I used to work at an amusement park where only half of the actors are actual actors. While I wasn’t sure about this yesterday, trusting my gut and therefore the bunny-headed girl has actually paid off for once. I didn’t enlist Dale or his family’s help because by now, I trust them just about as much as, you guessed it, some random rabbit. That doesn’t mean I don’t understand where Dale was coming from. I do and I don’t even blame him, but it’s hard to stay rational when you realize a person would willingly trade you for another.
Calling a co-worker would definitely not have been an option, seeing as it took Dale over a whole day to get us here. So, if I had been to call one of my friends, they would not only have to drive all the way out here with no detailed knowledge of the location except maybe their navigation system, they would also have to take me all the way back, and that’s not something I have time for.
Also, even though it hurts to say this, there’s not too much I have left to lose anymore. I was at a point where my main motto was simply “fuck it”.
The short break the rabbit-headed girl and I took from walking was spent on a small clearing in the woods. I was leaning against a tree. I had just relayed the details of the wager to her. She was sitting across from me with crossed legs, regarding me attentively.
“My name’s Madeleine,” she suddenly said.
“Uh… what?” I was a bit caught off guard.
“I don’t need to know your name, but my name is Madeleine. It’s the name my parents gave me. I’d like for you to call me that.” I nodded slowly and Madeleine’s ear twitched slightly. “We’re pretty close now by the way. It’s very important that you’re well-rested. You need to be in your right mind for you to enter.”
I had already strongly suspected this, but I still had to ask. “You’re taking me to the underground, right?”
Madeleine nodded. “Yes. Are you, like… okay with that?”
“I am,” I replied with a soft sigh. “Nothing to lose here. So… why are you helping me exactly? Why do you hate the Wild Ones? Aren’t you one yourself?”
“I am, but I hate that too. The Wild Ones are bastards, the whole lot of them.” She cleared her throat. Her voice was faltering and squeaky. “About a year ago, they took me. I used to live with my mom and dad and my little brothers near the woods. These same ones right here, just way further up there.” She pointed behind us, roughly into a northern direction. “One night when I was awake, something came in through the window. It was summer, so I’d left it open.
There were like, two or three of them. One dragged me outta bed while holding my mouth shut. And then the other one… the other one just slid under the blanket and it suddenly looked just like me. The other one held me real close and I tried to scream, but… it didn’t let me. It jumped back out through the window and brought me you-know-where. It kept me there and… well. I’m actually not even allowed outside. No one is.
But when Warin came through, everyone kissed his ass of course. They all got out of his way, so I just… you know. I just snuck after him. No one watches out for the rabbit kid when that gross asshole is coming through.” She almost sounded proud of herself. “Everyone says he’s on thin ice for acting the way he did, but no one does anything. Not yet at least.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, about you being… exchanged,” I remarked, not quite sure what else to say. “But will going through the underground really help me get back to the park faster?”
“Definitely. Time works different down there, and space too. It’s hard to describe, but you’ll see for yourself. Everything that’s big up here is way smaller down there. But we gotta be real careful. I heard a lot of them talk about how you more or less attacked the ones in the park.”
“So, you’re telling me we’re going to a nightmare underground world where everyone wants to kill me? Isn’t that gonna get you in trouble too?”
“First off, it’ll be worth it. I hate Warin and I hate Moth and Mulberry. I just wanna see the looks on their dumb faces. The ones who can stay on the surface, they just…” She fumbled for words. “They don’t deserve it! They don’t even hide like the one who replaced me, they’re in plain sight of fucking everyone! I know it sounds stupid, but I hate them for it. Like, out of everyone down there, I hate them the most.”
I tried to smile at her. She was really being a bit childish, but if a grudge like that would be getting me back to the park, so be it. “Say, is there anyone who, like… makes the rules down there? You know… who runs this place?”
Madeleine thought for a while before answering. “I guess you could say it’s the old ones. Warin is one of them. The longer you’re around, the further up in the food chain you are.”
“Are there ones that are even older than Warin?”
The white bunny nodded. “There are, but there’s not too many of ‘em. Those are the ones who are so angry at him by the way. You don’t just break a contract, you know? You don’t do that down there. What makes it even worse is that the old ones are the same who see you as a pest as well. But don’t worry about them too much, I’m sure we won’t meet any of them. They’re too idle to ever leave their sleeping places, really. Can’t imagine one of them appearing in our way.”
I let go of a soft sigh of relief. That was indeed some reassuring news.
“I still gotta warn you though. Humans have trouble entering the underworld. I remember my first few hours down there… it was awful. It’s the air, you know? Do you have anything you can breathe into?”
I nodded and pulled up the collar of my shirt, pressing it over my mouth and nose. Madeleine shrugged. “That’ll probably do, I guess. See, the air is… it makes you go woozy if you’re not used to it, so try not to breathe in a lot.”
“Won’t they try to attack me?” I asked.
“Not if they don’t notice us they won’t,” Madeleine giggled and gave me a mischievous look. “If I managed to sneak outside, who says we can’t manage to make our way through as well? We just gotta be real inconspicuous. Then no one will even care. If things do go south, you can still fight, right?”
I cracked the rabbit-headed girl a reassuring smile. “I’ll try,” I said, suppressing a chuckle.
“Okay, what else to know… stick by my side. Don’t eat or drink anything you find down there and don’t talk to anyone but me. Try and hide that necklace of yours, they’ll sense it. If I were you, I’d keep it on though. It’ll keep you from going weird,” Madeleine warned sternly.
“Going weird?” I repeated, just in the process of taking off my necklace and looping it around my wrist so I could hide it under my sleeve.
“Uh, yeah. About that… I don’t wanna scare you but… I’ve seen people being dragged into the underground again and again. They try to resist, but then, when they’re halfway through the changing process… they go all strange and it’s like they’re suddenly super happy and it’s plain creepy. I can’t remember if I acted like that too, but nowadays, it really freaks me out.” Madeleine stared at the grass in front of her.
“It’s odd you remember all that so clearly,” I remarked.
Madeleine simply shrugged and rose to her feet before helping me up too. “I never forgot who I am. That’s all. Let’s go now.”
She didn’t let go of my hand when we got back on our way. We walked a little deeper into the woods until we reached a large tree in front of which the rabbit-headed girl came to a halt. “It marks the entrance,” she explained curtly, a bit breathless. She then led me around the tree.
On the other side of the trunk, there was a wide, pitch-black hole in the ground. My eyes widened as I stared down into the abysmal darkness. Madeleine must have noticed my worried expression since she looked up at me with wide eyes and asked, “Do you still wanna do this?”
“Yes,” I replied, swallowing my apprehension. A strange curiousity had gotten a hold of me. I somehow felt like being on a rollercoaster again, shivering with both excitement, fear and anticipation.
“Alright. Here we go.” Madeleine’s voice was firm and she lowered herself to the ground, getting down on all fours. “Stay behind me,” she ordered. I did as she told me and, once she had disappeared in the darkness of the hole, I followed her.
The soil under my palms and knees was wet and soft. I could feel it dampen my pants and I had to duck a little to squeeze my backpack inside with me. The light of the surface soon lost itself in the pitch-black tunnel.
“Are we even gonna be able to see anything once we’re down there?” I whispered, not daring to raise my voice.
“Yeah. There’s always a bit of light. There’s, like, tiny fires everywhere,” Madeleine replied calmly. I could see the faint white shine of her head bobbing up ahead of me.
We must have crept through the tunnel for minutes. I believe I held my breath for the longest time. My cheeks were tingling with nervousness, a sensation which intensified with every inch that brought me closer to the end of the passage. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest. Suddenly, I noticed the slight smell of flowers and rotten fruit join the fresh, brown scent of the earth. It got stronger and stronger the further we descended, and by the time Madeleine warned me that we would have to jump soon, it had completely filled my nose and throat.
“This is the end of the passage,” my guide panted. “Get ready for a bit of a tumble.”
With that, the white spot suddenly disappeared and I could hear a low thump coming from somewhere below me. Reaching out to feel my way about in the tunnel, I discovered that there was nothing there in front of me. I turned a bit so I would land on my feet, not sure how big of a fall there was to expect, then carefully pushed myself closer and closer to the edge until I felt myself slipping off.
To my surprise and delight, I landed safely. My feet hit the ground first and instantly sank into its coating, which I assumed to be foliage at first. Looking down however, I found myself standing in a sticky, gooey mixture of rotten fruit, definitely the source of the strange smell, decaying flowers and wilted leaves, all resting atop an unidentifiable greenish morass.
Glancing around, I noticed that we were in some sort of high cave, the walls of which were illuminated by dimly flickering makeshift torches that were mounted to them. Madeleine grabbed my hand. Her naked feet had sunken in all the way up to her ankles.
“Let’s go,” she whispered, gently pulling me along as she moved forward, a squishing noise accompanying each of her steps.
At the far end of the hall, the wall gave way to another passage, this one however large and easily accessible on foot. Before we had reached its end however, Madeleine gestured for me to stay back as she hastily leaned in to peek around the corner. “Alright, coast’s clear,” she quietly exclaimed, waving me over.
As we exited the passage, the first thing I noticed was the sound of water running. Upon looking around, I found myself standing in an even larger cave. There was what looked to be a spring in its wall, right next to where the passage ended. Murky, dark water was steadily splashing out of it, collecting itself in a ditch in the ground. I followed the canal with my eyes to find that it was running through the whole of the cave like a small river.
Remembering what Madeleine had told me earlier, I pulled my shirt over the better half of my face so as to not breathe in too much of the fragrant air heavily hanging above us. The rabbit-headed child quickly proceeded to lead the way. I was surprised to find the tunnels and caves empty and was just about to ask why this was the case, when she suddenly halted in her tracks.
“Shh!” she uttered, even though I hadn’t said a word. “Can you hear that?”
I listened intently, straining my ears. Somewhere ahead of us in distance, I could hear… murmuring. It was low and faint, but audible nonetheless.
“Okay, okay, don’t panick,” Madeleine stammered, even though it sounded more like she was talking to herself than to me. “We were bound to run into someone at some point. Maybe we can sneak around them.”
We found the source of the whispers located in the room over. It was the largest cave yet. To my surprise, there were even trees and bushes growing inside of it. It looked like a small forest clearing, just… underground. The dark rivulet was running right through its middle as if parting the clearing into two halves.
There were two people, or rather two creatures lying next to each other on the ground. I squinted to try and get a better look at them. They both looked faintly humanoid, except that their limbs were unnaturally long. Neither their legs nor their arms had the same size. I couldn’t help but think that it had to be nearly impossible to stand upright, let alone walk like that. They appeared to be quietly speaking to one another, their voices low and husky.
Madeleine gestured for me to follow her as she hurriedly entered the clearing and sank down behind a bush. I did as she told me, thankfully silent enough for none of the two Wild Ones to notice me. We began to creep alongside the edge of the cave, hidden behind the thick green foliage of the hedge. As we passed the two resting creatures, I managed to pick up a few short snippets of their conversation.
To my bewilderment however, they weren’t really talking. It was just words strung together in an unsensical manner. I thought I could hear things like “sleep” or “leaf” from time to time, but there was no way of being sure. It was grotesque.
By the time we had reached the end of the cave, neither of the two had noticed us. Madeleine quickly got up and began rushing into the next passageway and I hurried after her, the fabric of my shirt still pressed to my mouth. I almost collided with her when she stopped in her tracks, turned around and shoved me back into the hedge we had just emerged from. Covering my mouth with her tiny hand, she whispered, “Someone’s coming!”
Cowering amidst the leaves and twigs, we watched as something large exited the tunnel. At first, I could only see its feet and hands as we were pressing ourselves to the ground and it was walking on all fours, but when I lifted my head a little, I could see the rest of it. I seriously wish I hadn’t. The creature was knuckle-walking through the dirt. It looked like a mixture of a person and a large ape of sorts. That in itself wouldn’t have startled me as much, but part of his face appeared to be… missing. It looked like half of its head had just melted into its skull.
I swallowed hard and Madeleine reached out to squeeze my hand. I shot her a grateful glance. When it had finally trotted past us, we got up again, quickly stumbling through the tunnel, me trying to catch up with my nimble guide. I noticed that we were following the little river. Every tunnel we passed, every cave we snuck through, the stream was always there. From time to time I would lose sight if it for a short moment, only to find it in the next room we entered. Occasionally, I would even spot entrances to smaller tunnels which appeared to be leading to the surface.
I remember thinking I would never be able to navigate around a maze as complex as this, but Madeleine was nifty. She seemed to know exactly where we were headed, each turn and each step she took was decisive and determined.
I can hardly fathom the creatures we encountered on our way. None ever seemed to notice us, a lucky circumstance only explainable by Madeleine’s skillfulness. The caves themselves were never too crowded. Sometimes, they would be completely empty, other times there would be up to five Wild Ones in them, but we never saw more than that at once.
The rabbit-headed girl appeared to be growing more and more confident. She had stopped frantically glancing around and checking if I was still behind her all the time. We were just walking through the probably twentieth tunnel, when suddenly, she froze mid-motion. “Oh no,” I heard her breathe. Following her gaze, I almost instantly spotted the reason for her distress. Warin was standing on the far end of the hall we were heading towards, thankfully facing away from us.
He seemed to be talking to another creature, a smaller, stockier one. It too however looked distinctly humanoid. Madeleine quick-wittedly pulled me into the cover of a large, wide tree and I hid behind it as best I could.
“That’s one of the elders,” she breathed, deep concern in her voice.
We waited for a little while. I tried to pick up on what they were talking about, but I couldn’t hear a thing. Judging from the look on Warin’s already contorted face though, the conversation was getting a bit heated. Finally, the other creature disappeared into one of the smaller tunnels while Warin himself stomped off into pur direction. I held my breath and sank to my knees, pressing myself against the bark of the tree. Madeleine had laid down, pretending to be asleep. My pursuer strode past her without paying her any mind.
I was just about to let go of a sigh of relief, when suddenly, I felt cold, dry-skinned fingers wrapping themselves around my neck from behind. The grip tightened and I was pulled up from the ground, only to be forcefully spun around and look right into Warin’s ghostly pale eyes. His mouth had stretched into a wide, gleeful smirk.
“Hello.”
He let out a loud, ferocious cackle and for a split second, I felt reminded of the Laughing Cowboy before I had known his actual name. I cursed inwardly at the realization that I didn’t have my revolver at hand. It’s funny how this came to my mind in such an unfavorable moment, but I really did like him a lot better back when he couldn’t talk. I spotted a single cockroach climb out of his mouth and into his hair.
I bit my lip, struggling and finally managing to kick him in the stomach with all my might. He let out a startled gasp and let go of me and I took my chance to turn around and sprint towards the tunnel ahead. I didn’t get too far though. I was rapidly pulled back and Warin shoved me to the ground, immediately placing a foot on my back. He pressed it right down on my spine, his heel digging painfully into the soft flesh right beside it.
Remembering the locket wrapped around my wrist, I lifted my hand and pressed it against his calf. Even through the fabric of his clothing, it seemed to hurt him, seeing as he almost immediately stumbled backwards. I scrambled to my feet, lifting my fists as Warin got ready to lunge at me again. I punched him in the chest, earning a satisfying whimper as I felt my hand make contact with the soft edge of one of the bullet holes. My success was short-lived though.
Before I could even pull back, he had already grabbed me by the arm, twisting it painfully. He tried to seize the other one as well, the one with the locket, but suddenly let out a cry of pain.
It was only then that I realized that Madeleine was not lying on the ground anymore. Instead, I found her large front teeth buried deeply in the flesh right above Warin’s knee. She hissed as she whipped back her head, tearing out a small bit of flesh. She lunged forward, grabbed me by the arm and before I knew it, we were on the run again.
I was sure I could hear Warin howl in fury when he took up chase again. We didn’t bother hiding anymore. Instead, we dashed through the maze of tunnels and caves, side by side, both of us panting heavily. We didn’t slow down though.
We passed multiple other Wild Ones on our way. Some didn’t even realize that Madeleine was dragging me along, they seemed dazed and apathetic. Others however jumped to their feet and began to follow us. By the time Madeleine pointed up at a hole in the wall a little above the ground, I could hear their hurried steps and excited voices echo close behind us.
I jumped up first, grabbing onto the edge of the hole and pulled myself up as fast as I could. Not hesitating, I spun around and held out both my hands to Madeleine. She grabbed onto them and I heaved her up into the tunnel with all my strength. We hurried to crawl back out, the bright red light of the setting sun greeting us.
Rummaging around in my backpack, I produced a couple of leftover laurel and sage leaves. I sprinkled them around the entrance and added some red verbena from my locket. I even placed some of them in the hole itself.
“You think that’ll keep them from coming after us?” I asked uneasily.
Madeleine nodded. “I for one don’t wanna go near there now. Plus, we lost Warin anyways. I’m pretty sure we shook him off somewhere in there. The others aren’t allowed outside anyways.”
That was at least a little reassuring. I let go of a deep sigh, my sides burning and my legs aching. Still, we got on our way. We seemed to be pretty much in the middle of the woods, but those weren’t the same ones as before. I could tell from the look of them. It sounded like there was a highway nearby, I could hear the growling of car engines and the screeching of tires. Naturally, we headed towards it.
“I’m sorry. I wanted to take you directly to the park,” Madeleine moaned, sounding genuinely disappointed. “Now I don’t even know where we are.”
“It’s okay, I’m just glad we…” my voice trailed off as we reached the side of the road. I knew this spot. Whenever I would drive out of town to visit my parents, I would pass take this exact route. From there to the park, it was only about a two hour long drive.
“We’re gonna make it,” I squealed, ruffling the rabbit-headed girl’s fur in a rush of excitement. I then quickly fumbled for my phone.
I called Darius. I’m not sure why him exactly, but his reliable tranquility was just about what I needed right then. He agreed to pick me up without asking a single question.
Madeleine and I waited by the side of the road. When his car finally pulled up on the roadside, we quickly hopped in. Darius had to do a double take at my companion. I think for a moment he believed he was hallucinating. I relayed what had happened as quickly and roughly as possible and he, level-headed as always, took it with a surprising calmness.
And here we are now, still in the car. It won’t be long until we’ll make it to the park. I’m not sure what will happen then, but for some reason, I’m rather confident. Sure, Warin got his hands on me for a few seconds back there, but I escaped, so that really can’t count as me being captured. I think we’re really going to make it.