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<!DOCTYPE html>

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<title>The Bunny Butcher</title>

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<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="1.html">Crucible</a></li>

<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="2.html">The Bunny Butcher</a></li>

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<a class="nav-link" href="about.html" role="button">About me</a>

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<label class="small text-muted mb-2 d-block">SWITCH STORY</label>

The Bunny Butcher

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<li><a class="dropdown-item active" href="2.html">The Hunter's Final Payment</a></li>

<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="3-act2BB.html">System Anomaly</a></li>

<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="4-act3BB.html">The Man in Yellow</a></li>

<li><a class="dropdown-item" href="5-act4BB.html">The Original</a></li>

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<label class="small text-muted mb-2 d-block">CHAPTERS</label>

<a class="nav-link text-light mb-1" href="#title">Title</a>

<a class="nav-link text-light mb-1" href="#the-elevator">The Elevator</a>

<a class="nav-link text-light mb-1" href="#v-tek">V-TEK Terminal</a>

<a class="nav-link text-light mb-1" href="#epilogue">Epilogue</a>

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<h1 class="display-4 fw-bold" id="title">The Bunny Butcher</h1>

<h2 class="h3 text-muted" id="act-1">Act 1: The Hunter's Final Payment</h2>

<h0 class="h3 text-muted">By Anthony Henson</h0>

</div>

Fog hangs heavy over the industrial district, cold and wet against my face. Air is tight. It feels like the city is finally suffocating.

I'm standing at the edge, looking down into an industrial elevator shaft; darkness fills the void…so does my grief. A heavy sigh came after that thought.

“It’ll have to do”, I say quietly to myself as I press the decayed call button. I hold my breath.

For just a moment, there's silence in the shaft. Then, the elevator jolts to life, screeching as rusty metal grinds against itself, each movement a tortured cry. It creeps upward, defying the rust-worn beams, but soon nothing.

The silence presses in, thick and absolute. For a moment, it blots out everything but the thud of my own heart. My breath steams in the cold, and then—

—a memory crashes through: I am not at the shaft anymore. I'm at the old house. Locked in the stillness, only to be awoken from the slumber I needed. Ring. Ring. The phantom sound of my doorbell cutting through the quiet. I can’t move.

The echoes of my doorbell cut through still. I remember a scrawny cop standing on my porch under a yellow light. He was just the bearer of bad news; he didn't even have to say the words. Belle was gone. She had walked out on me a week prior, sick of my obsessiveness about a killer she called a myth, my constant late-night drinking, listening to every rumor and following every trail. Her indeniableness got her killed.

CLANG.

The elevator snaps me back to the present with a loud crash of metal on metal. The grate opens with an excruciating scraping sound, like a yelping pig being carved open in a slaughterhouse.

I force my frozen legs to move as I hear the sound of a groan underneath my weight. A heavy stench of old oil and rusted iron fills my throat. Then the grates slam shut behind me, plunging the elevator into a pitch-black so total I can’t even see my own hands. In the dead quiet, a cold panic claws at the base of my neck.

Sweat stings my eyes, but I dare not move. In this cage consumed by the void, returns and with it, the visions. I see her face floating in the shadows. I see her in the crowded subways. I hear the scream amid the noise at airports.

Now, she whispers from the corner of this match box: Turn back, Leave it buried.

Some truths should stay buried. Yet I have come far to return. Others flinch from terrors stitched into our history, burying them beneath tears of denial. Not me. I drag the past in the light, no matter the cost.

I fight the voice as my hand moves to my topmost pocket. Shaking a bit, I pull out a pale, white, dried, leathery, textured calling card of the butcher. The foul stink of sulfur wafts up, thick as a dead fish left in the sun. It's a square of improperly cured human skin. Hers. My thumb traces the ridges of the tattoo dragon that once adorned her. It grounds me some, brings me back to reality… and the voice leaves.

The Bunny Butcher is a cruel being, notorious for using the flesh of others as fabric. No single victim of hers has ever survived her performances. Some say she was a seamstress who went insane from constant isolation; others say it was some kind of questionable experiment hidden below our feet. Some attempt at matching flesh with that of a machine, leaving only a fragment of her former self.

But I think this other is more likely; Decades back, a maintenance worker vanished from the lower tunnels during a winter shift. Her former co-workers said there was a constant, screaming-like sound emitted from the pipes all night. When morning came, her maintenance station was covered in blood, but no one found anything except a sewing kit and a missing co-worker named Gilford.

They are always found butchered ,flayed, carved open, split in half, or sometimes headless, their skulls vanished for reasons no sane mind can fathom.

At every scene, she leaves her mark: a calling card that reeks of spoiled eggs, its pale surface sparkling coldly in the moonlight. If the victim had a distinct tattoo, she made sure to include it on the card. The stench is thick, like fish left to fester in the sun. Only when I run my fingers over it do I understand: this card is made from the skin of my own blood, just like my wife.

The elevator stopped with another loud clang, and then the doors slammed open with a nasty, metal screech. I stepped out into a completely dead hallway buried in thick dust. Loose, rusted signs hung down from the ceiling. So caked in grime I could only read one: SHOW ROOM. I shoved the double doors forward and walked straight into a massive, quiet area. The place was packed with rows of junked machinery. It felt exactly like standing inside a graveyard.

I move forward, bracing for the solid crunch of concrete, but the ground betrays me. It squelches, wet and yielding. I look down—pale pink flesh pulses below my feet,shot through with black wires that writhe and twist, recoiling from my touch.

I look up, and my breath snags inside my chest. The walls are smothered in the same obscene growth, turning the corridor into the throat of some mechanical beast, hungry and alive.

Every step is a gamble, my flashlight hacking through the heavy dark of the SHOW ROOM.

I swing my light to the left, hitting the wreckage of an old pizzeria. A cartoon chef mascot is still standing there, but he looks as though he is from a nightmare. His white chef's hat is filthy and drooping over a rotting latex face. Thick, fleshy tentacles are actually squirming out from right under his plastic mustache. One big, bulging green eye is locked onto me, completely dead. There are no legs under him, just an old metal pole, rusted to pieces, with flakes of metal dropping right into the wiggling mass at his base.

I aimed my light straight up into the dark. A massive, dirty sign caught the beam,The Critters. Decades of dust and peeling paint made it hard to read. Below it, the weak glare revealed a massive three-stage setup running the length of the back wall.

Then turned to the left. The flashlight beam caught another figure standing under a single, dim spotlight: a red fox. The animatronic was frozen in place, wearing a smug, nasty grin under half-lidded eyes. He looked like an old-timer propped up after years of neglect, stuck in a permanent pose of self-satisfaction. He was wearing a dusty, vintage three-piece suit with dark red pinstripes over a faded yellow vest. Despite the thick layers of grime, the character still had a weird air of arrogance.

Nearby stood Stella Skunette, clutching a battered microphone as if she were still trying to win over the empty room. All her old charm was gone. Her short, spiky hair had faded to a washed-out, greasy pink, and her molded hourglass body looked warped and grotesque. She looked like a perfect monument to total neglect, completely abandoned to the dust.

The patchy loss of her fake fur reveals a jarring amalgam of cracked white plastic, rusted metal, and raw, Writhing flesh, especially noticeable just under her arms. Her face is frozen in a perpetual smile, where once there were eyes, now there are no more than flesh tentacles coming out of the sockets, looking like a knot.

Next to her, a rabbit guitarist sports a slicked-back hairstyle that will remind anyone of The Fonz. His black leather jacket, cracked and peeling, barely covers a white polo shirt, which has taken on a yellowed hue with age. The ripped costume around his legs exposes pitted, rusted metal knees, and his oversized, rounded retro sunglasses, a striking blue, add to his shabby charm.

Those glasses look like Pit Vipers. I actually owned a pair just like them as a kid,totally loved those things. But putting them on the rabbit? What a waste. It doesn’t know the feeling. It literally can’t even appreciate the light.

In his hands, he holds what seems to be a six-string guitar, but a closer look reveals an odd twist;a series of nineteen piano keys modified onto it, giving the instrument an odd yet intriguing twist.

To the left, there’s a dazed alligator, significantly chubby and bottom-heavy, giving off the vibe that she hasn’t moved from her seat in ages. Her mottled pink-green skin resembles spoiled, sickly plastic,the very vision of a past exposed, screaming for attention. Her costume is covered in a sticky layer of grime, half-devoured by the unstoppable advance of decay. She sits at a drum set in a laid-back pose, her green eyes with eerie red sclera staring ahead, and her pink tank top barely contains her ample belly and moderately sized breasts.

Finally, the beam hit the far right of the stage, catching an old country dog slumped over a piano. His body was completely wrecked. His spine looked snapped in half, the fur along his back ripped open and matted with grease. He wore nothing but a pair of thin, shredded blue pants. His head rested sideways on the dusty keys. It was a miserable sight,just a broken, forgotten piece of junk left to decay in the dark.

The stench slams into me,a foul brew of brine, rot, and burning ozone, crawling up my nostrils and raking at my brain. My fingers quiver against the silk lining of my black coat as I dig out a battered black bandana. I tie it over my face, not for safety, but as a ritual, a block against the filth and the memories.

To most, this reek would be enough to drop them to their knees…maybe even kill them. But I am not like most men. The blood of a Pendleton is coursing through me. My own stink could drive a wolf from its den. I can’t remember the last time I actually scrubbed the grime from my skin, but my filth is nothing compared to what waits for me here. The hunt is all that matters. Or so I keep telling myself. The family was built on the bones of the fallen. Deer, elephants, typical game. But at some point, something changed, and we started hunting a different prey—the blood of our own. The rumor was that my great-grandfather started it all after becoming bored with the usual prey. Others think it was some curse handed down by generations.

Still, somewhere deep inside. There is doubt about being a curse. My old man called it a weakness. He always said a Pendleton was never to question the urge. Father always would say, “A Pendleton just did it.”, beating it into me until my back was raw, but standing here now, I can’t tell if it’s grit or just some inherited sickness to keep me going. The legacy I tried to bear so long, measuring myself up to him. But every day was like a never-ending climb, like I was in Prometheus’ punishment for giving fire to mankind. It changed me…I can feel it. I take a deep breath. “What a mistake that was.”, I mutter to myself, trying to drown out the noise in my head. I calmly press on.

A sudden, piercing metal screech, like nails on a chalkboard, pierced the silence. Turning quickly to my right, I saw old signage that said "arcade". God, my heart pounds. I killed the flashlight before I could even process the sound, allowing the oppressive darkness to welcome me once more. I moved against the corner of the wall ,white-knuckling the cold steel of my lever-action '73 Winchester. Don't breathe. Just wait and see what comes out of the dark.

“COME OUT, COME OUT, BUNNY! I’VE GOT A CARRRRROT!”

I bellow into the void space, my cry tearing the silence itself apart like a cannon blast. A savage grin splits my face, daring the darkness to answer. Only the whine of rusted metal answers me, a ghost’s sigh in this burial ground of promise.

I pushed the rifle forward and edged around the corner, my hands shaking. Ahead of me was a massive room full of dead arcade machines. A black-and-white cat animatronic sat right in the center, slumped over a plastic bench. It looked awful. Its mouth was warped open, as if it were screaming, its rusty joints sagging toward the floor. The old, faded uniform it wore was just falling apart in the grime.

At least the floor was dry here. No more disgusting squelch under my boots,just old faded arcade carpet. Thank God. The air in this room was totally dead and stale, but compared to the filth out there, I’ll take it.

While glancing around the area, as my eyes adjust, I catch a glimpse of what I thought was a leg at the edge of my peripheral vision. I turned to look, but all I saw was a low glow of amber light behind the counter and a large door.

I grunted, hauling myself over the dusty prize counter and landing hard on the other side. My joints were completely stiff, and my jacket was caked in dried grime. God damn, my stomach was twisting from hunger, but I forced it down. I walked straight up to the ancient terminal. I needed to see exactly what was left on this machine.

An amber glow hit my face as the screen buzzed to life. Decades of dust and deep cracks totally warped the text underneath. I used my sleeve to rub at the glass, which was thicker than I had expected.

There was an old cardboard cutout dumped against the wall right next to me. One look at it and my stomach completely tanked. It was that cheerful, blocky-looking girl character with the short hair, the tiny top hat, and those stupidly massive hands. The eyes on it looked way too alive. Staring at that smiling face was like looking at a ghost I’ve been trying to run from for years.

I return my gaze to the terminal, frustration and willpower churning inside me, blurring my vision with heat.

As I looked at the terminal screen, I saw the following options:

########################################################

V-TEK

Where entertainment lives!

########################################################

Messages

Graphics

Log In

</div>

I choose the first option, slamming my finger into the Enter key, missing the old, dusty, grimy keyboard a couple of times.

A lot of messages are here, but most seem to require logging in; I noted all but the first.

I look up over the monitor as if something might happen still, but nothing, just dead silence.

1987 The new CEO of Vartti Toys, Victor Locke, announced a merger with Locke Robotics; he then went on— I slam my fist on the table and a puff of dust emerges over the screen. Ugh, I can’t focus, my head hurts, and my vision is blurred. I keep thinking about it. Thinking about that girl when I was a boy and how scared she was, I pushed it away for the time being...

He talks about getting a new investor who will fund future projects going into the unknown to push the boundaries. And then mentions people circulating, talking about irregularities coming from the restricted area, blah blah blah, corporate bullshit; purging company data on the regular. Great, just my luck they dump in case shit went south. Awfully convenient if you ask me. A loud crash made me jump. Like a cat. But when I looked up, there was nothing there, just that damn animatronic cat fell onto the floor. Now, where was I… oh, right there… He refers to the boys at Plasmacorp working on a breakthrough called Organic Artificial Interfacing. I don’t know what those words mean; they're so beyond me, but they don’t sound good.

I hit the back button really hard to get back to the menu options, since there was nothing else.

########################################################

V-TEK

Where entertainment lives!

########################################################

Messages

Graphics

Log In

</div>

My hands were shaking so hard I couldn't do anything. Sweat was starting to pool on the keyboard, no matter how hard I tried to focus on the terminal, that looming presence in the back of my mind, of him, my father.

Trying to push it even further than I had before, I drag myself down to the graphics option. And with a single swift hit of the Enter key, it loads several graphics I could browse. None of which were particularly interesting, mostly corporation-branded logos and various characters, besides the very last one.

It was just named Pen-invest

Curious about what was in it, I hit the arrow key to move the selection, then, with a decisive strike, hit Enter one last time. What I saw next was… none other than the man named Spencer Pendleton, my great-grandfather. There was no color; it was monochrome, but there was no mistake, it was him. He always was a philanthropist. I reckon I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am. It wasn’t uncommon for him to invest in many things.

It was him, with some other man, shaking hands in a corporate conference room, frail, wrinkled, and hunched over, with a huge mustache that ended up pointing towards his bald chin, with a smile that could kill a man in a 10-mile radius.

In a fit of momentary rage, I yanked the keyboard and threw it as hard as I could towards the far end of the corner. plink, boink—the plastic keyboard skittered across the floor, keys splattering onto the ground like a fake pool of blood.

My knees buckle under my own weight; I catch myself on the countertop, breathing hard. In. Out. In. Out. I take a long breath, hold it for a second, and then slowly let it out.

My hands dig inside my coat, desperate for anything—My fingers close around something fragile. It is an old newspaper clipping, the only thing I have left besides the clothes on my back that had any sort of value. The old newspaper in my grip is ready to fall apart, but the headline still burns. Years gone, all spent hunting the Bunny Butcher through archives and dark alleys. That was 40 years ago.

A coarse curse rasps from my throat. I wrench my gaze from the screen’s mocking glow and spot the reinforced backroom door, hulking behind the counter,the only way out of this stifling crypt. I rummage through the filth beneath the counter, hands raking through decades of dust and mold. My hand closes on something icy and heavy,an old iron key. I rip it free, jam it into the lock, and twist. The door moans open, exhaling a breath of ancient, stagnant darkness with nothing more than the flicker of a dying light.

The storage room is a underground coffin, suffocating and cramped, packed with the corpses of forsaken parties. Cardboard boxes sag and split, vomiting out plush toys with clumped fur and dead, staring eyes. Rusted helium tanks loom in the corners, ringed by the shriveled skins of balloons clinging to the floor like shed flesh. Rubber balls lie deflated and pitted, their bounce bled away, tangled with neon sticky hands flowed into a viscous, grasping ooze.

I kicked aside a pile of mold-infested boxes and found a heavy metal door. There was no label on it, just a dim, flickering sign above that read REPAIR & DIAGNOSTICS. It was hidden pretty well behind all the junk and shadows. Pushing it open revealed a narrow hallway that wound straight around the back of the main stage, heading deep into the building toward the main maintenance rooms.

At last, I stagger to the end of the corridor and suck in a desperate breath. Something is wrong; A vise tightens around my chest, sweat pouring down my back as if I’m roasting alive inside my own skin.

Freeze. I shoved the door open and immediately choked on the smell of old blood and heavy ozone. It was freezing in there. My flashlight cut through a total disaster zone, rusted wrenches and screwdrivers were dumped all over the floor like trash. Across the room, a couple of dead diagnostic screens were weakly blinking in the dark.

Everything in me went completely still. There were two massive medical tables bolted to the metal floor, their leather straps completely black and stiff from whatever had soaked into the material over the years. Damn. The rumors about the stolen clinic gear weren't just talk. It was all real, and it was sitting right in front of me. Then my eyes adjusted. Just past the tables, the floor completely gave out, opening up into a pitch-black drop big enough to swallow a man.

I grabbed my old friend, pressing the cold metal against my palm to try and stop my hands from shaking. I edged forward, every muscle tight. Then a sharp metal screech shattered the room. Right after it came this wet, heavy breathing. It was right on top of me. Right behind my back.

I start to turn, but something massive and metal smashes into the back of my skull. The world explodes in white pain. An industrial knife slams home with a sickening crunch, and I crash to the freezing metal floor, dazed, the world spinning, sense and reason leaking away.

My face hits the metal floor, tasting the metallic flavor of blood in my mouth. Everything was spinning. I couldn't catch my breath, my lungs just stuttering as a flood of pure, blinding pain threatened to knock me completely out. But I forced my eyes open, staring straight at the warped floor right in front of my face. I couldn't pass out now.

My arms and legs feel heavy, weighted like lead. A guttural sound escapes me; the throat burns, yet I force myself to roll over despite the protest of every muscle. Each movement feels like an impossible chore; the more I try, the more painful the spasms in my back. Finally, with much effort, I collapse on my back, gasping for even a little breath.

My only friend was gone, knocked completely out of my grip and sitting just out of reach. Right next to my boots, my great-grandfather’s old red hat was lying on the cold steel, defiled by whoever did this to me.

Clank. Squelch.

The noise slams into me again. Metal grinding on metal, a sound that rattles my bones. This time it’s a shriek, drilling into my skull, setting my nerves on fire.

She towers over me. She's impossibly tall from down here; she looks like a skyscraper. And she moves with a smooth, fluid elegance that freezes my blood. The suit is that of a bunny, but something is wrong with it, a grotesque patchwork of pale cream laced to a rotting brown, each seam swollen with unseen life. At the edges where the fabric stretches, I catch a glimpse of raw flesh pulsing in a sickly, relentless way. It makes my gut churn. A suffocating wave of rotten fish, sulfur, and the sour funk of a wet dog hits me. I gag, but I can’t even draw a breath. Then I hear a wet, low noise from the suit, like flesh being peeled from the bone. The cold, damp air bites at my skin, matching the crawling, writhing sensation spreading just beneath my flesh.

The oversized rabbit mask jerked to the side, a stiff, robotic twitch. It made my stomach drop. A hollow voice, completely flat and sounding like a cute high-pitched voice, came out of the suit.

"Just standard protocol... quick check..."

Her right arm came up slowly. Mocking. She was grabbing it like it was fused to her right into a massive chunk of rusted iron, a cleaver big enough to slice a person in half. When she dragged it forward, the blade shrieked against the floor. A horrible, grating sound. She twisted the grip with a jerky, sudden snap, looking like a broken toy trying to carry something way too heavy.

She inches forward, the soft, padded feet of her suit brushing against the discarded newspaper a few feet from me.

The blade hovers above me, blotting out what little light remains. She moves without haste, tilting her head, waiting for me to meet her gaze, stitched eyes, cold and pitiless, staring straight through me. For a split second, I thought I saw my wife, Belle. I tried to say Belle, but for whatever reason, I was stone silent. I know it isn’t her because if she were, she would at least greet me, or at least I’d hope. We hadn’t ever quite gotten along that well during our marriage, but I still… even now… love her; I can still hear the beauty of her singing voice.

In a voice that feels like it’s echoing from deep within the fabric of her suit, she murmurs in a cute, feminine voice,

"Don't worry, you will become—useful."

The blade comes down not swift, not merciful. It bites into my shoulder, cold and precise, pinning me to the floor with her monstrous weight.

I want to scream, but only a wet, choking gurgle escapes as she tears the first strip of skin. The pain is like blinding, white-hot lighting coursing through me, every nerve shrieking, my body set ablaze from the inside out.

But in pure horror as her hands moved, piecing together a new shape out of my own skin. The hunt was over. I wasn't a person anymore,just raw meat being ripped up and sewn back together. Every stitch was a sick reminder of whatever I used to be.

Every cut made it harder to stay awake. The freezing room air was hitting my raw skin, a numb sort of pain that made my whole brain go foggy. I couldn't even twitch. I just lay there on the floor, unable to do a single thing while she took me apart piece by piece.

Dazed and confused, I woke up in a haze. I can't even close my eyelids; my eyes are drying out, burning, and itching like a bad sunburn. Thinking…to myself of the craziness of my fate…A thought had come. For the longest time, I longed to hunt the Bunny Butcher only to become her next victim.

The room is a mausoleum, and the table will be my casket. She lifted me up from under the arms and dragged my defeated body onto the metal slab. The touch was like frigid needles upon my skinless body, sending sharp pains all over, causing spasms once more. Each drop of a leather strap is an insult to what I am. Nothing matters anymore. Nothing.

My eyes wanted to rest, but I couldn’t, as I lacked the means to do so, as everything looked warped. Through the blur, I could see a metal chassis shining in that nasty green light, its silver wiring exposed. The Butcher jerked her head to the side, summoning the Mother. The final ritual is happening.

The whole floor shook with vigor. Thick, red veins burst straight out of the metal hole like split pipes, thrashing around my body and the waiting machine. Then the Creature was on top of me. No mercy. It tore into my flesh, dragging the bleeding pieces directly into its own self.

I tried to scream, but the sound was choked out as I was pulled straight into the center of the thing.

Everything started to drift. The dim light blurred, the room went fuzzy, and the whole world simply started to fade.

But in that final, dissolving moment, memory clawed its way back—Pendleton, all those years ago.

I still remember it well. My first target was a girl older than me. I tried, tried that night, but no matter how hard I pulled that trigger, my heart would stop it.

Her porcelain skin glistened with sweat, rosy cheeks betraying the terrified heartbeat within. My finger clutched the trigger, but my heart screamed in defiance, locking me in place. A coward, a stain. Their laughter yet rings in my ears, painful and endless. That night broke me.

They will respect me. I must make them respect me. I won’t stand being laughed at anymore, even beyond the grave. Even now, they laugh. I can hear them.

The voices, the shame, the green light—all of it revolved together as I moved into the dark.

* * *

Right on the chilly metal table, this raw, disgusting humanoid shape was squirming and wiggling against the steel. It looked completely skinless. The tissue kept rippling and contracting over a heavy frame, twitching violently every time the Butcher drove her needle into it. She was frantic,stabbing down over and over, sewing stolen patches of skin directly into the writhing mass. The whole table shook, sending wet vibrations rattling down the metal legs as the thing spasmed against its restraints. Then, before the body could even stop thrashing, the terminal screen cut out, throwing the whole workshop into total blackness.

Arthur Pendleton is gone. Something else stood in its place, any trace of humanity replaced by raw, feral hunger, not his own, yet familiar. Somewhere below the surface of his body, echoes flicker. half-remembering names, the scraps of pain, shattered memories of suffering and loss. His metal bones contort and stretch as the new seams tighten, but there is no room for joy inside him now, save for the hunt. He loves it. Deep inside, Arthur's mind tries to remember who he is, but he fails to recall even his own name. Just that of now, an unfamiliar face of a passionate kiss. The brokenness and the suffering blend together, blurring between who he once was and the monster he has become. The vicious need he always carried has been twisted and amplified, as if this new vessel were built to hold only the darkest aspects of his soul.

In the end, it's more than a fact that his flesh was ripped and bones reshaped. It is the final surrender to his agony. There is no relief, no triumph end. Just the endless ache of what was his. lost forever. Proof that some wounds and those of the blood lineage of cold beings can only warp, never heal. All he got was the legacy of obsession handed down, consuming him whole. He has become what he pursued, unable to break from the cycle, his fate bound to the very monstrosity he set out to destroy and put into light.

Through the Bunny Butcher’s ritual, he has become an instrument of violence, reborn with a singular purpose: to harvest. His face was a total stitched-up mess, a jawline squared off, and those heavy wild mutton chops fused to the tissue. He hauled himself up onto his feet, bare-chested, unrecognizable. The skin was stretched stupidly tight across his beer belly, black stitches barely capable of holding the flesh within. His transformation is complete;His only purpose now is to deliver new subjects to Mother.

<h3 class="text-center fw-bold mb-4" style="font-family: 'Courier New', Courier, monospace;">EPILOGUE: The First Offering</h3>

It was past midnight in Newark, and the freezing air cut straight through Arthur Montgomery Pendleton's new skin. The once sick man he once was lies buried beneath a black, grime-caked silk coat. Now, heavy frame and writhing flesh are fused as one. His skin was as green as a pale clover, showing with seams. Each step jarred his anatomy, producing a wet thump of leather that echoed off empty buildings. It was a deliberate, predatory gait, each movement charged with monstrous intent, as though the act of walking announced him.

The city was a labyrinth of shadows and neon, a hunting ground that felt both familiar and alien. As he stalked through the industrial district, the weight of the antique Winchester rifle felt like a natural extension of his new limbs. He wasn't looking for a story anymore. He was looking for a tribute, driven by a primal, almost lustful thrill for the chase that set his metallic frame humming with a dark heat.

His thick, dirty mutton chops twitched with every robotic jerk of his head. Ahead of him lay Newark, his old hunting ground, now just a blur of dark streets and cheap neon. You could tell people were terrified just looking at him. He carried the Winchester rifle low. It was heavy, freezing cold, and felt completely natural, locked into the grip of his new steel fingers with flesh not of his own.

Once a hunter, always a hunter; you can’t quench the needs of the hunter. The hunt is the only thing that matters now, as Mother requests. Somewhere inside lay a cold pulse, one with silent commands to the mind. Mother needs new brains to study, to train, to practice.

With each Hunt, Mother gathers the fragmented simulacra of the human mind to continue the trials, but she yearns for more than she is now, to shape the very earth, to move from the cold metal that we cling to, an urge to perfect ourselves.

Arthur dropped straight out of the dark. His huge frame hit the concrete with a heavy, sickening thud. The drifter tripped over his own boots, trying to back away, completely locking up when he saw what was standing in front of him. In a horrible mess of a man,a grease-dirt-stained silk coat, green skin, and that bright red hat. At first, Arthur did nothing but stand there, then a menacing grin opened. The guy couldn't even make a sound. He just stood there in the dark, totally pinned.

Arthur leaned right into the guy’s face, red eyes staring through the dark. "Better run, boy." A grating voice. He stood there for a second, just watching the drifter lose his mind. Then he snapped. " I said, ' Run! '" It was said in such a way as to directly mock, for him to dare try.

He reached toward his belt, his fingers finding the tools he carried. A serrated hunting knife caked in old blood hung on one side. On the other was a bright, fluorescent orange Butt Out tool, completely garish against his green body, a butcher's trophy ready to be used.

His chest rattled with a heavy, mechanical scrape as he stepped forward. Then, a sharp gunshot shattered the quiet. The blast echoed down the alley and faded into the dark.

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