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Chapter 8: Shower Fiasco

Pete could hear someone in the shower next to his. He couldn't smell what species they

were over the shampoo and thick water vapor, and the lack of this knowledge put him on edge.

Pete normally showered early, before anyone else took theirs. However, this evening, he had

gotten busy studying and hadn't noticed the time until Bill had entered their room. He had found

the three shower stalls mercifully empty, but someone else had entered the one to his right

shortly after he'd started his. It probably isn't a predator, Pete tried to reassure himself.

Pete was fortunate that the largest predators he usually encountered on his floor, cats,

rarely, if ever, showered, preferring instead to groom themselves with their tongues. Pete had

considered this alternative, especially since rabbits chilled very easily and thus preferred not to

get wet unless proper drying equipment were handy.1 However, licking his fur had gotten him a

mouthful of hair, and since hairballs could also be hazardous to rabbits, he decided to continue

with his showers. Pete felt the process of wetting, conditioning, and drying his fur was important

to remove dander, which would show up starkly on his black coat, and loose fur, even if he only

shampooed himself once or twice a week to avoid over-drying.

The bathroom was arranged with three sinks and three toilet stalls on the left side from

the entrance and three shower stalls, three communal blow dryers, and four electrical outlets on

the right. The showers were across from the sinks, and the dryers were across from the toilets.

The floor was white and red checkered tile, and the walls were white tile with a thick red stripe

about at the height of Pete's ears. Both toilet and shower stalls had latchable doors, so at least

Pete felt some security within the shower. Of course, someone might have climbed over one of

the tiled walls on either side of him as they didn't reach the off-white plaster ceiling.

Today, Pete was shampooing his fur, and he was relieved when he heard the other

shower shut off whilst he was applying conditioner. By the time he'd rinsed again and patted

himself partially dry with his fuzzy white towel, he'd heard the blow dryer stop and the door to

the bathroom bump shut. He'd unlatched the door to his stall and pushed it open when the

bathroom door creaked. A split second later, the gray vixen from the Northeast wing stepped in

front of his open stall. She was carrying her own pastel green toiletries basket and had a yellow

towel slung over her shoulder. Pete froze, stricken with terror. The vixen's sharp, green eye

caught him, and in what seemed to be slow motion, she turned her head to regard him with

surprise. Pete felt the floor fall out from under him, and then everything went black.

Pete awoke only a second or two later, lying on the floor with his head throbbing.

However, his heart jumped, and he almost fainted again when he opened his eyes to see the

vixen looming over him, a worried expression contorting her angular features. In fact, she wasn't

merely looming over him but crouched nearly on top of him in the narrow stall, with one foot

planted on either side of his belly and her anxiously thrashing tail lying between his sprawled

legs. One clawed hand pried his eyes open wide to allow her to stare concernedly into them

while the other pressed at the side of his neck. Her long jaws parted, emitting agitated vulpine

chirps, but Pete's panicking brain was momentarily unable to parse them into words through the

shrieking in his head and the pounding in his ears. Instead, he stared at the devilishly sharp,

1 Don't bathe your rabbit!

white fangs that lined her jaws and waited, petrified, for the moment when they would sink into

his throat.

"P-please, just make it quick," he managed to whimper.

The vixen blinked at him, frowning with concern and confusion, "What?"

"J-just make it quick! Hurry up and eat me!" he wailed.

The vixen's visage took on a pained expression. Slowly, she stood, collected her things,

and stepped back the way she'd come, out of view of the shower stall's opening. Pete heard the

bathroom door creak open and thump shut.

Pete lay on the floor, stunned and unable to process what had just happened, until he

noticed he was getting cold and pushed himself to his feet to go use the communal blow dryer.

As the numbness of shock began to recede, Pete began to feel something he couldn't explain:

disappointment. Why did he feel disappointed?! He was alive when he ought to be dead! I didn't

want to be eaten! he reassured himself. But as he dried himself off, his disappointment didn't

disappear; instead, another emotion crystallized: guilt. The vixen had been hurt and upset when

she'd left, but why was that? He'd only asked her to be quick about it, to get the natural

conclusion of their ill-fated encounter over with.

Predators pretended they weren't killers, but if they got you alone and helpless, like he

had been, they would eat you. This was what Pete had been taught since he was a kit: never let

a predator get you alone. The vixen could have devoured him, bones and all, and in the shower,

there would have been no trace of her bloody meal. So why hadn't she done it? Why did the

look she'd given him as she'd stood to leave upset him? Why did he wish the encounter had

gone differently?