She jabbed her hand into the rabbit’s gaping, grinning mouth. Her fingers made contact with something squishy—the eyes of the man inside the suit, she thought. She was quickly proved right as the man’s unrelentingly powerful arms slackened, and a muffled grunt escaped the rabbit’s head.
Yukiko shoved away his weakened arms and kicked at him as hard as she could with both feet. Her skirt fluttered up distastefully, but she had no time to worry about appearances.
The rabbit rolled about on the floor holding his arms to his mouth. She watched him for a moment then snapped out of it and left the room. When she reached the landing to the stairs, she faced a choice. Go up to the roof or down to the lower floors. She hesitated for a moment. Then, thinking that the panic might have settled down by now, she chose the roof. As she started climbing the stairs, she heard a doleful voice coming from behind her.
“Yu…ki…ko.”
She looked, and the rabbit was there, blindly swinging his arms about as he came toward her. He seemed to be having a great deal of trouble seeing after her eye jab. Watching him stagger and wind toward her, she froze for a second but quickly recovered and fled up the stairs.
As she stood at the doorway leading to the rooftop, the rabbit crawled up the stairs after her, slowly and steadily, moving like a lizard on his hands and feet.
Yukiko flung open the door and found a small, separate rooftop occupied by a water tower and a fenced-in power transformer unit. Her heart sank. Where was she? She must have taken a wrong turn and now she was cornered.
The rabbit was still coming after her. If she didn’t quickly find a way to escape, he’d capture her again. But there was nowhere to run.
She turned and watched him coming up the stairs. She must have really hurt his eyes, because he appeared to be climbing each step with great effort.
She wondered if she could jump over him and run back downstairs. Yet injured eyes or not, he still possessed overwhelming strength. If he managed to catch her again, it would likely mean her life.
She slipped around the side of the water tower and stood beside the chain-link fence. A metal sign affixed to the fence read DANGER: HIGH VOLTAGE CURRENT. The idol started to climb over the fence, but the sign gave her a moment’s pause.
That pause was her ruin.
The rabbit had managed to catch up to her. He put his hand on the back of her head and twisted it toward him until her eyes were on his ugly face. A lazy trail of blood dangled from the rabbit’s mouth. She must have scratched his eyes.
His shoulders rising and falling with each breath, the rabbit said, “That was cruel, Yukiko. Why would you hurt me like that? Can’t you see how much I love you? How could you be so mean to me?”
He rattled her head, and then again, and then once more.
His voice went eerily quiet. “I could just keep turning your head around.”
His fingers tightened around the back of her skull.
Maybe he’s serious, she thought. Maybe he’s really going to twist until my neck snaps.
The rabbit’s ears stood up. He put more force into his arm, and her neck twisted to an almost impossible degree. Her muscles cried out in unimaginable pain. Yukiko grunted as saliva started to run out from the edges of her lips.
I’m… I’m going to die.
As her head turned past ninety degrees, her mind struggled to find any avenue for survival.
Still twisting her head, the rabbit leaned its weight against her and threw her to the floor. First she felt the sting of the concrete, and then the rabbit’s fur enveloped her.
“I have to do this,” he said. “I just want you to know that. There’s no other way.”
The rabbit bent his arm, and her neck craned with it. She could no longer breathe. Convulsions shot through her body. She began to lose her vision, as if a strip of gauze had been placed over her eyes.
Is this what it’s like to die?
In her mind’s eye, she saw herself as a little girl. She was giggling, cradling a dirty doll in her arms.
So it’s true then, what they say—that the moment you die, your life flashes before your eyes. Is this the moment I die? I don’t want to die!
Her refusal to let go of life roused her from her descent into death.
I can’t die here. I can’t die at the hands of this rabbit.
Her eyes opened wide.
Yukiko could see the side of the water tower just beyond the rabbit’s furry arm. Valves of various sizes came out from the side of the tower. Below them was a row of metal outflow spigots.
Yukiko reached for a red valve and turned it. The valve hadn’t been worked loose in a long time, and Yukiko was not particularly strong to begin with. She shouldn’t have been able to turn it, but her determination to survive gave her the strength she needed.
With a deafening roar, reddish-brown water sprayed from the spigot. The torrent hit the rabbit perfectly in the face and knocked him backward. Yukiko rolled to the side, got to her feet, and scrambled to the opposite side of the water tower, while the gushing water pushed the rabbit almost all the way back to the top of the stairs.
Yukiko peeked around the far side of the tank and saw the rabbit reeling in pain and confusion. She nodded with satisfaction.
She had her opening, but now she needed to do something with it. She focused with every scrap of willpower she possessed.
Her eyes glistened.
She had an idea.
The rabbit was soaked through, every last hair matted to his body. Coughing and sputtering, he slowly stood. The pain from the torrential water’s impact was matched by the anguish at being taken so completely by surprise.
The rabbit despaired.
While he had been struggling against the seemingly endless deluge, Yukiko had almost certainly escaped. By now, she probably wasn’t even in the department store. How would he ever be able to catch her again?
His ears drooped, and he sank down onto the concrete floor.
He had been so close. Just a few moments longer, and he’d have taken his beloved Yukiko’s life with his own hands. A few moments longer, and he’d have twisted her head fully backward, and she would have been dead.