Jasmine: Easter Bunnies

Jarrod hated this holiday more than any other. With its baskets full of colored plastic grass and animal shaped chocolates Easter was the bane of his existence and he cursed god and his son that it came around at all even if it was only once a year. You see some supernaturals, most of them, get really cool powers, like I can read minds, Abe’s skin is invulnerable to damage, Doug can breathe underwater, Meghan’s a vampire, whatever that means, and Sarah gets all A’s. We’re all really impressive. Jarrod, He’s a wererabbit. Once a month the moon rises full and Jarrod’s flesh splits, his bones break, and his body bleeds itself into a tiny fluffy white bunny, with adorable floppy bunny ears. He’s just the sweetest little thing but he hates it and everything associated with it. Like Easter.

For Jarrod, and everyone who knows him, the beginning of Lent signals a dark time. In school it was because of the pranks. Being a werebunny around Easter is like wearing a blinking red sign that says “MOCK ME!” and people did. I admit there was one bunny shaped peep that may or may not have made it from my house to Jarrod’s backpack, but it was only the one. Jarrod’s suffering was constant, every day someone decorated his locker in pastel pinks and greens, he was pulling that plastic grass out of places I prefer to think Jarrod didn’t have. In every class he would get some chocolate egg or hollow bunny. Even when it’s not spring Jarrod still won’t touch chocolate, he says it reminds him of the bad times. On the other side none of his friends ever had to buy Easter gifts. By Easter he’d always been “gifted” enough loot to fashion a themed float in a parade.

To make it worse when a wereanimal is put under enough stress sometimes they will change involuntarily. It became a game to make Jarrod angry or frustrated enough that he would shift into that lovable little ball of fluff, and there were several incidents up until the tenth grade. In that year the taunts and goodies were just as prevalent as ever. It was about a week before Easter and only two days before the full moon and there was some kid, some big dumb jock whose name I don’t even remember now, and he was teasing Jarrod about having a fuzzy asshole, or something. Jarrod’s thoughts were starting to slip away from me, you see I can only read human minds and when a wereanimal changes their minds are no longer human. So I tried to pull him away from the action, to try and save the situation but it was already too late. Jarrod’s arm had already turned to white fur beneath my hand, his head began sprouting huge fluffy white ears. And a round furry ball had burst out of the back of his pants. But he didn’t shrink. He stayed Jarrod sized just became bunny shaped with long sharp bunny claws and two terrifyingly large front teeth dripping with saliva. One minute I was holding onto a furry Jarrod arm, and the next he had leapt atop the bullying Jock and was tearing into his neck with those teeth. The hallway stood in shock not knowing what to do until security came in and shot him up with tranquilizers.

The kid Jarrod attacked healed, he was a werewolf and they tend to do that. But Jarrod was not the same. He still turns into that tiny little bunny but once a year around Easter he now turns into a huge monstrous rabbit with wild eyes and a hunger for flesh. Jarrod also doesn’t hate Easter anymore. He loves it. He throws wild Easter parties with chocolate fountains and bunny shaped cakes. Other wererabbits have come to see him, some of them have come quite far. You see in every generation there is only one chosen among all wererabbits to be the Easter Bunny.