I felt a tap on my back, so I figured they were done inspecting the magical dead Bunny clothes. When I turned around, I was greeted by Biologist and Rose, each wearing one of Bunny’s jackets. They were posed like the cool kids you'd see on Disney Channel in the early 2000's.

Now, at this point, I had fiddled with my phone long enough to dissociate my brain entirely from the current situation. A minute ago I would have laughed with them. Now I'm reeling at their audacity to pilfer clothes of my dead (several times dead) friend. They had really crossed the line with this, I guess.

“Come on guys, can we at least try to take this seriously? We almost got stabbed a few minutes ago.”

Rose dramatically rolled her eyes.

“I am taking this seriously. Ever heard of a disguise? With these clothes, we can fit in with all the other Bunnys.”

“The other Bunnys? You mean the ones wearing all kinds of outlandish outfits?”

“...We can fit in with the dead Bunnys?”

Again, only the Bunnys that have died are wearing her plain clothes. Rose said that the outfits they wear just disappear… Why would that happen? There must be a reason. Rose was clearly just covering her ass with the disguise talk, but the clothes are definitely important, somehow.

While I was thinking, Rose leaned over to Biologist and whispered.

“See that face? That means Mina’s gone into detective mode.”

If I had heard that I probably would’ve gotten embarrassed and stopped, but I really was in detective mode. Even a situation as bizarre as this must have some internal logic. I mapped what we currently knew onto the whiteboard in my mind.

1. Rose made Bunny try on weird outfits in Momo.

2. We lost Bunny.

3. The mall was crowded with many different Bunnys in weird outfits.

4. When the Bunnys die, they revert to wearing her normal clothes.

Rose said they were fake Bunnys earlier, but I wonder how she’s so sure. And she never did answer how she killed them all… I opened up my mouth to speak, but it seems like Rose read my mind right through my face.

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“They’re not actually Bunny. Since she went missing, none of the ones you’ve seen are real. Because she’s… Look, you’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

“How can I? What if one of those corpses really was Bunny, and you just killed her?”

“Calm down, I didn’t, and neither did you. She’s definitely still alive, and she’s in here. But you won’t know it’s her, at least not without me. Oh, and to answer your other question...”

Rose pointed her index finger up perfectly straight. About an inch or two from the tip was a little ball of fire, maybe about as big around as a quarter. It was perfectly round, except from an occasional wisp outwards.

“It’s a new bit of magic I picked up. The trick is to keep it far enough away that you don’t burn your own finger.”

She moved her hand around, the ball of fire perfectly keeping its distance. Not a millimeter too far, not a millimeter too close.

“It’s not a very hot fire, you’d probably only get singed if it grazed your skin. The dangerous part —this is the distance from the skin of a person’s chest to their heart. It burns the arteries closed, killing them in just a few seconds.”

Oh, great. Rose can kill anyone she wants with just her finger. I can’t see any way she would possibly misuse this, I sarcastically think to myself as I take another look at the ropetrain of corpses on the ground.

I’ll skip ahead a bit now.

I reluctantly decided to let Rose temporarily take the role of party leader, since she seemed to be the only one of us to have any sort of clue what was going on. (Not that she would give us any help.) We quickly ended up back in the main area of the mall. It was just as full of Bunnys as it was when we left it, but somehow something felt… different.

It wasn’t so different to make my hair stand on end, just different enough to bug me. The Bunnys weren’t any more aggressive than they were before. We passed right by a Bunny wearing a clown nose and some overalls. There was one Bunny, wearing a bonnet, a blazer, and some Crocs, who looked a little mad at us. And right in front of us, staring menacingly, was a Bunny wearing a… A uh… Huh. What is that? I can’t really make out the shape. Or the color. Or how many dimensions it was in. What the hell was she wearing?

...What the hell were any of them wearing?