“Oh, hi Leo.”

Someone’s come to get my attention. He’s meowing at me much more than usual, then he struts right back out into the hall. He turns his head back towards me, making sure I’m watching him. I think he wants me to follow him, probably to stir the food around in his bowl some to make it more appealing. I’m actually pretty hungry, too. I turn back to the logistical nightmare of cables in my hands. Was I really about to take this apart and catalog every single aspect? Yeah… I think I’ll go downstairs and play with some cat food.

He’s eaten the middle of his kitty kibble, but left the edges of his bowl untouched. I raked my finger inside, brushing it back to center. He’s still meowing at me. I pick one of the hard nuggets up between my index finger and thumb.

“Look. Tasty, right? It’s meat. Bones and cartilage and stuff. Just the way you like it, Mr. Bloodthirsty Carnivore."

He’s still staring, unsatisfied with me.

“It’s fine. It’s great. There’s nothing wrong with these.”

Eat the food.

Come on, just eat the food

Crunch.

Oh. So this is what bones and cartilage and stuff tastes like. I stopped thinking about what I was doing, again. I acted without any thought for what will happen next, again. While spitting and hacking into the sink, I figured out why Leo was meowing at me. He saw someone outside.

I hurried over to the windows and peeked through the blinds. A car was pulling out of my driveway. It had one of those pizza car-topper things on it. I didn’t order anything, it must have gotten the wrong house. Maybe I should have ordered something, though. I’m nearly out of groceries and I really, really don’t want to go back out for a while. Just out of curiosity, I checked my front porch for mistaken deliveries. I’m glad I did, because there was a bag with a styrofoam container inside. I promptly brought it inside and opened the container for inspection.

It’s salad.

A salad with no dressing.

Who the hell orders salad from a pizza place? Actually, I might be able to find out. I found the receipt folded up in the bag. Yeah, that’s the order. A medium salad, no dressing. Ordered in… my name?

MINA.

That’s what it says.

I didn’t order this. I would never order this. It has to be a coincidence, or a database error, or someone’s stolen my identity, or something. I read over it again, this time making sure I’m reading it correctly. Is this the same thing that happened to me at the optometrist’s earlier today? Does this say someone else’s name completely, but I can only read it as my own?

Oh, shit, someone’s outside. I didn’t hear a car pull up, but someone’s coming up to the porch. The delivery person must have realized their mistake. I haven’t eaten any of it, so I guess It’s okay to give back. I braced myself for sudden social interaction and opened the door.

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It was Bunny. She was just standing there.

I stared at her in disbelief, feeling her gaze back. I had to say something, because I know she never will.

“Uh, hey Bunny. Are you a delivery guy now?”

“No.”

“So… what are you doing here?”

“You have my food.”

“This?” I opened the container of leafy greens and showed it to her. She nodded solemnly.

She eats so slowly. I’ve been sitting here with her at my kitchen table for twenty minutes and she’s not even halfway through. Her bites are so small I don’t know how she tastes anything. Though, it’s mostly just lettuce, so I guess there isn’t much to taste anyways. Her dainty way of eating is actually kind of cute compared to her somewhat grisly appearance. I’m not trying to call her ugly, she just… looks like the kind of person to stab a dude over cocaine. You know, like she did.

It was against my better judgement to let her in my house. My mother never specifically told me to not let murderers inside the door, but she probably just assumed I’d be able to reason that by myself. But no, here I am; eye-to-eye with a killer with a bit of ruffage on her cheek. It just would have been so weird to tell her to leave. I guess my sense of judgement can be swayed by socially awkward faux pas. I can tell because it’s happening again. I don’t really want to talk to her, but not talking is so much worse.

“So… why did you order salad from a pizza place?”

“It was the only thing on the menu I wanted.”

“Why not order from somewhere else?”

“That’s the only place I can order from.”

She must be bad with technology. She looks like she’s older than me, but it can’t be by very much. Must have had a rough life to go this long without ever having used a smartphone in a substantial manner.

“Mina.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I sleep over again tonight?”

Ouch. Even the impulse thought of saying “no” to that kind of question hurts. She looks so innocent now, making tiny ‘yuck’ faces when she bites into a green pepper. I’ve been trying to avoid it, but I need to talk to her… and I promise it’s not just a convenient deflection.

“First of all… can you tell me about what happened a few nights ago?”

"Which night?”

“The night when you… ya know… stabbed a guy?”

“He said he was going to kill us. I stopped him.”

I guess… I guess it could be self-defense, in a way. But even then, there’s still so much more to it than that.

“What about the drugs?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why did Rose hypnotize me? Did you see what happened to my fingernails?”

“I don’t know why she did it. I didn’t see you when it happened.”

“Why did you go in that building at all?”

“This.”

She pulls something out of her jacket’s front pocket and holds it out in her hand.

I have no idea what it is. At all. It’s a purple blobby sort of shape, covered in hairs or webbing. Looking closely it seems to be moving; its wispy lavender strands slowly contracting and extending across her palm in search of… food? Was this thing alive?

“Bunny… what the hell is that?”

“I don’t know.”

“But you found it in that old building?”

“Yes. That’s why I went inside.”

“How did you even know it was in there?”

“I saw her in the window.”

Her? Is this thing ‘her’? That’s an awful lot of personification for a bit of grape jelly.

I guess I feel a little more comfortable with Bunny than I thought. I remember Rose calling her “methodical”. I think I see what she means. You often hear words like “unpredictable” and “unhinged” thrown around, but she doesn’t seem like either of those things. She’s extremely collected. I don’t think she would do anything without an immediate benefit to herself, and even then, it might take some instruction. At the very least, I don’t feel like she’s any sort of threat to me. I hope I’m not mistaken.

Oh, and I hope this purple thing doesn’t try to eat me in my sleep.