The Foundry | Part Two | Chapter Twenty
the next chapter of my forthcoming novel
The Foundry
by Daphne Garrido
Part Two | Rebuilt; Refound; Reclaimed
Part Three | Dominion
Chapter Twenty
It took some time to believe, but Echo had investigated things most thoroughly wherever she happened to be, confirming the fact repeatedly; she was the fluffiest little bunny.
Echo was scurrying about the cloud tops, too full of heart to wonder how that might make sense. There were so many friends. She’d been surrounded by so much love. This was perfect, whatever it was, and so she’d chosen to ignore that lingering sensation something wasn’t quite right.
‘Fluffy bunny butts are so cute when you’re another bunny,’ is all she could think. She’d just wanted to get up on one somehow, and so Echo had her little bunny body do just that.
Their rump was perfection. The fur on their back was so soft, she’d buried her face into it as she found herself helplessly dry humping that little cutie-pie. Echo’s heart was singing.
They’d scurried off before long, once they realized all Echo’s affection wasn’t actually going anywhere, but there were bunnies everywhere. She’d bound from one to the next, sniffing and mounting, searching for that one who’d make it all worth it. Never had Echo been at such peace. This felt like heaven.
Upon that realization she remembered how she’d never been a bunny before. That in fact, this was likely all a dream. Echo felt very sad to think that might be true, and she’d hoped she was dead.
Even with this pondering inside, she ran to leap in joy upon those clouds, chasing away all the cuties by her insatiable wanting to snuggle their butts. Until she’d come upon a staircase which was rising from within that most luscious layer of fluffiness below.
She’d hopped up one step at a time, most excited to see what would be waiting for her atop that plateau of cloud at its highest reaches.
It was there Echo had seen her; a golden bunny queen. Her coat was so shiny, and her rump was just the most beautiful thing ever. The tiara she wore was a bit large for her little bunny head, but it looked stunning upon this monarch of heaven.
Love was blooming in Echo’s bunny heart as she approached them, a newfound lightness was borne inside as it swelled to such heights. She’d never felt anything like it before.
Before her eyes the clouds had turned dark, and a hole had begun to open between her and this precious, golden, bunny goddess. There seemed to be no way across. Yet, this land of sky was magical, and Echo had chosen to believe.
She’d skittered her little bunny feet across that stretch of cloud top before her, squeezing hard her teeny glutes, and pressed off with her bitsy hind paws into a leap of faithful flight.
Echo hadn’t made it far before she began to fall.
Tumbling through the air, watching bunny-heaven grow distant in the sky above, sensing the coursing currents of energy rushing past her softest, most snuggly fur, she’d felt a little pellet squeeze free.
“Yippee,” she’d reveled in her sweetest bunny voice.
Echo plummeted back towards her body, and the rising, doom struck, tar-strewn land below. There were fountains of brightest magma and rivers of molten stone. It was beautiful in its own kind of way.
All of sudden, there’d been another cutest little bunny falling beside her.
They’d asked in a most concerned human voice, “Echo, are you okay?”
“I’m great,” she’d told them back with her biggest bunny smile, before drifting off to sleep, sensing into this form and its softest fur, thinking back to the sight of that golden queen who’d stolen her bunny heart, while being raucously serenaded by the encroaching sounds of hellfire below.
The interrogations began immediately upon her waking.
Investigator Harrison had been grilling Echo for hours and he wasn’t letting up. There would be breaks for Orator Coriseau to come and comfort her, and she’d have doctors checking in throughout, but it had seemed never ending.
Her bed in the medical wing was within its own private room, and when the door swung open, Echo could see they had someone posted outside.
They’d been asking questions about her whereabouts over the last handful of waking-cycles, and the conflict with Rory. Investigator Harrison hadn’t been leading Echo with her questions, but she was very persistent. She was asking the same things over and over, as if there was some other answer Echo might give.
Echo had been telling the truth though; she didn’t remember a thing since Darkside.
Later, as things would return, and the horror of what she’d done again unfolded into her consciousness, Echo would find this lapse of memory a most generous gift of fate. No matter how well she’d tried to prepare herself — in future’s retrospect — having seen the means with which she was pried for information, it would be clear to her that she’d have been discovered.
Other than her journey back to The Foundry, and all which transpired in her class’s first quarter, along with that time spent finding place by Alan’s side, the only thing Echo could remember right now were those bunnies. It was a memory which would always be recalled as a strangest thing.
That dream had seemed so real for how bizarre it was, and the love she’d experienced was truly one of a kind; a most precious notion. When she first awoken, Echo just wanted to go back to it. She hadn’t much time to process before they’d begun questioning her, so, she’d been zoning them out and spending her time visualizing that beautiful bunny queen, hoping to re-conjure those feelings in her heart.
It even worked a couple of times, and it’d felt amazing. Finally, they just asked, and it had been Investigator Harrison who’d done it.
“Are you kidding me?” Echo responded most earnestly.
“Do you really think I could do that? With Alice?”
Echo had teared up at the mention of that intelligence she’d grown to love so much, and how hard it was to go on without her, along with the idea she could be capable of perpetrating that pain on another. Both Coriseau and Harrison had been in the room, and she could see it register on their faces. It didn’t make sense to them either.
“We need you to work this out with Rory. She’s absolutely convinced this was you. There are accusations she’s made about things done which would be most severe breaches of ethics and security, beyond this.”
There was concern shown on Echo’s face as she’d searched her memories, thoughtful expression of her wish to know more for them. She wanted to help. Echo thought it was horrible. There’d been such hatred grown between her and Rory over time, and the way that simulation went in front of her class was most damaging, let alone the aftermath. Echo had definitely enjoyed rubbing things in at Darkside as well, but that was a joyful moment Rory had fallen upon, and she felt they’d no right to dampen it with their presence.
Nothing could make her do what Rory was now accusing her of — that’s what she’d thought — so, Echo wanted to help figure out who really had done it, believing it might gift a chance at that reconciliation she always hoped for.
“I really don’t remember. I’m so sorry. When I do, I’ll tell you, I promise.”
Echo truly meant that at the time she said it. Yet, she would not in-truth be doing that once she remembered everything.
“I’ll talk to her too, where is she?”
It hadn’t taken long for them to get Rory. Echo had been waiting most anxiously. She was actually really excited. She thought this was finally going to be her chance to heal things.
When Echo saw Rory she was stunned. They’d bags under their eyes, and their face was reddened. That perfect hair was a mess, and they’d not looked themself at all. There was nothing but hate and hurt in their eyes and body language.
Still, even through all the angered projection, it struck Echo most plainly as they sat down. That feeling had come back again, and Echo couldn’t believe it, she was so incredibly happy, it was them.
That had been Rory — they were the bunny queen.
This is really fucked up. lol