BornAndTorn 26 Down The Rabbit Hole

I was walking around aimlessly in this forest. Even though the scenery was vibrant It did not cause any kind of feeling in me. I just wanted to find creatures to kill. But I did not see any kind of creature anywhere. It was as if this world was devoid of any living things, those nutjobs have done quite a good job of cleaning this place. But I am not worried after all I am just hunting lousy creatures, that even my body can take care of, the stuff that a sane person would not waste any second with.

I should not cause any kind of commotion before I am ready to take it head-on. All these things holding me back, because I am too weak. Being born talented is sure making me envious. They have a world full of mana, full of possibilities, yet those are not enough. At first, I was quite sceptical and narrowminded, blaming this kind of att.i.tude for all the bad things happening, but as it turns out I am quite wrong. It is human nature to strive, in negative emotions because they yearn to see the light one more time. The best environment for technological development is war after all. Men or women, children or old progress does not care. Every single one of them is a fertilizer for a better future.

A war knows no winners just victims. But it these victims that are the backbone of every single era of peace, until the humans once again forgot about the sheer terror that is war. So the cycle repeats, again and again, ensuring that humans develop further and further.

I will not change the system, I will not change usher in an era nor will I change the world.

I am just trying to show people that there is more to life than just mindlessly giving up their lives.

I arrived in front of a small hole in the soil, it was pretty much just enough width for me to crawl into it. I gawked at the hole, wondering what kind of abomination a rabbit would turn into. Without wasting any more time I quickly began to crawl into it preparing myself for an encounter. But I crawled and crawled and yet there was no big mutated rabbit in sight.

After a while, I arrived at a big s.p.a.cious room. Even though it was really hard to see, just with the light radiating out the runes carved into my forehead, it was still possible to see general shapes.

So here is the places were the newborn are hatched and speaking of the devil, there are newborns here. They seem to be in their infancy and I doubt that their parents are going to resp.a.w.n any time soon.

Even if I don't get a chance to improve my fighting capabilities, I still can run some experiments and get to know this world a little better.

Grabbing the first one, I decided to test how realistic his anatomic design is. After picking it up I heard its cry for its mother, it is likely that it's currently begging for food. Holding on tight to his ears I began to launch him at the earth and wall multiple times.

Its response is to be expected, at first, it voiced an anguished cry likely asking for the attention and help of its parents. The anguished cry was changing into a shrill squeal after continuously repeating the progress. The squeal was replaced by a pitiful whimper that got more and more silent until silence filled the room.

After having confirmed that it has stopped breathing. I began to open the skin on top of its skull with my teeth. The bland taste still has not changed. I told the bugs to open the skull for me. After watching the little bugs consuming the skill bit by bit. I saw the brain in all its glory.

Poking the brain at several spots, I noticed that the legs of the rabbit were moving erratically. After toying and playing around a bit, I decided whether my bugs were able to take control of a rabbits body after its death.

The rabbits' corpse began to move. Though the corpse was still lying on the ground at least I could confirm that in theory, my bugs should be able to inhabit a recently deceased body. But after watching the rabbit, struggling on its back over and over again I could safely deduce that my bugs currently lack the intelligence to realize this.

Moving on to the next subject, I want to test out how the animal would react to the sudden loss of one of its senses. Even though for this kind of experiment a fully-developed rabbit would be much more useful, I decided to still make the best out of it. To get the best result, I need to minimize the damage I deal. otherwise, my deductions could end up being flawed. First I will let my bugs crawl into its nostrils and block its sense of smell that way. The rabbit began to panic and opened its little mouth over and over again sucking oxygen into its system. Seems like by blocking its smell we rob it of its main source of air as well.

Next the loss of vision and the loss of sound. I let the bugs cover the eyes. Due to the visual impairment, the bunny shows signs of stress and began moving its head around. After smelling, it begins to shake more and more. After ordering the bugs to return, I notice that even though its vision was restored the feeling of panic was still lingering inside. After it was robbed of its vision it began to heavily rely on its smell. Therefore after panicking after noticing the different smells. As result stress hormones were released and are now keeping the bunny in a state of suspension.

Waiting for the bunny to return to normal, I pondered how I should test the loss of touch and taste. Testing the loss of taste is nearly impossible to achieve without drugs or sedative medicine. But I wanted to avoid destroying it because it would falsify the achieved the results. So the only thing I could do was doing this test after having finished all the other ones. But their sense of taste is linked to their body hair. that means I can't test it before it as well. The reaction to the loss of sound was similar to the loss of its vision, therefore, the same level of dependence can be deduced.

That means that I have to do this test on 2 different rabbits. The loss of taste should be done first because it is by far the easier one. At first, I put a bug inside of its mouth and waited for its reaction. It tried to swallow the bug after receiving the sensation on its tongue. After taking the bug out again I grabbed the tongue and pulled it out. Afterwards, I let the bug inflict damage to the nerves responsible for the taste and watch its reaction. At first, there was no visible reaction. but after trying to feed it with my bugs again it just tried to swallow it again. I began putting several different things into its mouth. soil, worms and even pieces of meat of the first subject, it did not reject anything and swallowed everything.

The most tedious work will be the test regarding the loss of touch. Mainly because besides the main source of touch being the hairs close to its nose it has several hairs responsible for the sense of touch on its whole body. That means that I will have to shorten each of its hairs. Even though it can not be considered a complete loss, it still means a complete change for the rabbit. After working for an eternity, the rabbit was finally prepared. After letting go of it the rabbit, just looked around and tried to move but walked right into a wall. A change in customs can really confuse this kind of animal.

To summarize, the senses of smell. touch, vision and hearing are heavily linked to one another. meaning that under the sudden loss of its senses, the abilities of the rabbit are severely influenced. The loss, of taste, just leads to a general acceptance and a loss of a safety mechanism regarding harmful food.

And my final experiment is about my little bugs. in preparation for this kind of experiment, I began to line up every bunny next to each other. A dead one, one was still under the influence of stress hormones, the other one was just simply confused, one that was currently bleeding and one I did not harm in any way. After letting out a single bug I ordered it to consume the prey. So let me see what kind of preferences those bugs have.

Now that's kind of surprising the bug did not walk to the dead prey first. That means it does not prioritize how easy its nourishment is achievable. Rather it went straight to the bunny that is currently suffering extreme stress. After removing the bunny out of the equation, I let another bug pick the next pray repeating the process until nothing was left. After the experiment I noticed that the bugs prefer stress, over the b.l.o.o.d.y wound, followed by confusion. But I am still confused why they would take a healthy rabbit over the dead one. Maybe their growth depends on the state of the being they consume is in. I am lacking samples in order to verify my guess. But still, with that hypothesis, I can do quite a bit.

And now to the last test. I grabbed the healthy rabbit and bit his head off. Drinking the blood that was gus.h.i.+ng out of the wound, I waited and waited and nothing happens. Yeah now I am sure my bugs get stronger by consuming other animals and I have to eat humans.

Looking at the b.l.o.o.d.y mess I have caused, I might have felt a hint of pity, but that did not even last for a split second after I realized that this is just data in the end. Those animals will resp.a.w.n any time soon, so any kind of feelings regarding killing and torturing these animals is kinda useless and unnecessary.

Having finished my experiments I crawled out of the rabbit hole and began my search for my next prey.