i won't post everything i write, but i really wanted to post the first chapter of my bun and friend story. feedback is welcome, or if you just wanna let me know how it made you feel that would be super helpful too 🥺👉👈
also yeah i decided to just write it instead of trying to make it into a game straight away.
Chapter 1
It seemed to Friend that no one else heard the steady drum-beat of the dungeon calling, or if they did, they didn’t mention it. Because the dungeons were not meant for bunnies to explore, although they held treasure beyond imagination, all the bunnies stayed away from it. But the drum had been beating in his ears for as long as he could remember.
The tiny town of Fluff, known only as that town nestled in amongst the dense cedar forest and covered in dandelion puffs all spring, had its own dungeon just beyond the beaten path. Fences of rusted chain-link, over-grown climbing ivy, and obscure signs that seemed to Friend to be a warning surrounded it. Otherwise, the dungeon sat unguarded. But it was untouched because every bunny knew better than to go in.
Bunnies are taught from a young age about the legend: If you go into the dungeons seeking its treasure, you will lose your heart. And heartless bunnies could not coexist with the normal bunnies. They were to be damned to the dungeon, to eventually become a monster. Many storybooks depicted this, some stupid bunny thinking he’s different, losing his heart, and then being cast out by his loved ones. Then after some time, mutating into something unrecognizable. Something dark and gross, something horrible, its ears dripping like burning candlesticks, wax melting everywhere. Though the horror movies all depicted it differently from one another.
Friend wondered if the bunnies in those stories were called by the same drum-beat. His books made no mention of it. It was a bit of an obsession of his, he was always taking books from the library on the subject. Taking notes, drawing maps, theorizing. The dungeons, the treasure, the monsters… they were fascinating to him.
Bun hated every bit of it. “The monsters are too scary,” she would cry. Could hardly sit through a horror movie without having to turn the lights back on. “Stay,” she would plead, “just in case.”
“Ridiculous,” Friend would say, though it was never any reassurance to her. But he would stay anyway, waiting until she fell asleep. And those nights he’d hear the drum beat louder than usual.
That was the tricky thing with Bun: she was a coward. Ever since they were children, she would cry about bugs in her room, the hallway being too dark, or the forest being haunted. And somehow it fell on Friend to help her. She would call him at all hours of the day for some inane task, often to capture a bug and let it out.
“Don’t kill it!” she would beg of him, as if it were too cruel.
“It’s just a bug,” Friend explained then. They lived short lives anyway, Friend didn’t see why it upset her so much. But he’d do as she asked anyway, catching the bug under a glass and dumping it out through the back door.
And so Friend got to work on his research. Every book he could find, every article, anything about the dungeons he could get his hands on he would study. It seemed like there were no first hand accounts of the insides of the dungeons. All he could find were records of bunnies being banished to the dungeons for being heartless a few centuries back. And of course there would be no record of those bunnies after that. The dungeon’s call was deafening then.
A few books told of the treasure inside: Fragments of a wish. One in each dungeon, seven in total. When brought together, any wish could be granted. How interesting, Friend thought. He visited the dungeon more and more, studying the exterior. For a long time, he didn’t dare go inside. But each time he returned, he would venture deeper. One day cutting through the chain link fence, one day touching the stone exterior, brushing his fingers over the strange markings. A crudely drawn bunny with a heart etched into it, then by its side, a bunny holding something–a crystal maybe–with no heart. Then one day he crossed the threshold.
The air was cool and damp. It reminded Friend of Bun’s unfinished basement (which she refused to go into). The walls were stone. To his surprise, there was life inside. Bugs. It made Friend think that perhaps the simple act of entering the dungeon wasn’t enough to lose your heart. Maybe it was something else. He didn’t stay long enough to find out.
He had thought about the wish every night since then. His house was a mess of maps, spellbooks, and scribbled notes.
“What is all of this?” Bun asked as she stepped inside, clearly anxious about the clutter.
“Research,” Friend replied. He watched Bun for a moment as she stared at a map he’d drawn of the dungeon after many expeditions. When she looked at his sketches of heartless monsters, copied from several different books, her eyes went wide with fear. “Don't you wish,” Friend began, “that you could be brave?”
Bun didn't seem to ponder this for very long. “Not really,” she said, as if the answer were obvious.
“It doesn't bother you?” Friend thought of the long nights at her house, watching her drift off to sleep, grey and dark in her room. “Protecting” her from the creature they'd seen in whatever movie it was they’d watched recently. No sound except her quiet breathing and the steady drum beat call.
“I guess not.”
Friend felt a twinge of irritation at her resistance to something that was, to him, objectively good for her. He tried not to let it show in his face. He leaned on his desk casually, shifting some papers around. “It bothers me,” he said finally.
Bun looked at him, her ears upright and stiff with anxiety, “What do you mean?”
“I just think about all the times you call me over to catch a bug or stay after a scary movie,” his eyes fixed on the map pinned to his wall, with its unsteady lines and many question marks circling the center, “I’m your best friend, so I don’t mind but… but sometimes I wonder what it would be like if you weren’t so afraid.”
He let the silence hang in the air for a moment, watching the gears turn. “I didn’t realize I was such a bother,” she murmured.
“You’re not a bother!” He said quickly, laying a hand on her shoulder, which eased up at his touch, “I found something. You know about the dungeons, right?”
“Oh, Friend, you’re not going in, are you?”
“It’s not that dangerous. Listen,” he turned his body to her, considering explaining everything to her in proper order, but decided to spare her. He tried to keep it brief. “There’s something inside. The treasure, remember? Well it’s a piece of something, one of seven. A wish. If you take them all, you can wish for anything in the world.”
He waited for her reaction, but she just stared blankly. Very strange, slightly annoying. He thought that her face would light up with ideas of what she might wish for, but there was no hint of that in her face. As if a wish were not interesting to her at all, like she had no use for one.
“We could use the wish to make you brave,” Friend explained, “That way you wouldn’t have to feel like such a bother.”
Bun chewed her lower lip. “But the legend… If we go inside the dungeon, we’ll lose our hearts.” Friend could tell she was imagining the dark, dripping, heartless monsters.
“That only happens to careless bunnies, who go in for greed,” Other bunnies don’t have the call like I do, he thought.
“But won’t it be scary?”
Friend took her hand in his, “No, because I’ll be right there with you.” He curled his mouth into a soft smile. “I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
The warmth of her hand was almost too much, burning him, but he held on. “Okay,” she said finally, and Friend let go of her hand. “If you’re with me.”
“I will be, I promise.”
