=== 20 days later, flower meadow, POV En ===

 

Mom slept for three days, but when she finally woke up, she could only faintly remember what happened after she stormed out of the den. But until today, she had not recovered. Her movements were clumsy and weak. She only left the warren to do the most necessary things outside. Dad spent a lot of time with her, or at the building entrance, to take care of us at least a little bit. We started to train our skills, and I thought Dad didn't want to miss it.

Myrani had already talked to Crete about my third ability, but even she did not know what it is. So I had no choice but to try and learn.

"Look, En!"

Si fired a tiny fireball into the air. The ball was just the size of a billiard ball, but Si, besides Fe, was the only one who could already use one of her abilities. Since fire was the only skill I had together with the others, I wanted to learn it with them.

"En, what do you do when you try creating a fireball?"

She looked at me with a surprisingly severe face.

"I don't know... I just think about a fireball and try to create it, but..."

I left my sentence unfinished. Si started again.

"En, try to concentrate on one point. I always concentrate on the tip of my horn."

Again she created a small fireball and threw it into the air. I was fascinated by the ease with which she could make a fireball. I followed her explanation, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the tip of my horn.

Concentrate... Concentrate... Concentrate...

"Uh, En! Can you open your eyes?"

She spoke in a panicky tone, so immediately I opened my eyes, but I couldn't see her because something red blocked my vision.

"What is this?"

"En, concentrate on throwing it up, and don't shoot it at me!"

Uh! AH! FUCK!?

I pointed my head upwards. The fireball with the size of a football flew up and exploded.

"What was that!?"

Even irritated by what I had done, I looked at Si and then at the others. Each of them had a surprised look on their faces, as did I. I quickly turned back to Si.

"Si, your help was priceless!"

I concentrated again, only this time with open eyes. This time, the fireball was a little smaller than the previous one but still decent.

"Unbelievable!? En, you surpassed me like it was that easy!"

She made a playfully jealous impression and immediately threw herself on me afterward.

"What do you think!? I am proud when my little sister overtakes me."

The training together with the others became more and more a competition, which after each of us could control at least one of the skills. It was a contest to find out who the strongest was. Despite my strong fireballs, I could not defeat my siblings and was mostly in the last or second-last place. Si was most of the time ranked first or second. So several weeks passed. Mom's recovery progressed until she could move naturally again.

It was a day like any other when we were back on the meadow, just one group of many others. But it slowly became autumn, and my siblings started to make friends with other rabbits. Even Ef, Si, and I became friends with other races. Two members were rabbits with fins instead of tails called Nim and Nem, a brother and sister pair. Nem mentioned that their race was called Merbit. The reminding two were from an exotic race of rabbits I had ever seen. The brother's Tox and Vex had an outer skull on their foreheads. At first sight, I thought of Hollows¹Bleach :D. The skull plate stretched from their nose bone to behind their ears. Their race was called skulled rabbit.

"Hey, look at that!"

Tox called us together to show us something. Tox and Vex stood about 10 meters apart and started to run towards each other.

*Bam*

Their skulls crashed into each other. Both were whirled through the air for several meters and landed on their feet.

"Tadaa!"

"Didn't that hurt?"

Ef sounded worried. I could feel the pain just by watching.

"Now it's our turn!"

Nim and Nem were excited. Nem made a ball of water and threw it to Nim. Nim caught the ball and threw it back to his sister. Both threw it back and forth several times. The whole thing looked cute and reminded me of the seals playing with a waterball in the zoo.

*psht*

Something whizzed through the air and landed. The sound was just a small whirring sound when suddenly it was heard quite often. I looked around to see what it was about. I discovered a worn and rundown arrow.

An arrow!? FUCK!

I looked up and saw more than hundreds of arrows raining down on our position.

"Run! Run as fast as you can!?”

The arrows came from the direction where our burrow was, so only Myrani's and Vond's tree was a safe place. We were running towards the tree when the second wave of arrows flew down on us. I saw an arrow flying down towards Ef, who was running in front of me. I accelerated and pushed Ef aside. The arrow grazed my side and landed by my right hind leg.

““En!””

Si and Ef both called my name, but I could barely hear them. The shock took every other thought from me. It reminded me of the accident!

I don't want to die! After our mother's recovery, everything was going so well... Why now!?

My gaze landed on Ef and Si, who were both standing next to me.

What are they still doing here!?

“Run! I will join you later, but if you stay here, you will only be putting yourself in unnecessary danger!"

Ef and Si met each other's eyes for a moment, then turned away from me and started to run. I just saw their backs getting further away from me.

Please be safe!

Everything went black before my eyes. My body got heavy, and I lost consciousness.

 

=== Some time later, ???, POV En ===

 

"En, wake up!"

Si's worried voice rang through my ear. I slowly opened my eyes just to look into Si's fur.

"W-What's going on?"

Everything was dark, with little light coming through holes in the walls.

"What do you remember?"

I tried to think about the last thing that happened.

There was this arrow!

I looked back at my foot. The arrow had missed a direct penetration and landed exactly between two claws. So it wasn't a worse wound, but it kept me from moving. The pain from the shock was gone, and I could move my foot with only slight discomfort.

“Si, the arrows, the injury… Where are we? Why are you here?"

I looked at her with a severe look.

“I wasn't fast enough… The arrows blocked my way. The attackers weren't wolves. They were orcs! The attack was precisely planned and carried out by them."

"What about Ef?"

"She made it under the dome."

I looked around and saw all sorts of rabbits sitting here, but none of them looked familiar to me.

"We are the only ones?"

“From us? I think so, but there is a second box, a box with the dead. We have to be prepared for the worst."

Bad news followed another. At least knowing Ef was safe was good news.

"What do you think they do to us?"

This time it was Si who put the question to me.

“Well, breed, eat, or something bad based on the situation. So we should try to escape either way!"

"That is not possible."

An elderly Merbit overheard our conversation and interfered.

“These orcs have not come for the first time. They attack at different intervals. Kidnap some of us and return after a long time. The last time they were there four winters ago, many younger rabbits didn't even know of them."

That didn't sound good, but the old Merbit told me one thing: We weren't on the menu. Otherwise, they wouldn't go hunting us so rarely.

"Mr. Merbit, thank you for the valuable information."

I thanked him, and he turned away from us.

"And, En, what do we do now?"

"I don't know... let's see where they take us to."