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It wasn't the first time Six and Fern had been outside the lab.

Six had been to many things outside the lab; award ceremonies, live testings, all sorts of press conferences where she and the other Special 7 were the focal point of the gathering, and Fern, well, she hadn't been at that lab her whole life. But this was a new experience for them both. A private school. It was filled with the shrieks of middle schoolers and teachers wandering up and down the halls, trying to regain control. This would seem out of the ordinary for a private school, but it was early in the morning, and once things settled down, it would seem just as organized as any other private school. Six was being carried in her travel cage by the first scientist while Fern was being lead on a leash by the second scientist. Six cowered in the corner of a cage, wishing her ears weren't so big as to pick up every single sound made.

"Who knew human children were so noisy?" Six asked, and Fern smiled.

"Yes, but I like them still," she said, "They're sweet, and they love you simply because you're an animal. If there's ever been any true animal rights activists, it's human children."

Six nodded, still a bit wary of trusting any humans after the last few weeks in the lab, especially after Gerry told her about Jasmine and his adventure into her cage. Six had become completely distrustful of THEM and was no longer being as cooperative as THEY'D like her to be. Six felt bad about this though, because she knew she could get away with that attitude, as she was part of the Special 7, and THEY'D never do anything to hurt one of the rabbits from that group. Finally, the scientists stopped in front of a classrom, exchanged a few words with the teacher and then were lead inside.

Sixs cage was placed on the teachers desk, with a sheet laid on top of it, covering her from the childrens view. Fern sat beside the desk, keeping Six company simply with her presence if nothing else. The room eventually quieted, and Six started to shudder. She felt a large *THUD!* on the table beside her, and nearly jumped out of her fur. She quickly scurried to the other corner, and huddled in deep into the straw, shivering. After a few moments, she heard THEM begin to speak to the children. Thankfully, she'd learned to listen.

"There's two rabbits on this desk," the male scientist said to the children, "One of them is smarter than the other. She's a rabbit we've been testing intellignece enhancing drugs on for quite some time now. The other is just a simple rabbit, nothing special about it at all."

After a wooshing sound, the sheets were pulled off the top of Sixs cage, and she could finally start to look around, though the bright schoolroom lights blinded her momentarily. She squinted, shook her head, flopping her ears back and forth, before finally able to see the cage beside her. Inside was another rabbit from the room, one she'd never spoken to. They were placed on the opposite end of the room, for one, and outside of Gerry, Doug, Kevin and the remainder of the Special 7, she didn't really socialize much. It was a rabbit the same size as her though, but shaking intensly, scared out of its mind. Six hopped across her cage and looked at him. She glanced up at the spot where his nametag should be attached to the cage, but there wasn't one. She then looked at the top of hers, and spotted her nametag. She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"Because we've enhanced the intelligence of one of them, they will react more logically under stress, pressure and fear. Watch," the female scientist said, as she walked in front of the desk, and started fumbling with the latch on the other rabbits cage. Six wiggled her whiskers, and looked back towards him, now noticing he was staring at her.

His eyes said it all.

The scientist reached into the cage, grabbed the rabbit and pulled him out. He kicked rapidly with his hind legs, trying desperately to get free. Six hopped back across the cage, her head tilted straight up in curiousity at what was about to transpire. The female scientist turned the rabbit over, still holding him, so his stomach was face up, as the male scientist came to her side and pulled the cap off a needle. He then pushed the tip into the rabbits stomach, and injected him with something. After a few seconds, he stopped kicking, and they put him back down into the cage. After a few moments of shivering, he finally started to move. He started to run in circles, and then directly into the metal grates of his cage, bashing his face against them violently.

Six backed up at the sight, and huddled back into the far right corner, as far away as she could get. She shut her eyes, not wanting to witness this. This wasn't at all what she had expected. After a few minutes, the sounds stopped. Six let her eyes flutter open, and she spotted the rabbit lying on the floor of his cage, his face cut and bloody. She whimpered, lowering her ears over her eyes. Then she heard the latch sound above her, and realized they were coming for her. What would she do? There was nothing she could do. A hand reached in. THEY pulled her out. THEY turned her over. THEY injected her. Same process. After Six was placed back on the floor of her cage, she just stood there, unsure of what this would do to her.

After a few minutes, she began to feel a tinglig in her back right leg, and then a burning. She contorted herself so she could get her head back there, and started chewing at her paw. The pain became worse. She gnawed faster, as the schoolchildren hooted and hollored around them. After a few minutes, the pain subsided, and she laid on her side, her eyes glazing over from finally have relief. It was only after a few seconds of pleasure did she realize, upon glancing down at her leg, than she'd gnawed her back right paw completely off, and it was laying there in the straw.

"You see, the first rabbit felt the pain, but didn't know what to do about it. He resorted to complete and total destruction of his senses in order to rid himself of this feeling. The other rabbit, she's the intelligent one. She found the pain and isolated the pain by riding herself of the spot where the pain was emenating from."

Six tuned them out. Her eyes were glued to the paw that used to be her back leg. It was a bloody stump, laying there in the hay, almost crying to her. Wondering how she could do this to it. Six felt like she was going to throw up. After a few more minutes, Six passed out. When she woke up again, she was in a room, but not the normal room. This was a holding room, probably for her to recover in. She heard the sound of a food bowl being pushed around, and rolled up onto her stomach, crawling to the front of her cage, only to find Fern eating her dinner. After she finished, she looked back up at Six, and sat down.

"I didn't know what to expect, but I wasn't expecting that," she said.

"That wasn't even educational," Six said, exasperated.

"Apparently it was a science class," Fern said.

"Why did they choose me? I'm...I'm one of the 7. I'm not supposed to be subjected to this sort of thing. I'm special..."

"I suppose everyone really is expendable," Fern said, licking her paw, "Don't take it too personally."

"Too personally? I gnawed off my own paw for the amusement of children!" Six shouted, before realizing she didn't have the energy to shout. She laid back down on her side, and heard the door to the room open. The female scientist from earlier came in, took Fern, and exited the room. Six sat back up and looked at her stump, which was wrapped in gauze. She felt sick again, but not as sick as she did moments later, when her eyes scanned the room and landed on Ferns food bowl.

Laying inside the bowl was the remains of the other rabbit from earlier.
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Gerry was taken by surprise in the early morning, while still asleep.

A hand opened his cage, reached inside and grabbed him, startling him awake, pulling him out and taking him to another room where they laid him on a steel table and waited for their partner to show up. Gerry had no idea what was happening, and tried his best to listen for anything he could hear that made sense to him. First they rubbed his right hip down with a wet napkin type object, then he felt a sharp prick, and that was that. He was out like a light again. When Gerry awoke, he was back in a cage, but this time not his own cage, and not in the same place as everyone else. He slowly opened his eyes and looked around; everything was a bit fuzzy, and only a few minutes after did he realize he wasn't the only one in the cage. There was another rabbit in here with him.

She was smaller than him, possibly a dwarf rabbit, and a deep, muddy brown with a black ring around one eye. One of her ears flopped over in front of her face, while the other stood perfectly up, and she was staring at him, not saying a word. Gerry tried to stand up, but quickly found that he wasn't able to, and fell right back down onto the hay.

"Stay," the other rabbit said, and Gerry looked back from down from his legs up to her.

"What?" Gerry asked, and she wiggled her whiskers at him.

"Stay," she repeated, "You can't walk. You can never walk after it. It's the number one side effect," she said, "You'll be okay in a bit, but until then, just stay. You'll only hurt yourself if you try to move around."

"What did they do to me?" Gerry asked, still a bit groggy, "I...I remember waking up in my cage and someone was taking me somewhere and..."

"It's a test. Some kind of...medicine or something," she said, "They've tried it on dozens of other rabbits, myself included."

"Who are you?" Gerry asked.

"Jasmine," she replied.

"I've never seen you in our room before," he said, nearly slurring his words.

"I've never been in your room before," she replied, "This is the only place I've ever been, outside of the lab. This is the only place I've ever seen."

Gerry laid on his side and exhaled deeply, accepting that she was right and he should just relax. He looked at her again, and thought about how pretty she was. How sad it was that she'd never seen anywhere beyond here. Even he had once been in a house, been outside of this lab. But to be bred here? Born here? Live and eventually die here? Never to experience anything beyond these steel walls and hushed voices? It saddened him to no end.

"You didn't come from the outside?" Gerry asked, as Jasmine snuggled down into her hay hole.

"No," she said, "My parents had me in here, and this is the only home I've ever known. This was back when they were still breeding us. Because of what they tested on my parents while they had me, I can't see."

"You're blind?" Gerry asked, surprised.

"Yes," she said, "That's why they don't feel bad about testing some of the harsher things on me. They know it can only do so much damage. They wouldn't want to hurt their regular crew to the point where they become unuseable so they use me, because they know I won't go blind."

"So...so you end up taking a lot of what we would..." Gerry said, "That's terrible. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be. I don't mind," Jasmine said, "This has been my life. I'm used to it. To me, this is normal."

"Well, Jasmine, trust me...as someone who's been on the outside, this isn't normal. This as far from normal as possible," Gerry said, "What did they even test on me?"

"From what I can smell, it's a skin irritant," she replied, "They're testing it to see if it's ready for humans. If you respond negatively, then they'll know it wasn't ready, and they'll try it again."

"Is that why I can't walk?"

"That's from the shot."

"Oh," Gerry said, "Will they test it again on me?"

"Probably not. Probably on me," she said, "Generally if something does have a negative effect on their regular crew, that's when they test it on me, so they don't hurt you guys. But please, don't pretend it's not working just on my behalf."

Gerry lowered his ears and sighed. This poor rabbit. He wanted to help her. He wanted her to be brought back to his little area of the lab, and be with his friends. It wasn't fair that she was here all alone, taking the brunt of stuff they should all be sharing equally. Gerry suddenly realized that he would need to start being extra brave about what they were doing to him. If this rabbit had to be, then it was only fair he'd have to be too.

"I've been thinking about trying to leave," Gerry said, finally regaining feeling in one of his feet.

"I could never leave," Jasmine replied.

"You couldn't?"

"I'm blind and I was born here. Where would I go? Everything would scare or confuse me...."

"I guess so," Gerry said.

Just then the door opened, and a scientist walked in, with Fern padding along behind them. She spotted Gerry and went to the cage, while the scientist grabbed a few things and just as quickly exited the room, leaving Fern there.

"Hello Gerry," she said.

"Fern," he replied.

"Jasmine, how're you today?" she asked.

"It's nice to have company," Jasmine said, thumping her foot a little from excitement.

"I imagine," Fern said, "Gerry must be the only other rabbit to have ever met you. At least from the current batch."

"Yeah, I guess so," Gerry said, "Nobody has ever mentioned you or anything, so they probably don't know you exist."

"It's understandable," Jasine said, "A lot of the rabbits they do bring into my cage...they don't leave alive."

Gerry shuddered. That...that was upsetting. He knew he was safe at least, since he was starting to regain his feeling and could still see. Jasmine didn't seem too particularly worried about him either, so he figured he was relatively safe as far as his health went, but still...to live in a cage where so many others died? And poor Jasmine, to have that be her entire life...

"You'll be fine in a few hours," Fern said, "Don't be too concerned."

"Fern, if you could just tell Six and Douglas that I'm ok...I'd appreciate that. At least they won't worry about me then," Gerry said.

"I shall," Fern said, wagging her tail a bit, "What about Kevin?"

"Who?"

"The...the other rabbit across from you?"

"Oh, right, Kevin. Yeah I guess. He's okay."

"Better not to feed his paranoia anyway," Fern said, just as the scientist reopened the door and called for her. She nodded goodbye to the rabbits and then trotted out quickly behind the scientist. Gerry sighed.

"It was nice seeing her," he said, "She seemed spry and happy."

"She has good days and bad days," Jasmine said, "But..."

"But what?" Gerry asked.

"I don't want to alarm you. Just be aware that when the time comes, it's not her fault. Don't blame her what what they make her do," Jasmine said, "That's all."

She nestled her face into her paws and shut her eyes. Gerry looked around the room, and back down to the spot where Fern had been standing. He knew they tried things on other animals. He knew the rabbits weren't the only ones in this compound. But Fern? What had they done to Fern? And what had they done that would make him need to forgive her? Jasmines statement echoed in his mind throughout the rest of the day, and when he was finally taken back to his own cage and saw Six again, he told her all about Jasmine and what they had done to him, but said nothing about Jasmines warning.

"It's not her fault," she'd said, "It's not. her. fault."
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He had appeared out of seemingly nowhere.

He was a small, dark pitch black mouse with a bright pink nose. He was maybe the size of Geralds paw. He scrambled up to the front of the cage and looked up at Gerald, who was the only one left awake now that Six had gone to sleep.

"The rabbit wing?" the mouse asked, squeaking here and there.

"Yeah, you're in the rabbit wing," Gerry said, "How did you get here? How did you get out of your cage?"

"Mice can get out of anything," the mouse said, before scratching behind his ear and sniffing the air, "I'm Dodger," he finished, "At least that's what they call me. I think I'm named after a sports team."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Gerald," Gerry said, wiggling his ears, "The one asleep is Six. She's one of the special rabbits."

"Special?"

"The ones they don't hurt," Gerry said, his voice lowering as he admitted it to himself, "The smart ones that they write articles about and win them awards. Myself and most of the others in here...we're not those kinds of rabbits."

"Mmm..." Dodger murmured, then sniffed the air again, "I smell something."

"That would probably be Steve."

"It smells like food," Dodger said, scurrying a few inches from the cage, "Probably rabbit food. Do you know where they keep your food, Gerald?" Dodger asked.

"The scientists and us aren't really on speaking terms," Gerry replied sarcastically.

"I should take some back," Dodger said, and Gerrys ears perked up instantly.

"Back? Wait...you're going back?" he asked, surprised.

"Well yeah," Dodger said, scurrying back up to the cage, "Of course I am. I'm not going to just leave my friends to their fate, say 'thank goodness I got out' and run off into the wilderness with a clean conscious. Could you do that?"

"I...don't know."

"We need to stick together. We need to present a united front. That means bringing back whatever supplies I can find when I get out."

"Who's talking?" a voice asked from the darkness. Dodger and Gerry both looked across the room directly to a shelf with other rabbits, where one was sitting up and looking out his cage. He was brown, and had a large black spot on one ear.

"It's just me, Kevin," Gerry said, "There's a mouse in here."

"A mouse?"

"Kevin, where do they keep the rabbit food?" Dodger asked, and Kevin bristled.

"Why? Are you going to steal some?"

"Kevin..." Gerry sighed, shaking his head.

"He steals some, THEY come in and think we got out and ate it and then it's...you know."

A moment of silence, as the two rabbits exchanged glances. Dodger quickly looked back and forth between them.

"What?" he asked.

"If you're misbehaving, THEY put you in The Sick," Gerry said, "It's where they test diseases on rabbits. Give them illnesses and then try various vaccines in order to see what works and what doesn't. Generally older, weaker rabbits are used there, but sometimes...sometimes someone gets in trouble and gets sent to The Sick. You never see them again."

"I'm not going to The Sick just because you're hungry," Kevin snapped.

"Kevin, first of all, how would we get out of our cage, and if we did how would we manage to open the container, and if we did how would we manage to hope all the way back up here and close the door back up?" Gerry asked, "Think about it. Doesn't make any sense. At least if mice get into something, they chew their way through. They see that, they know a mouse did it, no questions asked."

"....I suppose you're right," Kevin said, "But if we get blamed, and I get sent to The Sick, I'm going to come back and haunt you. The food tub is over there in that closet. The doors are metel, so I don't know-"

"I can fit through a slot," Dodger said, before quickly scurrying off to the front of the closet door.

"Hey Dodger," Gerry asked, "Are things in other parts of the lab as bad as they are here? Are the mice as scared and in pain as we are?"

Dodger started sniffing around the door, checking for any small spot he might be able to squeeze through.

"Well," he began, "We had a mouse once named Phil. Pretty nice guy. Phil was taken away one day and never came back. One night when I got out, I accidentally ran across where they'd taken him. They'd mutilated him. He was alive, but they'd grown an ear on his back. Sure, it made him a better listener, but jokes aside, he was mortified at what he had become, or rather, what THEY had turned him into. It actually wasn't even that they wouldn't bring him back, it's that he didn't want to come back. Didn't want all his old friends to see him like that. Imagine the shame and the embarassment he felt. Poor ol' Phil. Hang on a second fellas."

And with a good tight squeeze, Dodger slipped right under the closet door. They could hear him rustling around inside the closets, and just waited for him to return. Gerry looked back across at Kevin, who was now cleaning his front paws.

"Kevin, do you ever think we could get out like Dodger did?"

"I don't think so, he's small enough, and I wouldn't try anyway. If THEY caught us, it wouldn't even be a straight shot trip to The Sick, it'd probably be instant death. Even if we got out of here, I wouldn't have the first clue about finding our way out of the building and back outside."

"Yeah...I guess you're right."

A moment of silence, as they didn't hear Dodger rustling anymore.

"He must've taken what he needed," Gerry said.

Another pause.

"Gerald," Kevin said.

"Yeah?"

"Don't let them grow an ear on me please."

"I'll try."
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The silence had filled the air long enough. Six finally spoke.

"They blew him up," she said softly, "…they just…blew him up. They didn’t care. They didn’t care that Steve had feelings or that Steve was…was one of the nicest rabbits I’ve ever known…he exploded and they CELEBRATED."

Gerald shuffled to the cage beside Six. They were in the other testing room for the night, seeing as the main testing room was a bit, well, covered in Steve. They were airing it out overnight.

"It’s like…I can accept being a part of science, I can accept that we’re a lesser species, but…but they flat out murdered him and they cheered and poured drinks."

"Six," Gerald said quietly, "…how are you surprised?"

Six lowered her ears, her eyes growing dimmer.

"I guess I…I guess I just wanted to believe that humans had respect-even if not much-for species other than their own but they don’t. Steve didn’t deserve that, Gerald. Steve…didn’t deserve that at all. That was inhumane."

"I told you it’s bad here."

"I KNOW it’s bad here but this is over the edge!" Six said angrily, sounding on the verge of tears, "How do they justify that?! That wasn't experimentation, it was flat out murder! Steve didn't further progress in a medical or scientific field. HE  EXPLODED. Steve isn't a hero! He's not a martyr! He's meat chunks splattered on a wall! And they still have the audacity to think that this was ok!? 'Yay, casual murder! Time for drinks!'. Unbelievable."

Six finally allowed her fur to settle and she took a few deep breaths. Gerald glanced at Doug, asleep in the cage beside him.

"You know what scares me the most about Steve?" Six asked quietly, "Is that it means we're ALL expendable. Even The Special Seven aren't off the hook...any day, any time...they could open the cage door and grab Doug and...just..."

"Don't think like that," Gerry said, "We don't need to stress ourselves out anymore than we already have been worried. I'm fairly confident in saying that The Special Seven are pretty well off. You all matter to them. If for nothing else but the publicity. It's Doug and myself and the others who're the ones who have to be wary."

"People say they do things in the name of science because it's right. That's a conversation I overheard THEM talking about one day when they had me out in the breakroom. Two of the men were speaking about religion vs science, and they said they got into the scientific field because they could make things better while religion only makes things worse....but....but where's the morality they claim to gain from this? They're harming us! That isn't making things better! And what's worse is that they hide behind this guise of caring about making the world a better place so people can't talk down to them!" said Six, becoming visibly upset now, her hair all fluffed up and her teeth chattering wildly, "And they act like they're gods! Meanwhile, last week they had me in another lab and they were sticking tiny metal rods into me to see my reaction to a certain type of alloy! This isn't science! It's cruelty disguised as research!"

"Six..." Gerry started, "We can complain all we want but in the end we're rabbits. We have no control and no power over them, and this is our life, whether we like it or not."

A moment passed.

"Do you know how I ended up here?" Gerry asked.

Six shook her head.

"I was in a pet store. I'd been returned because a family had an older brother who had an allergic reaction to me. Can't be around rabbits. So they brought me back. Imagine the liberation that was. Being picked over all the other rabbits, and to go to a nice safe warm home with a family and they're giving you good food and playing with you and then...you're back there in that tiny glass case filled with whatever rabbits are left until someone comes in and buys you and brings you...here. I went from a nice safe warm home to...this. There's no justice in the world. There's nothing. We're all just gonna have to deal with the fact that we didn't get lucky enough to be free or cared for."

Fern had gotten up and was stretching in her kennel, and flapped her ears a few times.

"I don't know. Each one has it's uncertainty and it's certainties. Pros and cons. You don't know who you're going home with. They could end up abusing you or not being good pet owners, or you could end up in someones Easter Basket, which sadly happens to many rabbits who then die from being poorly cared for. At least here they'd contractually obligated to feed and shelter us. Is it a safe, nurturing, loving environment? No. But neither is the world," she said, as she laid back down and looked at her right paw which was bandaged, and sighed, "The world is kind of a bad place."

Six had had enough and went to lay down as well. Gerry sat looking out at the blinking red smoke detector light across from his cage, and realized how pointless all these conversations were. Yes they were interesting, but in the end what you're left with is a meandering, meaningless debate that always ends where it starts. Gerry laid down and curled up, and shut his eyes. Then...a small scratching sound. He looked around, and noticed a small mouse had come out of a hole in the upper right of the wall, and their eyes met.

"Please," the mouse said, nearly in tears, "please don't let them hurt me anymore..."
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Gerald sat in the corner of his cage, staring at the table where he’d been held on mere hours earlier as THEY tested some new sort of X-Ray device on him. He couldn’t understand much, but he knew it was apparently going to ‘help’. He’d acquired a small vocabulary of human words since being in the lab, words he’d picked up from hearing repeatedly, and ‘help’ was the most common next to ‘rabbit’. He tipped his ears forward and thought, “If I’m helping, why do I feel so bad…”

His silence was broken by rustling in the cage next door, where Douglas, one of only a few to have been here as long as Gerald had, had sidled up from under the brush in his cage and pushed his nose against the side, looking into Geralds space.

"W’at’s up mate?"

"I…" Gerald said, "…I’ve picked up a new word THEY’VE been using recently. ‘Pioneers’. Any idea what it means?"

"No, sorry…" Doug said, "Can’t say I really know much of ‘eir language. I’m not as savvy to pick up it up as you’ve been. Maybe Six knows."

Doug and Gerald hopped to the front of the cages and rattled them a bit, attempting to make contact with the set of cages across the room, where 7 ‘special’ rabbits had been placed. The superior ones. The ones they didn’t test makeup and medical equipment on. The ones they used for intelligence.

"Six!" Doug called out, "Six, can ya ‘ear me?!"

A moment. Then a murmur as Six made her way to the front of the cage.

"What do you want?" she called out, groggily.

“‘E wants to know w’at a word means!” Doug said in a hushed shout, so as not to disturb the other rabbits and animals in the lab, “It’s uh…cripes, w’at was it again?”

"Pioneer," Gerald said flatly.

With that she settled into a monotone reciting of a dictionary definition, “Pioneer; verb: a person who is among the first to develop or use or apply a new method, area of knowledge or activity.”

"THEY seemed pretty pleased with themselves," Gerald said, "…but how can they be so happy with themselves helping others at our expense? Don’t they care we have to hurt in order for others not to? And sometimes the things we test don’t save people, they’re just useless products."

"Well, I’m sure t’ey care about us as much as t’eir allowed to," Doug said, "Probably don’t wanna get too attached, ya know?"

"Morality isn’t a sliding scale depending on who’s on either end, though," Six said, now chiming in, "if anything I’m more mad about not getting the credit for what WE discover, since WE’RE the ones doing the busywork."

"You DO get recognized!” Gerald said, with a hint of annoyance, “Doug, myself, the others, we’re the ones who get short changed! You at least get written up in journals, we’ve heard them read them! Talking about how wonderful the Special Seven are, but no mention of Doug, who last month took an electronic shock to the brain to test if the new taser was safe for people!”

"T’at…t’at one kinda ‘urt, I’ll admit," Doug said, "In both ways, physically ANDI didn’t get thanked.”

"We’re not them, so we don’t matter," a soft, wilting voice said from the darkest corner of the room, as the one sole dog in the lab-a slightly young Australian Sheepdog-started speaking, "They care about their own means, their own ends, and their own survival. Some animals get special treatment, like dogs, or cats, because they’ve deemed us ‘cute enough’ to be socially acceptable pets and thus not as used in experimentation. We’re their ‘friends’. But we’re not equal."

Gerald sighed, and thumped the ground in happiness, “See, see, Fern gets it! She understands what it’s like!”

"It’s not so bad sometimes…" Fern continued, "Sometimes they take me home and give me a nice, normal life, but…it’s not like that small momentary lapse of humanity justifies their overarching cruelty towards us. You don’t get forgiven for massacring an entire species simply because you were nice to one of them one day."

Six sighed and scratched her ears, as she nestled back into the straw and laid back down, “You are all hopeless. Is it bad here? Yes. Even on the Special Seven end, but at least we’re in a controlled environment where there are laws in place to protect us from outright abuse. The outside world…it’s much worse. I’d rather be here.”

Doug and Gerald glanced at one another before Doug hopped back to lay down in his own little nest he’d made. Gerald stood at the front of his cage, still dumbstruck.

"So I’m the only one who’s struggling with the morality of this?" Gerald asked.

"Seems like it, mate," Doug said.

"Gerry," Fern said quietly, "you can either accept what you can’t change or let it destroy you. We don’t have an option, or a choice. This is our life and debating it isn’t going to make it any easier."

Gerald nodded, knowing she was absolutely right. He hopped back to his own little bundle of hay and laid down, sighing, his ears drooping to the sides of his head.

"It’s just not fair," he said quietly.

"Maybe one day we’ll get lucky, yah, and one of t’ose animal activist groups’ll ‘it our lab and rescue us," Doug said softly, "It’s not a lot of ‘ope, but it’s better than nothin, i’d reckon."

Gerald nodded; he was right. It was a small glimmer, but it was something he could grab onto for comfort. 

Gerald had a dream that night that he was in a field. It was sunny, and bright, and he could see a large black figure in the sky. A bird maybe? He could hear the sound of cars and people nearby, and he was happy as he laid in the suns warmth and enjoyed being alive. Dreams seemed to be the only place he could live anymore. His reality was the nightmare. When Gerald woke up that morning, he didn’t remember a single bit of the dream, except the black figure, which only left him confused.

And his day started again, back on the table, back to being nothing more than a tool for the pioneers.

Back to being less.
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About

The Rabbit Collective follows a group of lab rabbits struggling with their purpose, and hopeful eventual escape.