Everything Hopper Said Was True

Hopper’s Mind

When I was able to eat carrots, it would always remind me of “Bunnicula.” I don’t remember too much about those books — just that they are a strange way to introduce children to reading.

I am not sure what the point was, or if they were moralistic. I just remember a bunny narrating hunger and draining carrots or other vegetables. The covers were pretty weird.

Menacing….

Leporiphobia is a thing.

I used to know someone who had it. I think it is more about rabbits being dirty and linked with… “amorous” behavior. They are filthy little horny things. They breed and scamper — rats with long ears and a trickster-lore. So, I don’t get the fear.

But I understand it.

The whole amorous thing was never my driving force anyway, but now? Well, I am too filthy to even think about stuff like that. I’ve been under this city for months. You could call it the sewers, but I prefer catacombs.

The actions of one person can change the name of a thing. Pretty much anything they have dominion over.

Think about it…

Suppose I put cardboard boxes and all my extra junk in a room that was named “bedroom.” I’ve changed the name of the room; it has become the “storage room.”

In this hypothetical situation, I was the agent of change. I had dominion. My actions caused a name change.

It is almost magic.

The Warrens

A human victim is chained to the wall of the catacomb. They oscillate between screams and whimpers as their panicked eyes watch a human form hopping on all fours before them in a silent mocking parody of a rabbit or hare.

The hopping thing stands upright and speaks for the first time.

“Almost magic, I said. Correct? So, to follow my thoughts, I name you. I name you a victim, or food, or a carrot. I choose. I name this place a prison, or a slaughter house, or a warren.”

The hopping thing holds its hand up to the lone source of light in the catacomb — a large LED push-puck.

Hopper’s solid yellow eyes scan a stretching, warped, and rotten hand with long, clay-colored claws.

“And this? This was once a hand, but I named it a claw. Now it acts like a claw. Scratches, maims, draws blood from the soft underbelly of this night’s carrot.”

Hopper grabs the underbelly of the victim, not hard enough to injure, but hard enough to show the ability and the intent to cause pain.

Where the claws meet flesh, small dots of blood ripple to the surface of the victim’s soft flesh

The victim screams wildly and fearfully. Cries for help erupt from shaky lips. Hopper joins in with a mocking tone.

He mimics the victim’s volume and pitch, but has returned to his rabbit hop and circles the room while performing the parody. The voices of the two performers combine in a macabre harmony — a round that echoes through the catacombs.

The victim stops screaming first, and Hopper follows suit.

Hopper pulls the LED puck off the wall, with the shredding of Velcro. He holds the puck close to the victim’s belly wounds and sniffs short little sniffs, his long nose almost tickling the hairs on the victim’s belly.

“Mmm, carrot juice.”

Hopper velcroes the LED puck to his sleeveless white t-shirt. It illuminates his face from underneath. The soft, sickly battery light shows decaying green skin stretched tight over a lopsided and dented bald head. Two perfect needle-thin fangs jut from below his ragged lips, and they plunge past the bottom of his pointy chin.

He nods his head softly, almost in agreement with a question no one asked.

“So how now, brown cow? What happens now?

I offer you a chance, a spin the wheel, make the deal kinda thing. Just name it.

Take a deep breath, and tell me what you are. What is your name?“

Hopper paused and furrowed the hairless ridge that functioned as a brow. Something in his yellow eyes softened with hope.

A hope that his magic was something everyone had.

Hopper hopes the victim will name himself.

Free, or saved…

Instead, the carrot launched into some banal pleas for help.

Hopper’s brow ridge showed disappointment now, and his eyes glowed with enraged hunger.

Hopper raised the timber of his voice and began in severe agitation.

“Well, all that you just said is not a name. It is something else.

Where did you want to go? Back up there? Back to that city? What would you do there? Who would help you?

I know what you would do! You would drink fish piss and eat soft loaves of kindness. No more a life than a koi in a pond.

So no. You lost the game of names. I name you.

Maybe fish? It’s fish and chips for dinner tonight.

No.

You are the symbol of a fish, no gills, no tail. So I will not name you fish, I will name you Carrot.”

Hopper crouched down on all fours again and started hopping like a bunny. He twitched his nose rapidly as the victim hollered some other clichés.

While still crouching and staring directly at the victim, Hopper said the rest of what he needed to say.

“Now I will click off the light. I will drain you of all your carrot juice.

It will be dark, and you will feel my nose tickle your jugular vein.

Then pain. And then I will name you Corpse.”

Everything Hopper said was true.