Chapter - 17

Yuki waddled, wobbled, and swayed, arms akimbo, struggling to maintain balance and avoid tumbling on her behind, or worse, her face. She never realized how hard it was to walk on two legs. Instincts demanded she crawl on all fours like a baby or a rabbit, but pride refused. Yuki was a human-turned-splendid-rabbit-turned-human; she could deal with walking on two legs.

The cold air pricked her exposed skin, and a shiver ran through her small body. All the sensations were unfamiliar. She felt cold, vulnerable, and uncomfortable.

It didn’t feel like she was in her own body, but as if she were wearing skinny jeans five sizes too small. Her ears rang without stopping, and moving her fingers felt alien.

Yuki flopped down, the cold wooden floor sending an unpleasant jolt through her bare skin where it impacted against her form.

The stinging pain and cold snapped Yuki of whatever issue she was having. She didn’t remember grabbing her knees and curling into her best ball impression. Her breaths came quick and shallow, and not nearly enough.

But even among all that, the cold hurt.

The splendid shapechanged rabbit hadn’t accounted for how naked and wrong a furless body felt in the open air.

Yuki focused on the cold. Released her death-grip on her knees.

She got up, hopped toward the wardrobe, lost her balance, and then once again found herself on the floor. She got up again, and carefully walked, instead of hopping. It was slow going. Her center of gravity was all wrong; her legs didn’t move the way she expected them to. The arms were the worst of all; they kept flying about, trying to find balance but making it harder to stay upright. Her center of gravity was too high, preventing her from stabilizing her movements.

Not accounting for Bunbun’s death, this was likely the most miserable… however long that was of her new life.

Somehow, she reached her destination. Once there, she searched among carefully folded clothes until she found a white blouse that would serve as an improvised dress. The blouse rasped against her skin, stiff and oversized but somehow still tight across the shoulders. Her arms moved, but the seams tugged at her elbows, painful, constricting.

Without fur, the fabric clung and scratched. As if there were a hundred tiny ants crawling all over her skin, biting into her with wild abandon. Weren’t clothes supposed to make things better? This felt like punishment.

She looked about, searching for anything else of use. Inside one drawer, she found a small leather bag. She opened it to the clink of bronze and silver hued coins. But she shook her head, deciding against taking anything from Jenny.

Yuki wasn’t human anymore — she pushed the feeling of wearing the wrong skin away — what would she use coins for after the magic wore off?

A lot of things, probably, but she didn’t want to steal. Not from Jenny. The coin pouch stayed unmolested.

Clothed and ready, it was time to leave.

Three graceless tumbles and a good bit of tarnished pride later, she made it to the bedroom’s door. On the tips of her toes, she grabbed the handle, tried to push the door open.

It didn’t budge.

Right, Jenny always locked the door when she left the bedroom.

Yuki turned around and made her way to the dressing table where Jenny kept her keyrings. She grabbed the two small ones and left the big one behind.

Back at the door, only a tumble later this time, she flitted through the keys, trying one at a time until, with the promising clinking of salvation, one key turned.

Yuki did a small victory dance, lost balance, clung to the door handle. The momentum threw the door open and revealed the other side.

The manor was dark and silent. Without light, she could barely make out the corridor’s boundaries. She already missed her rabbit eyes; these forward-facing human ones were like tunnel vision through a smudge. Rabbits had a far wider field of view, on top of having better low-light vision. Yuki shook her head; that was silly and whiny. She focused on the task set before her; namely, escaping this house of madness.

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Yuki kept one hand on the wall to help with balance. On the wall opposite Jenny’s bedroom, she saw paintings of fancy people. Periodically, she would pass vague shapes in the dark tunnel, barely seen objects that reminded her of jars and other fancy, noble things. More doors lined the same wall, stretching out to either side. She didn’t know where to go. When Jenny brought Yuki to her room, she’d hidden the rabbit inside a pile of fabric. Yuki didn’t know where in the manor she was, or the nearest exit.

She reached for the next step and missed. Her foot thudded down harder than expected, jarring her spine. After that, she walked with even more care, preferring to go slow and avoid noise rather than try to escape faster and likely cause a mess. She brushed past a narrow table, then yelped when her pinky toe met the vase like it owed her money. Yuki fought against the stinging pain on top of everything.

The portraits she could barely see on the wall judged her every step, their shadowy form cast condemning glares at Yuki for disturbing the quiet of the manor.

Yuki ignored her overactive mind. Steeling herself, she finally made it to the end of the first corridor. The hallway curved left, lined with closed doors on the right. She backtracked, old JRPG gamer instincts telling her that, like usual, she picked the wrong path in the dungeon.

Those instincts proved correct.

Before the new passage ended, it opened into a room. Stairs led up and down. Yuki pondered which path to take. Up was risky, but had possibilities. If she could find an open area and a feather, she could shapeshift into a bird and fly away to safety. She wobbled downstairs. Too many maybes. Too many risks. Going up wasn’t worth it. She didn’t want to try flying if it was already this hard walking on two legs.

Climbing down was harder than she cared to admit. Tiny legs and her lack of balance were dangers. She settled for sitting and sliding down, step by step. This was a nearly risk-free and noiseless endeavor, one bum-slide at a time.

Yuki stopped after crossing the first landing and preparing to delve into the next. She sniffed the air. That was another rabbit sense better than its human counterpart; human noses could barely smell anything compared to what her rabbit senses provided.

She sniffed again.

There it was, that same sickly sweet, cloying smell she felt from Jenny’s room. She couldn’t remember what it reminded her of, but it made her stomach churn. She had to fight back the urge to puke.

Back then, Yuki had chalked it up to anxiety. But now, perhaps because she left the room, the smell from the floor below was stronger, harder to ignore. Worse, it had that same consistency that identified it as magic.

The lower she went, the stronger the smell. Yuki paused, glancing back the way she came. Should she try another route? Sounds caught her attention. One brought a horrid memory to the forefront, that one time she got slapped, not in a fun way. The other was a whimper, and not the good kind.

Yuki’s heart sped up. This wasn’t the sound of a couple in the throes of passion. Whispers reached her next. There were two different voices, one harsh and demanding, and another low and suffering. She recognized the second one.

It was Jenny’s.

What was going on here? Her mind went to the worst likely scenarios. Was Jenny in trouble? Should she do something? Could she live with her choice if she didn’t? The nauseating scent got stronger.

Without realizing what she’d done, she stepped toward the sound. If Jenny was in trouble, Yuki could distract the assailant and, in the confusion, dismiss the spell and turn back into a rabbit. There were barely any lights; If things went bad, she’d vanish into the dark.

She held her breath when she reached the end of the stairs — not that it helped; the scent was so strong now.

Immediately to her right, a passage led to the foyer, the same one where the manor entrance was. Yuki glanced around, then spotted them.

The good: Jenny was next to the entrance. The bad: Someone pinning her to the wall.

A man dressed in fancy clothes had one hand at her throat, while his other hand fought to keep Jenny’s nails out of his eyes.

Jenny looked out of it. Her eyes were unfocused, and a trickle of blood escaped her mouth. Her movements were jerky, like she had no control over her body, and her face had this horrid dark bruise already swelling and turning purple.

The man looked disgustingly familiar. He was an older, more handsome version of the stalker. He was in his late thirties with the same carefully sculpted face and chiseled jaw. His hair, still immaculately styled.

“Why isn’t the magic working?” He said under his breath.

It took Yuki a moment to realize she understood the words. He spoke in English.

Yuki forgot about not attracting attention, she forgot about being small, uncomfortable and feeling like she was wearing the wrong skin. She even forgot about the magic at her disposal.

In the corner of her eye, a notification blinked, then disappeared.

Yuki wasn’t in a state of mind to pay it any attention. She bounded forward, lack of balance not interfering with her movements. She growled. It sounded like a rubber duck being squeezed.

The man stopped whatever he was doing to Jenny and turned.

Yuki met the stalker’s eyes; hate consumed her thoughts. Before he reacted, she was by his side. She chomped down the first place she could reach.