling back and forth in my seat, barely able to keep my composure.

"Look-- look there!" She pointed to a huge screen connected to a tall support beam in the middle of the intersection. It appeared to be some kind of newscast. I tilted my head upward to look at it but I was seeing double at that point.

"Lady Andromeda spoke out today against the continued rumors about conspirators among the rabbits living on Earth. She stated today that she would personally reestablish relations with the earth rabbits, reassuring concerned citizens that we have nothing to fear from our neighbors down below." The news anchor was an older rabbit who was beginning to develop wrinkles, his hair greying. Behind him was an image of a very pale woman with long black hair. A multicolor neon streak highlighted strands of hair near her temples, the color bled onto her face in an odd pattern like circuit boards. They connected to her eyes, which were a fiery bright orange color. She wore a thin black dress that obscured her form-- no, it was as though the dress was a window to the stars, shifting around the galaxy as she moved. Notably, her head was not sporting any rabbit ears.

"'Twas there but the smallest thought of dissidence from order amongst our earthly scions, I would bear down on them the greatest wrath the Heavens can offer the Earth." She spoke in such a way that her voice was thrown like a booming echo, and at the end of nearly every sentence she tossed her hair dramatically. "Knowest they their place among the hierarchy of lunar children. Taketh not solely my words!" She threw her arms forward, hands turned upward as if making some kind of offering. "To dispel any lingering worries, I shalt reestablish our ancient bond with those on Earth."

"Who is that woman?" I asked, feeling very dizzy. Lumi put her hand over my mouth to quiet me.

“Not so loud..." She lowered her voice to a barely audible hush. "Only an outsider wouldn't know who Lady Andromeda was." She grabbed my arm and pulled me off the bench, and then she simply stood there for a moment, gazing skyward.

"Look," she said in a commanding tone I didn't expect from her. She pointed at the big violet orb in the sky and stared at it unblinkingly. I noticed her eyes began to change color from violet-red to a deep, blood red. I turned to look as well, and the sight of it was hypnotizing. I couldn't look away. As I stared, transfixed on it, I felt my body being tugged again, back through a tunnel of sight and senselessness, my consciousness fading.

When I came to, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment, my hand still on the machine. Lumi was sitting on the stool, her eyes closed. She hadn't returned yet. She breathed slowly and softly, as if she were sleeping.

I ran my hand across the top of my head. The ears were gone.





The Garden of Poison


"’EAR,’" Holding the coffee can by the top end, I swung it in a slow circle with my wrist, listening to the remaining liquid swish around. Lumi was sitting opposite me on the messy bed that I had neglected to straighten the previous night. "The separatists are rabbits who live on earth?"

    Lumi closed her eyes and nodded. Her hands were together in her lap, and my bed was high enough that her short legs did not reach the floor. She opened her mouth to speak, but all that escaped her lips was a sigh.

    “Are there a lot of them? That name makes it sound like they’re all extremists,” I noted.

    “I do not know, ah, how many… I have never been to the earth before.” She responded, shaking her head.

    "Who was that woman we saw? The one on the screen?" I asked, prompting Lumi to open her eyes and give me a surprised look, as if incredulous that I really didn't know. Then she seemed to remember where she was, who she was talking to; she closed her eyes again, giving a tired-looking frown.

    "That is Lady Andromeda, a member of Lunarian ro-royalty." Though stumbling over the word, she did not slow down. "She is not exactly our leader. A council member is a closer compari... comparis..." When she struggled with a word, she would make a sort of ‘chirping’ noise as filler. It sounded very animal, but at the same time mechanical, in that 'auto-tuned' way that only the rabbit people were able to speak.

    "So-- you were sent down here to make contact with the earth rabbits. That’s what she was referring to when she said, ‘reestablish our bond with the earth?’" I interrupted to keep the conversation moving. She nodded slowly, her ears drooping. "So I take it that didn’t work out so well. What happened?" I asked, and she lowered her eyes to the floor. Calling back the memory seemed to be painful for her.

    "They, they knew I was coming," she began. "They knew where I would a-arrive on earth, and they knew I would come unarmed." She winced at the thought of her defenselessness.

    "There was no dis… discussion. " She shifted uncomfortably in her seat, looking away. “They, ah… re-fused to deal. With, with the Lunarians.” I could tell she’d rather not go over the details, her voice shaking a little as she spoke.

    "Lunarians? You keep saying that. Who are the Lunarians?" I questioned, taking another drink of coffee. She couldn't really mean people living on the moon, could she? She brightened somewhat, clearly eager to change the subject.

    “Ah-- how to explain to a human…” She deliberated a moment, her chin in her hand. "In re... corded his-tory, the Lunarians deci... deci... agreed that the earth and its people were filled with impur... ities..." She was having a lot of trouble explaining in English. I rose my hands to tell her not to push herself, but she shook her head, determined.

    "So... so! They decided to migrate to the moon! To live in Heaven, as pure as the gods we were born from!" She shouted proudly. I pressed my hands toward the floor, gesturing for her to lower her voice.

    "But Andromeda didn't have, er, ears... like you have," I looked to her long, fuzzy protrusions. At the mention of them, they stood up straight and she fluttered them back and forth, looking a little embarrassed.

"Oh, no, no... you misunderstand." She reached up to hold her ears in place with her fingers as she spoke.

    "Rabbits are the servants of Lunarians. They gave us pros... prosperity, and we give them our de... devotion, in return." She placed her hands back in her lap, but I hadn't taken my eyes off her ears. She blushed and fluttered them again, as if to show them off.

    "The first of us tra... veled... to our home in Heaven with the Lunarians, and we have lived in harmo... ny... ever since." Her bright expression suddenly dampened into seriousness. "Not all of us are so gra-grateful. The separatists are rabbits who will-ingly left Heaven to live on Earth in im-purity.

    "They prop-agandize through our c-communication channels, trying to recruit more lunar rabbits." She looked over to the machine near the window. "They, they don't have any-thing like my SICP, so they're forced to use human co-computers and send messages over Lago-Net." She snickered in superiority that I thought unbecoming of the small rabbit girl. "Lago-Net is, ah, dep-recated… It's very pri-primitive, compared to the Lunar Network I showed you."

    “The ‘Lunar Network.’ That virtual world we were just in?” I asked, folding my arms. She nodded. “You seemed different there, somehow.”

    “Diff… erent?” She asked, and I saw her cheeks redden. “Ah, well, I suppose I am accus-tomed to it. And, ah, Lunish is easier for me. Than, than English.”

    I scratched the stubble on my face. Honestly, I don’t know what I hoped to gain from piecing together the situation. For the moment she was stuck on earth, but how long could I shelter her if the separatist rabbits came for her again? The scope of the conflict between the Lunarians and the separatists seemed beyond me. I felt like a hapless bystander who was simply getting in the way of politics that had nothing to do with me. A third wheel.

    "It is believed... believed that the separatists want to claim the earth for their own." She followed my eyes with her face, as to regain my attention. "That, that is why they want more lunar rabbits to join them. That is why… they a-attacked me."

    'Claim the earth for their own?' I briefly imagined an army of little white rabbits holding pitchforks in their mouths, raiding a city. The police struggling to hold back the oncoming tide of teeth and fur. The military would be called in, and the entire place would be carpet bombed with incapacitating carrot powder that would put them all to sleep; and then the wolves would be released upon the city to purge it of the vermin plague. My fantasy was interrupted by the sound of a loudly rumbling stomach. Lumi's face turned red, and she frowned.

    "I, ah... suppose I have not eaten anything since I touched down," she stammered, and I at once felt ashamed of the way I had arranged my life. I was completely unprepared for this.

    "Err, I don't keep any food here," I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment. If I did, I would never leave my apartment. I purposefully ate out for every meal just so I have a reason to go outside. “I usually eat out.”

    She stood up and stretched, and I was slightly taken aback by how limber she was as she bent backwards and outstretched her arms. "Then, then we’re going outside? To, ah, eat?" She asked. She seemed excited at the prospect of leaving the apartment for any reason.

    "But, uh, your ears... Won't someone notice them?" I pointed at her fuzzy protrusions and she placed her hands over the top of them.

"Oh... I had not, ah, thought of that..." she said, her voice conveying a quickly dampening mood.

    I didn't have a hat she could wear over them and it occurred to me that such a garment would probably be uncomfortable for her anyhow, but I did quickly think of something else she could use. Unzipping my red hoodie, I slipped out of it and positioned myself behind her.

    "What--" she started, confused. I wordlessly slid the jacket over her shoulders and her arms into the sleeves, covering her head with the hood. The article of clothing was much too big for her and covered her like a dress, the sleeves extending inches beyond her hands. Inside the hood's opening, her face, matted with white hair, was all that was visible. Although-- there did appear to be two little bumps at the top of the hood, where certain growths were attempting to stand away from her head...

    "That should be alright. Come on." I offered her my hand and she placed hers in it, albeit completely covered by the sleeve. We were nearly out the door when I noticed that she was still barefoot.

    "Oh that's right, you don't have any shoes." I gave her a playful look and said slyly, "well, I could carry you."

    She giggled reservedly. "I am used to walk-ing on my feet. The surface of the moon is very, ah... soft. I will be fine." I would have protested, as the asphalt around here was definitely not soft, and knowing my luck we could stumble right over the broken shards of some drunkard's late night bottle of whisky or used needle... but I didn't have anything for her to wear.

    Despite how late the day had grown into the morning, the building was still sleeping, so we managed to sneak out without being noticed. I watched the road we walked to make very sure that I did not subject Lumi to the earthly impurities of cuts and infections, as we slowly made our way back toward the center of impulse buying and hubris that I had found her within the night before. She tensed as we drew nearer, and it dawned on me that if someone had been there looking for her they would probably be in disguise like she was. She did get a few odd glances as we entered; I realized too late that the hoodie gave the appearance it was the only article of clothing she was wearing, as it covered her entire body save for her legs.

    I hated being there during the day. Walking among all the hapless corporate thralls. Their puppet strings were nearly visible in the fluorescent light, guiding them from the prescription drugs counter to the aisles of manufactured food served in plastic. It made me uneasy, as did the crisp and clean smell of the building despite the cloud of smog hanging in the air outside. Pine aerosol wafted into my nostrils to tell me I was in an artificial grove, but in reality I had walked into a garden of consumerist poison.

I noticed the rows of carts sported a line of smaller carts that I’d somehow missed my last visit. They looked small enough to be pushed around by a child, and little plastic flags flew from them that read Customer in Training. I shuddered at the thought.

I gripped her hand tightly and avoided getting too close to anyone there. If someone was heading toward us, I turned and took her in the other direction. Eventually we made our way to the produce section, and I showed her to an array of vegetable platters.

    "So, you like carrots? Lettuce? Broccoli?" As I offered them to her, she huffed in annoyance.

    "Rabbits are not, not a-animals! We, we can eat other things. That’s a ste… stereo-ty… that is something only humans think!" She withdrew her hand from mine and folded her arms. Her sheen of indignance was thin, however, and I caught her casting lustful sideways glances at the platter of vegetables. I rolled my eyes, picked it up and guided her toward a zombie cashier, eager to leave as soon as I could.

    There was a park nearby, a few tall old trees overlooking a creek with a covered bridge. It was a cool, gray day and rain was quietly drizzling onto our heads, so nobody was around. I took her inside a log canopy to shelter us from the rain and she slid the hood off of her head, allowing her ears to stand up and breathe. I thought about telling her to cover them again, but since we were alone I pushed the worry aside.

    She dipped a slice of carrot into the ranch dressing, looking at it curiously as if she didn't know what it was. She brought it to her mouth and gave it an exploratory lick, and sparks practically flew in her eyes. She covered a slice of carrot in the dressing and took the whole thing into her mouth, chewing contentedly. I watched her with a grin, prompting her to blush, cover her mouth, and eat her next slice more reservedly.

    “So you do like carrots,” I teased. She looked at me as she took another piece into her mouth, then covered nearly her entire face with the ends of the sleeves so I couldn’t see.

    “It is just-- I wanted to try them.” She said, muffled through sleeves.

    “Try them? They’re just carrots.” I scratched my head, a little confused.

    “I have… only ever eaten, ah, sim-ulated carrots.”

    “Simulated? You mean like the booze we drank?” I asked. She nodded, staring at the tray. “Do you not have them where you’re from?”

    “No, no. We, we do. It is just… I have never had the, ah, oppor… tunity.”

“What do you usually eat, then? You don’t run around chewing grass, do ya? A rabbit used to get into my backyard and do that.”

 “Nooo, I said we are not an-nimals!” She let out a soft giggle, but her tone quickly dampened. “No, it is just-- they are impure. So, I have never...” She looked away, going quiet again and nibbling at the food on the tray. I rose an eyebrow at her, thinking some detail of what she was trying to communicate lost in the crunching sounds of carrot slices. We picked the rest of the tray clean without another word.

Impure? What is this girl’s obsession with ‘purity?’

    I decided to take a shortcut on the way back, leading her through an alleyway that led to the apartment complex. It was a darkened corner between the urban center and the surrounding woodland, a road less travelled comprised of dilapidated houses and the back exits of bars. I expected to merely see some early rising alcoholic expelling his insides onto the gravel road, but instead I saw a group of diseased rats digging through the garbage. I’d made a mistake.

    "The path of righteousness has led us to His gifts, brothers. Our good faith has been rewarded. Look now; a wolf has brought us a spring rabbit in offering." Standing in the middle of the alley was an overweight man wearing a filthy, ragged hooded robe. It looked like it had been dragged out of a dumpster. The words fell from his mouth unevenly, accompanied by lines of drool. Near him were several men squatting among the trash, each wearing old filthy clothes, some adorned with torn paper bags used as shawls.

    “Damn it,” I cursed, grabbing Lumi’s arm and slowly backing away. The group of men covered in trash stirred, each turning and staring at us. They gurgled and sputtered on their own saliva, their mouths opening and closing. It appeared as though they were trying to say something, but I was too far away to hear whatever it was.

    “What… what is happening?” Lumi asked slowly, her voice a mix of pain and confusion. I realized I was gripping her too tightly. The group in front of us had begun to slowly shamble nearer.

    "’Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.’” The overweight man slurred his words together and wobbled slightly in place. “Our wolf is a sinner, brothers. He has strayed from the Lord and means to keep his sacrifice hidden in his bloody jowls. We must bring him into the fold.”

    Each member of the group had something in common. Smeared over their faces, their necks, some of them their collars and chest was a sickly green substance not far removed from vomit. What was visible of the hooded man’s face was covered in it. I’d seen it before, a powerful hallucinogen called ‘skoab.’

    “Fear not, child; we will paint the righteousness into your skin and you too shall be at peace with the heavenly powers. Let us sink into you the glory of God." The overweight drug abuser’s words incited the drifters in the alley; their faces contorted into some kind of sick bewildered hunger, their eyes transfixed on the rabbit girl. They hobbled closer, babbling, foam pooling in their mouths. They’d come close enough that I could hear them; ‘white rabbit’ they repeated over and over, as if hypnotized.

    Paper sacks flew through the air as a tall and dusty drifter broke into a sprint and lunged at us, clawing at empty space. I took a step back and slammed my fist into his chin as he drew near. My knuckles popped beneath the impact, the sound echoing through the alley. His head bounced backward, his body lagging a moment behind until he lost his footing and stumbled onto the pavement.

    “Lumi,” I said, shaking the pain out of my hand, “Run. I’ll stall them.”

    "B-but, I do not understand…!" She timidly protested, her hands on my shoulder.

    "Just hide somewhere. I’ll be alright." I reassured her. I felt her loosen her grip, and heard her feet rapidly slap the ground in the opposite direction. I rose my fists and steeled myself; there were several of them and one of me.

    Another junkie approached me, arms outstretched. I stood my ground, ducking under his arms and sinking my fist into his stomach. The force of the blow caused him to teeter backward, but he looked otherwise unphased. Grime-covered hands grabbed my arm as another vagrant descended on me, his crazed and transfixed eyes only inches away. I swung my arm to throw him into the oncoming group, but his grip was powerful, he clung tight. Another clutched my opposite arm and they slammed me against the nearby brick wall of the alley. My head thumped painfully against the solid wall and I saw stars.

    Their faces were twisted, there was no intelligence in their eyes. Whoever they’d been before was lost in the throes of their high. They’d become animals, ready to tear me apart like a piece of meat. A fist lunged into my stomach and I nearly threw up what I'd just eaten. A loose hand like a wild animal meaning to lacerate me with its claws ran across my face. They struck me again and again, pulverizing my body to the point that I could no longer stand on my own, but they held me to the wall by my arms. I tasted blood. The hooded fat man, smelling of dried sweat and rotten clothing, stood before me.

    "Confess your sins, my child. Therein by with my blessing, you may be absolved, and still able to enter the kingdom of Heaven." He grinned at me, the green slime painted on his gums. I spat blood on his face. He did not react, nor attempt to wipe it off. He merely stared, awaiting an answer. His eyes were transfixed, but struggling to focus. It was as though he was looking through me and on to someone else.

    "Truly, we have met a lost child this day. And forever will he be lost, refusing God's blessing. A tragedy, but not all of God's children will bask in His light at the end of days. Some refuse His love, even when directly offered. Brothers, let us leave him to the devils he so loves." As they released me, the sharp bony elbow of one of my restrainers collided forcefully with my ribcage, and I grunted in agony as I slid to the ground. They moved away, one by one, slinking into the darkness farther down the alley. The rain continued to fall, the drizzle of water painting the ground around me a thin, washed red color.

    I sat there for a while, wheezing and gasping. I felt dizzy, and I was struck with the sudden fear that I’d been infected with the same mind-fogging plague that afflicted those men. I weakly closed my eyes to rest.

I’ve seen him before. Who is he?

I soon felt something twitchy brush up against my nose. A white fuzzy thing with a twitching pink nose was there in front of me, very close to my face. Its brilliant white fur was quite wet, each droplet of rainwater shining in the sunlight.

    My hoodie was lying there next to me, absorbing rain. I briefly questioned how it had gotten there, where Lumi had went; but as I stood up and threw the soaking wet garment over my shoulder, the rabbit hopped onto my other shoulder to ride along. I didn’t stop to think about it, something about the situation made sense to my frazzled mind. I turned my head and rose an eyebrow, it puffed its jowls as if trying to look innocent.

I limped in the general direction of my apartment, my vision a bit hazy after having my head scrambled, but I knew I was heading the right way. The city was a far cry from a complex metropolis; the monument to artificial foods and prescription drugs we’d come from was practically the largest building in town. I’d keep walking until I could no longer see it, and the roads were no longer well maintained. The city would slant downward into an old ditch, an edge of suburbia where you could be quietly forgotten in the prick of a needle or the bottom of a bottle, and I would know I was home.

    As I stepped toward my door, I was stopped by the cheery, well-meaning voice of an older man calling my name. He was taller and much wider than I was, old enough that all the hair on his face - not his head, as none remained there - had turned grey. His skin was a leathery red, and he wore a plain white t-shirt and sweats. This was my landlord. He was nice enough, which was a stipulation I was forced to give anyone who would provide me with a place to live; but had done just as many varieties of opium as anyone else who lived there.

    "Good to see ya, kiddo! How ya do--" he stopped dead as he noticed I was covered in blood and bruises. "Holy hell, what happened to you?"

    I felt blood dripping from the cut on my brow, and my bottom lip was swelling. I wheezed a little when I inhaled. I was having trouble standing up straight. "I'm fine, Homer." I said all the same, and turned from him to my door.

    "Err! Hey! You are not fine!" He made a noise like a confused ox, calling again to stop me. "An’ hold on! You know you're not allowed to have pets here. When did you get that bunny?"

    I turned to look at the rabbit - at Lumi? - and she looked back at me from my shoulder. Those violet-red eyes sparkling with intelligence, with acknowledgement. I wasn't imagining it, I wasn't high. This was the same moon rabbit from the night before.

    "It's not mine. I'm just watching it for a while." I reached for my doorknob and twisted it.

    "Oh-- is it that girl's? The one from this morning?" He said teasingly. I stopped, my eyes shot open. I didn't imagine I could hide her forever, yet there was no part of me that wanted anyone in the complex to know about the rabbit girl or her race. Nothing good could come from the drug-addled brain of a junkie halfway to burnout nirvana - or the morgue - knowing about a girl with bunny ears.

    “Harborin’ some little girl’s puff ‘a hair, huh? That the closest you can get to a girl’s real clump of fuzz, kid?” He said, his tone mocking. He was trying to get a rise from me, but the best I could offer was to lower my brows and turn wordlessly toward my door.

    "Something like that. I'm gonna go lay down." I opened the door, stepped inside as quickly as I could and shut it behind me.

    "If you've met a girl, you have to introduce me, ya know! Them's the rules, kid!" He shouted into the door, his voice muffled. “Ya know yer dear old mom worries about you. She calls me all the time, wantin’ to know if you’re still in that tiny little room all by yerself. Do I gotta let her down again? ‘No, he’s still flyin’ solo. Came home today covered in blood an’ scrapes, probably gettin’ involved in some gang.’ Come on, kid! Who’s the girl?” He lingered there like an oppressive cloud of smoke awaiting a response, but soon he realized none was coming and I heard him turn around and step away toward the office.

    I fell into the chair near the counter and the rabbit hopped off my shoulder. My eyes closed without my consent, too heavy to hold open.

    Not long later, I felt something warm and wet press against the cut on my brow, stirring me from my rest. With great effort I lifted my eyes open, and there before me with soaked white hair sticking to her head was Lumi, tending to me with a wet cloth.

    Even then as I weakly slumped in a rickety chair that may have been as old as I was, she did not manage to stand much taller than me. I hadn't been this close to her before, hadn't the chance to notice how small she was. I watched her face, creased with worry, as she wiped the blood from mine. Her gaze stopped at my eyes, and she noticed me staring at her.

    "You, you are okay no... now. Just... just stay still." She smiled at me reassuringly, her voice a soothing juxtaposition to the aching pain in my head. She set down the cloth, exchanging it for the gauze wrap I had used on her the other night. She wrapped it around my head to cover the cut on my brow, and I suddenly felt very foolish. The tables had turned.

    "This is familiar," I half said, half mumbled under my breath. I almost didn't want her to hear. I must have looked like an idiot trying to take on a group of skoab addicts, high to the point that they couldn't feel pain. I should have simply ran; the fat lip and cut on my forehead were nothing compared to what could have happened.

My thoughts returned to the drug abuser in the robe. I know I’ve seen him before. Something about him had been very familiar, and he was able to somehow order the mindless addicts around. If he hadn’t called them off they might well have killed me.

    "Yes, it is," was all she said, and the look in her eyes let me know the irony of the situation was not lost on her. I supposed that made us even. She touched the tip of my nose with her finger and smiled again. “You are okay.”

    Then her expression changed rather abruptly. “Do not act so, so fool-lish-ly!” She pointed at me, scolding. “The, the impurity makes you fragile. I have read about humans. You are, ah, frail beings… you do not recover easily. So, do not get your-self! Hurt! Like that!”

    I boggled at her, clueless as to what the hell she was going on about as she wiggled her finger in front of my face and lectured me. What is she talking about? Moon rabbits obviously aren’t invincible. Her cut is testament to that.

    She calmed down and sat on the bed near my chair and brushed her wet hair from her face. The fur on her ears looked frazzled and wet, and her soaking blouse stuck to her form. It was impossible not to look at, so I closed my eyes and let the room fall silent save for the patters of rain hitting the window and our breathing. Lumi soon grew restless, unable to sit still for long.

    "Who were those pe... people? Wh-what did they want?" She stood up suddenly, drops of rain bouncing from her ears and hitting my face. Yeah, I guess she might not have known what designer drugs or their effects were if she came from a society that was obsessed with ‘purity,’ whatever that meant.

    "I don't think even they knew what they wanted," I said, exhausted. What did any drug addict want? An escape. To look at the world through rosier lenses, where they weren’t digging through someone’s trash in an alleyway. Those vagrants weren’t themselves. "They were high."

    "High? They looked q-quite low to the ground." Lumi said, raising her eyebrow. I tried to laugh but it was met with a sharp, stabbing pain in my ribs. I took a deep breath and spoke quietly and slowly so as not to hurt myself.

    "The stuff they had smeared on their skin, the green stuff. That's skoab," I said, watching her sit back down. Her ears perked up at full attention as she listened. "It's a drug that, uh, when you rub it into your skin, the pores absorb it. And well, it makes you see stuff. Stuff that isn't there." Lumi tilted her head sideways slightly, her ears drooping in the same direction. This appeared to be a puzzling concept to her.

    "People who take it, they say it makes them feel euphoric. Like they're a superhero, or, I guess in the case of that guy we ran into, like a minister. Somebody important, anyway." I coughed and tasted blood, but swallowed it back down, as to not make Lumi concerned.

    "Whuh..." The way she moved her lips confoundedly, I could tell she was looking for a word that probably didn’t exist in English. She squirmed a moment before settling on, "why? Why would someone pur-posefully impair their own p-perception?"

    "Because, Lumi." I grimaced and locked my gaze with hers, staring intently. "Because they're fucking degenerates."

    "De-gen-er-ate?" She blinked at me as she ran her tongue over the syllables. "They, ah… looked like fully e-evolved homo-sapiens. To, to me." She put a finger to her lip, deep in thought. I could almost see the question marks forming around her head. "Am I wrong?"

    "Hey, Lumi." I said plainly, to regain her attention. She placed her hands in her lap and looked to me with a puzzled smile.

    "Yes?"

	"You really are a bright star." I said, chuckling.