"Arin had a little hare,
its fur was black as coal.
And everywhere that Arin went,
the hare was sure to know.

It followed her to school one day,
which was against the rules."

– School chidren, 1887

Somebody was crying.

Obscured in the hazy distance, eclipsed by stillness and dark repose, a defeated keening fought through the void to Kyle's groggy ears. Haunted, ghostly laments echoed and faded as the minutes passed, supped and shriveled by a voracious hallway draining them of substance. Soon only his imagination rippled the truncated harmony, until the final vestiges of ache disappeared completely.

Only then, after the heavy yoke of dreams withdrew into the vale, did sound, true sound, engulf him absolutely. It washed in like a moon-drawn tide, swelling as his awareness wrestled control away from lands beyond. Yeah, he was awake, befuddled and staring blankly at a wall without actually comprehending much, but when the nightmare perished, he heard himself. Only, he wished he hadn't.

It wasn't embarrassing enough to emotionally collapse in the dream—no, not nearly. Somehow, without reason or cognizance, consumed absolutely by furious REM sleep, the dream leaked through. Kyle realized that he too, had been wailing like a baby—possibly for several minutes—while the mighty balance of consciousness teetered toward his real senses. Most maddening, he had no idea why he was crying.

But he remembered something. Fragments, shards, burning embers just on the verge of vanishing to ash; he had to write them down, as many as he could recall, because regardless of the truth, his mind screamed of some nebulous importance. In each barely related snippit, existed a wealth of information, explanation that would save him, and everyone else. Kyle knew dreams, though. I'll probably think I'm in dire peril all day. They tainted and colored perceptions in their wake, and apparently this latest batch of images carried a certain hint of self-importance. The trick, was separating significant from worthless chaff. Kyle felt up to the task.

He worked quickly, though still sniveling as weird bouts of pity tore at his heart, and pulled his journal from its secret hiding-place to chronicle anything he could salvage. The journal his father gave him for a birthday long ago, along with the explanation: girls write in diaries, us men have journals, which he punctuated with a sly wink. He shrugged away that vision, unwilling to consider anything else: just find the latest page, jot down a date, and write.

But it was so difficult! Every smokey will-o-wisp fluttering through his brain evaporated to nothingness as he attempted to discern greater detail than vague and obtuse scenes. They dispersed like ink in water when his mental grasp clenched around once solid examples. He was frustrated, but the dirty glass captured just as it blurred and twisted. Kyle wrote bits and pieces, shapes and people, actions and reactions, until exhausted and spent.

"This looks like monkey scribbles," he said to the room. He sighed and glared at the nonsensical phrases and scenarios, hoping that a readthrough would inspire important clues to surface. But it was pointless! Running in the sewers? With a book? Watching a girl on a swing, who then fell into a pile of rubble? What girl? What was she writing? Was she crying because she hurt herself by falling? Why couldn't he remember helping?

The shape and title of the book were a mystery. Which sewers, and why he ran, also became lost in the jumble. Was there someone with him? A shadowy figure was present for at least part of the dream, but who? He might as well be building a recipe for a perfect souffle having only seen one in a shop window. Except he at least knew what a souffle looked like. Was there anything concrete in a whole night of nocturnal adventures? Even one single thing?

It struck him then, while his concentration diverted to anger and defeat. Arin. A name. Her name. That understanding triggered no other recollection, instead filling him with duty and urgency. Arin needs help. She's hurt! He wrote that down too, even while acknowledging the futility.

And then... nothing. He read again and again, but nothing else came, just that overwhelming sense of hopelessness and loss the dream bequeathed as a departing gift. Momentarily overcome, he hurled his journal across the room, watching it slam haphazardly into his closet where it slid, slowly rotating on bent pages. He glared at the misshapen paper, twisted mercilessly and abused for no discernible crime; Kyle felt guilty.

Somewhere in the night, a storm raged. Miles or states away, a tiny edge loomed and raged across an invisible corner of the horizon. In that distance, a blinding flash of lightning lit the sky, sending a brief wave of diffused daylight into Kyle's room. And then, his journal was no warped book, dogeared and worn, but a desiccated carcass drooling and leering through him with unrelenting malice.

Startled and horrified, he fell backwards out of his bed, desperate to escape that terrifying thing. That putrid rabbit corpse both familiar and completely alien, bearing down on him by its mere presence, pulverizing him into his creaky wood floor, laughing in a vibrating bass without making a sound. Kyle's vision became hazy. Maybe it was falling out of bed and striking the back of his head on a nearby nightstand, or the rumbling laugh forcing gorge to his throat and reducing his bowels to water.

Maybe? All those things, and more besides. Knocked senseless, petrified, sick, and rapidly losing consciousness, Kyle clawed and yelled against falling asleep once again. As sleep approached, so too did the memories—the real ones, swooping in from all directions, eager to continue the story as Kyle became the other.

Kyle's last movement before passing out, was to reach for his journal. Everything was all there! Clear as a whistle and twice as loud. It made sense! Worse, he understood exactly why he had to write everything down, without missing one single speck of detail. But as he slid down to the floor, and his head impacted against the floor, he caught one final glimpse of bone and tattered fur.

His last thought was, God, no!