The Perfect Specimen

In a dead forest outside of a towering wall, a mob of people scour everywhere, killing and butchering anything that does not look like them. After they murder these creatures and laugh to themselves and each other in accomplishment, they toss their trophies into an enormous pile behind them.

In that veritable mountain of corpses, a young creature stirs itself awake near the center. It is visibly shaken by the gruesome scene around it. It resembles the creatures that it is piled with. An abomination that was created along with the cataclysm.

It originally had the form of an average rabbit. After the change though, the creatures grew to twice their original size. Their hair turned into tightly packed black scales.

Their body did not retain the same plump shape it had prior to its change, instead its limbs grew to be lanky and formed into spear shaped appendages. Their eyes have grown smaller and turned dark red while their trademark ears have roughly retained their original shaped.

Most creatures have gained a form of sentience after that event which did little to change their predator nature causing peace with humans and other creatures to be near impossible. The same goes for creatures with a peaceful nature, but humans are too cautious to trust anything that is not their own kind due to the changes in creatures.

Humans have been tricked before by creatures pretending to be nice, only to devour them or abuse them in later situations. The young creature among the pile currently is still very young. When the creatures are still children, they look almost identical to rabbits post-cataclysm with the only exception being pitch black scales instead of fur.

"I am alone. I am scared."

It thinks to itself as it feels the blood of its family running down its face.

"Everyone I knew is gone."

It tells itself as it stares into the lifeless eyes of its mother resting on top of it. It remembers that its family was looking through the forest for any vegetation they could survive off of. After they realized that the forest had been stripped clean of their food source, they prepared to make a journey to find another home with more food.

As they were preparing for the journey though, the young creature who had been starving for days had seen a head of lettuce growing out of the ground not to far away. It gave off a nice leafy smell that tickled its nose. It wanted to tell its mother and family but the group of beasts is unable to communicate intricate messages to each other when they are young.

"Those close to me are unable to understand me..."

Instead, it decides that the best way to help and show its family is to bring the food back for them. The head of lettuce is big enough to sustain them for at least a few days. It wonders why no one has noticed it yet since it was so obvious.

Thinking little of its families negligence towards providing for themselves, it hops over to the head of lettuce and after verifying that no predator is around, it bites into it and tries to pull it out of the ground. Immediately afterwards though, it hears a group of people coming at it towards the horizon. It hurriedly pulls as hard and as fast as it can to take the lettuce.

It finally succeeds and scurries off towards its family with its spoils. Eager to receive their praise. What it is met with though, is shock and horror from the eyes of each and every beast. Its mother stabs into the lettuce with its appendage and flings it as hard as it can.

"I just wanted to help. I wanted praise for helping, instead I made you all hate me."

It remembers back to other times when similar situations happened to it before. It tried to find clean water to drink, but was scolded for traveling to far from the pack. It wanted to go help find a new forest to live off of, but it was punished for tagging along because it's too young.

"Why do they hate me? What did I do to them?"

Not too long after the vegetable was flung away, a group of humans surround the rabbits and begin to slaughter. The mother rabbit clutched the young rabbit close to it as it had been struck down. Not noticing the little black rabbit attached to its dead mother, the humans threw both into an ever growing pile of corpses.

"I just wanted to survive and have a little bit of happiness..."

It watched through the gaps of the pile as the humans get further and further away as they chase after the rabbits. It contemplates why they all had to die. Why did its family turn away his good will time and time again. Why does everything bad always happen to it?

"Is there something wrong with them?"

It thinks of everyone and how they all just don't know how to get along and have a nice life together and live happily. This is its first time seeing humans and thinking that each human must be insane to want to kill a peaceful family for no reason, it comes to the conclusion that humans are insane.

That line of thinking is understandable for it. What causes it to look further in itself though is how its family acted. When the humans attacked, they all prioritized protecting itself. Afterwards, they put up less resistance towards the humans.

"Is there something wrong with... me?"

Why else would they hate it so much, and why else would the humans want to kill them so much. It remembers its mothers actions and realize that bringing the lettuce back brought the humans along with them.

"So there is something wrong with me?"

If it didn't keep trying to gain the praise of others. It would have been able to live quietly with its family. They would have moved on to the next forest and it would have been just like any ordinary day.

"Why did it have to end like this?"

Why did he have to try to impress everyone? Why did he have to take that stupid vegetable? Why did the humans have to kill them? Why did his family die to protect him?

Every other member of his family contributed so much more to their survival. They should have been the ones to be protected, not it.

"Was I wrong to want to survive?"

If surviving meant the pain and death of everyone it knows and loves, what was the point of surviving? It would have been better if it had never done anything to try and stand out in the first place. Its very existence causes everyone it loves pain and suffering.

"Was I wrong to exist?"

It wonders to itself as tears start mixing from its eyes and the blood running down its face. It suddenly hears the sound of more humans approaching and they appear to be here to look through the piles for something.

"Maybe if I don't exist anymore, everyone will be happier."

It silently waits for the humans to find it and put it out of its misery. It sees its mother getting lifted up off of it. The stormy thunderclouds coming into full view, with only one human standing above it with its mothers corpse in hand.

A bald young boy in a school uniform and pasty white skin.