There was a hole in my chest. There was a big hole in my chest. There was a frigging big hole in my chest! I couldn’t believe what just happened to me, or what that magical circle thing was but that earlier hit, most likely an attack, put a hole in my chest.

“There’s a hole in my chest,” I thought weakly.

As soon as I had that thought, my legs gave way under me, and I fell to my knees facing the magical spinning circle. Then I slowly fell forward and lay there, with my blood slowly pooling around me. I felt numb and empty, but strangely, I didn’t feel any pain like I was supposed to with having such a hole in my chest.

“Am I going to die?”

A moment late, I heard the sound of footsteps as if someone had arrived at the scene and sighed for some reason. I understood the reason why when the person, who was a girl, spoke in a bored voice.

“What a stupid lowlife, trying to steal from me and ending up dead at my feet without me even trying?”

She sighed again, and I understand that she felt bored because she managed to find me and kill me with relative ease. Judging by her words, it seemed like she had expected some kind of fight to entertain her, sadly though, I was just a normal thief with no extradentary skills that I could boast about.

I wanted to see who she was, but I felt weak, very weak to budge my body, let alone move a single muscle. Still, I wanted to at least catch a glimpse of who the girl was, but was so weakened that I managed to move a little and groan from the struggle.

At that time, she had moved forward to get her purse when she heard my movements and looked curiously at me.

“Oh? You aren’t dead? That’s surprising.”

Her words told me everything I needed to know and made me think, “I see. I’m going to die.”

It was a very simple thing to think about, and since I didn’t feel any sort of pain, I could call this a bliss. But I wasn’t happy with this kind of ending; I wanted to achieve more, I wanted to live and get married, and most of all, I wanted to have my revenge on The Empire. Now, I would never get the chance to fulfil any of those because I’m going to die.

“D-Dammit!” I muttered weakly and gritted my teeth with great anger.

“What?” She asked, sounding confused. “Are you feeling pain? You shouldn’t be since my magic negates all pain sensors of the person that I killed.”

“I see. That explains why I’m not feeling any kind of pain,” I thought weakly.

But I still groaned and moved a little, angry that my life was going to end like that without having achieved anything. I tried desperately to move, but my body no longer listened as I lay limp as a sock. My mouth couldn’t even move anymore as I wanted to complain and yell at this stranger for robbing me off my life when I had so many things that I wanted to do.

“What is it? If you move around, you might start feeling pain.”

I heard the girl’s voice say that to me and heard her footsteps get closer to me. There was a momentary silence before I felt soft hands touch the bottom side of my face and felt myself being lifted by the head for her to see while, at the same time, heard her speaking again.

“Seriously. You should just lie there and accept your fate already. Stealing from me, is basically wishing to die. Don’t you… understand…?”

As she raised my head high enough for her to see my face, she faltered in her speaking and looked surprised. At the same time, I received an immense shock of finally finding out who my killer was; it a girl dressed in red top longer than her waist with dark hair and a cute face, which was much cuter when I see her face up close.

“I don’t believe this,” I thought sickeningly.

She was the girl that I and the owner of the tea shop had been talking about happily a while before I stole her purse from her. He had assumed that she was my girlfriend because I was mesmerised by her cuteness. Even now, she still had that cute face, but I no longer felt the same way about her. Instead, a violent surge of anger was born inside of me as I glared menacingly at her.

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“I’ll… kill you…!” I said weakly.

I have no idea how, but probably because I was so angry and all, I managed to move my right hand slowly upward and placed it around her neck.

“I swear… I’ll… kill you…!”

If I had the strength in my hands, I would’ve probably squashed her neck right there and then remorselessly. Instead, I felt utterly weak to the point and helplessly to do anything, let alone kill my killer.

I saw her widen her eyes in shock, obviously not expecting me to say that I would kill her. Even I was amazed at myself even though I knew that I probably wouldn’t get the chance to do it and simply go on to some other place.

“Oh…!” She said, and I was amazed when I saw her blush while looking embarrassed.

“Huh?” I thought, not comprehending her reaction.

Her reaction puzzled me, like it did not make any sense. I wanted to ask her why was she blushing and all, but it looked like I had run out of time. In that instant, I felt my vision go blurry and my breath stop before everything went dark.

[ ====== ]

The next time I opened my eyes, I saw that I was lying down on an unfamiliar floor facing forward and towards a pair of chair legs and a white wall. No longer was I at the dump yard, instead I was lying on the floor in an unfamiliar room.

At first, I was confused about my whereabouts and thought that maybe I was having some kind of dream. Nothing was familiar to me, and for some strange reason, I felt as though it was a little different than before. I wasn’t sure what, but something made me think differently about myself.

I tried to move to the left, but nothing happened. I willed my body to move forward, but I just lay there motionlessly as before. I even tried move my hands and feet to get to my feet, but I experienced something strange. Instead of feeling a firm sensation of my hands and feet, I felt they were fluffy and scrapped the floor uselessly.

“What in the world?” I muttered out loud in confusion.

This time, I was shocked when, instead of words coming out, I heard my mouth produce strange sounds that sounded nothing like a human being. The sound was a combination of whining and whimpering almost like what an animal would normally make, but I’m an animal; I’m a human being.

When I understood that something was wrong, I started to panic and exclaim, “What’s going on?! What the hell is going on here?! What the hell happened to me?!”

With each exclaim, my mouth made whining and whimpering sounds as if it could not articulate any of my words in an understandable manner. None of this made no sense, and I thought that I was perhaps having some kind of nightmare because of how I was killed.

“This can’t be real…!” I thought desperately.

Just then, the door opened from somewhere nearby, and I heard someone enter into the room that I was in. Instantly feeling fear, I tried to move, budge, or do whatever I could to move myself away from the floor. None worked, and I lay there like a sack of meat and waited for whatever was going to happen.

“Oh! You’re awake!” I heard the shriek of a girl, and I felt a strange dreadful feeling when I felt as though I recognised her voice.

The owner of voice walked over to where I lay and, as if handling a baby, she placed her hands gently beneath me and lifted me up into the air with ease. Then, when she turned my body to face her, I felt the utmost shock when I immediately recognised her as the girl that killed me.

“What the hell?!” I exclaimed, but my mouth instead made more whining sounds. “What’re you doing here?! How could this be happening?! What the hell is going on here?!”

I lost a little of my control and began exclaiming feverishly at all the strangeness that I was experiencing. The girl was clearly taken by surprise by me whining and whimpering while trashing around in her arms. No one could blame me of how I felt when I had no clue what happened to me after I was killed, and this didn’t feel like a bad nightmare that she’d appear in it too.

“Woah! Woah!” She said, trying to control me by holding me tightly. “Calm down. Uh…”

The girl seemed to be lost on what to do to calm me down. Suddenly, she got an idea, and she exclaimed, “Oh! I get it! You’re confused, aren’t you? Well, here you go.”

Then, while holding me really tightly, she walked over to what looked like a mirror and stood in front of it while me towards the front. I momentarily stopped moving around and exclaiming to see for myself what had become of me. To my horror, I saw her holding, not onto me, but onto a rabbit.

“What?!” I exclaimed out loud, my mouth making whimpering sounds as usual. “No…! It can’t be…!”

I began to shake my head, denying what I was staring at as it didn’t seem real. I, a human being, had been turned into a rabbit. I, a proud human being, was now a rabbit. I no longer held a human form and instead had been transformed into this… this… freak of nature!

“NNNOOOOOOO!!!!”

I screamed and began trashing around wildly again, losing all control of myself as I seriously lost it.

“No! This can’t be happening! This isn’t real! No way is this real! I can’t be a rabbit! I’m a human, dammit! I’m a frigging human being; not some goddamn rabbit! I won’t accept this! No way! No! Nooo!! Noooooooo!!!”

My body, that of a rabbit, moved uncontrollably in her arms while making loud whimpering and whining sounds with its mouth. The girl that was responsible for all this, looked troubled as she struggled to hold me steady, but she soon realised it was going to be a tough challenge.

“Dang it! Sleep!”

The moment she said those words, I felt a strange soothing sensation running through me, and I felt a pleasant feeling of wanting to sleep. I stopped fighting, and stopped shouting. Then I closed my eyes and instantly drifted off into a pleasant sleep with nothing to worry me anymore.