Holding her younger brother close to her chest, Megan attempted not to let her terror show. Her mind would not comprehend what was happening. These deranged creatures were taking them to some unknown location, and she itched to know where this place was. All she was sure of was that she and her brother were as good as dead now.

The mutant rabbits, with their beady red eyes and immaculate crimson waistcoats, had decimated the town’s already finite population. All the people she knew and loved, aside from her brother, were dead because of these monsters. What did they want with her?

Megan watched out the window as they passed what used to be the police station, the school, and the hospital but had been obliterated into piles of rubble. The grass, which seemed to have lost its green color, appeared to be a dark gray sea. The sky was closing in on them, emphasizing the fact that there was no hope of escape.

She wished she could speak—to reassure Chase that everything was okay, but the duct tape across her mouth prevented even that.

One of the mutants followed her gaze toward the window of the ancient automobile and slammed a blanket against the glass to shield the outside world. He then pushed her onto the floorboard while another slugged her in the gut, making her double over in pain. Black spots came into view, and she could feel herself slipping away from consciousness.

When she woke, she was immediately aware of the acute throbbing that penetrated through her skull. She reluctantly opened her eyes, groaning when she saw the space where she was being held. She had been placed in a small pen, surrounded by bars and a chain link fence, in the middle of a large room. The ceiling of her prison was as high and open as the sky. The tan walls that surrounded her laughed at her as they offered no escape, especially with the beady-eyed mutants guarding every orifice of the place armed with swords, clubs, and knives. The longer her eyes were open, the more the room appeared to expand. Fluorescent lights beamed down on her, stressing her head injury.

She then decided to assess any other injuries. Steeling herself, she looked down at her body, scrutinizing her skin. Bloody gashes covered her limbs, but she couldn’t feel any of them. An ebony hue took over part of her stomach, aching as her shirt rubbed against it.

Timidly, her brother asked if she was alright. She glanced over at him, and that was when she noticed that he was in a compartment similar to her a few yards away. His right eye was black and a long bloody cut ran from his shoulder to his wrist.

Suddenly she heard someone shrieking, but couldn’t quite place where it was coming from. Distantly she noticed two guards dashing toward her. Oh. It must be me. She could barely feel their clubs assaulting her back as she attempted to fend off her attackers. Instead, her entire being was focused on her brother and his wounds. Would he be okay?

As she tried fighting off the mutants, another appeared from seemingly nowhere and hit Chase, who had merely been crying. Blood sprayed the fence that separated him from her as he tried to cringe away from his assailant. The last thing she saw was Chase being stabbed in the stomach and shoved to the ground with a massive force. Everything went black at that moment.

Seemingly days later, she awoken and her eyes automatically moved to her brother’s pen, but he was nowhere in sight. The army of guards had multiplied intensely.

“What have you done to him?” she screamed to no one in particular.

“He is fine,” came a computer-generated voice from the speakers above. She
hadn’t noticed them the last time she’d been conscious. But she had to admit, they were
hard to ignore. The mass of one speaker demanded an area larger than her parents’ bed.
Four speakers dominated the ceiling. She was sure they weren’t there before!

“Where is he,” shouted the girl again. From the ceiling came a response identical
to the previous one.

Her blue eyes leaked salt water as she sank again to the sandy floor. A door
nearby creaked open and hit the wall behind it with a bang. In walked two guards, one
gray and one light brown. Between them, hung over a broad wooden post that had been
lain horizontally for easy carriage, was her sweet, innocent younger brother.

Instantly she knew that he had been brought here so that she would have to watch
him die.

“Take me instead!” she screamed. No response.

The mutants continued to march toward the center of the room. They stopped in a
position that assured Megan a front-row seat.

And so began the beating. Megan wailed as they brutally murdered her brother,
stabbing and beating and slashing.

As soon as the monsters were satisfied with their work, they turned and started the march toward Megan. That was when she realized that they weren’t rabbits at all; they were rats.