It was a cold and dark morning when Vason had set out to his destination, aboard a small wooden row boat with his two passengers. The two could best be described as captives, a male and female rabbit couple who were gagged and securely tied with ropes around their wrists and their ankles, both tied tightly to the seat opposite to him on the boat. The mantis preferred to not think of them with such negative connotations however. They might not know it quite yet, but they were to be instrumental to assisting the restoration of this wretched world to the rightful old Gods.
“My future prophets.” He silently thought as he stared at them both. “Such fortunate beings. The first in so long to witness the glory of the true Gods. The catalyst for their return to this wretched world.”
It was difficult to see far beyond the boat, so much so that he sat backwards staring at the two while he rowed. He had practiced this route extensively before, and only needed to occasionally glance around at the scant distant lights – street lights, or possibly building lights, it was especially hard to tell right now – in order to get an idea of where he was. He was taking them through a marshland, connected to the nearby ocean that was currently in high tide. Other boats would occasionally pass through this area, but luckily the fog was so thick that they’d have to nearly hit his vessel to realize the rabbits were in distress.
“Mmmmmse!” The female rabbit cried and choked something through her gag, most likely “please”. The two had tired themselves out from all of the struggling and muffled yelling they did when they first woke up being secured to this rickety old boat. Neither could remember how they met this mysterious mantis, nor the circumstances that lead to them being drugged and taken away, but that didn’t matter now.
“You will come to thank me.” Vason thought to himself. “In time, you and the world will come to realize the truth.”
Both of the rabbits looked ahead to see another dim light in the water. Eventually the mantis would turn to see it too, silently thanking the Gods for helping guide him correctly. He steadily rowed toward it, before stopping and allowing momentum to carry them the rest of the way. Eventually they would come to rest next to another rowboat much like the first. It had an old style glass lantern attached to it – at least, it looked similar to one. It was actually a cheap hunk of plastic in the shape of a lantern, with a candle-like LED inside. Not being able to locate a proper lantern was such a trivial detail, but also yet another reminder to the mantis of just how much the world had changed around him.
The male rabbit suddenly found the drive to attempt to scream and attack their captor again. His muffled screams didn’t travel far, his struggles even less-so. But he suddenly went silent as he heard a scream from above. Then several. Numerous unique voices all crying out in unison, from somewhere above. Both of the rabbits turned their heads up, their hearts sinking as they saw where they came from.
The boats were stopped directly below a bridge. To the bottom, there were at least a dozen people of all different species and genders attached, in a very neat line across the width of it. Most thrashed and yelled to get their attention, a few looked either frozen or shock or were simply unconscious. Each of them were attached to the concrete and metal above, by large bolts that had been driven through each individual limb. Even in the dim light it was easy to see their bodies were stained with blood as it occasionally dripped down into the water below. The rabbits were so fixated on the horror that they didn’t even notice the mantis climbing into the other boat until he had already rowed out of sight. Minutes passed as the two squirmed with the animals up above, trying to figure out what to do or what would happen next. They still had yet to experience the worst of the mantis’s plan when an alarm sounded for a few seconds, followed by a recorded voice.
“Bridge retracting. Vehicles and pedestrians must clear the bridge immediately.”
The dozen tortured souls were bolted to the bottom of a drawbridge. Their arms were bolted to one side, while their legs were bolted to the other. The alarm sounded a second time, before a mechanical whirring began in some nearby control equipment. The chorus of screams grew louder, as each one realized what was about to happen.
The two halves of the bridge began to retract up and away from each other. They crawled slowly, but no slower than if all of those people hadn’t been stuck onto its bottom. The screaming, shouting, cursing, and begging reached its peak, as a glimmer of the now less dark gray sky became visible through the split.
A horrific wet tearing somehow broke through the rest of the sounds, as an arm was ripped clean off of one poor vixen. A leg came off of a leopard girl, and several more limbs began to dislocate. Many others’ limbs held firm, but that would lead them to a worse fate as the stress began to split them through the middle. A torso burst open, and then most of the others followed. Blood, intestines, and various other internal organs rained down into the water below, and directly onto the horrified rabbits. They tried to put themselves overboard but couldn’t stop themselves from being drenched as the bridge opened further. A stomach fell between the male rabbit’s ears, a liver from somebody else fell atop the female rabbit. The carnage mixed together, making it impossible to tell what came from who as the canoe began to fill with blood and other bodily fluids. By then the ear piercing screams had stopped. It only took a few seconds, but it felt like they were being rained upon for hours.
The bridge finished opening, leaving a mess of body halves and limbs hanging from and staining both halves. There was no more screaming, but a few gurgles could be heard from people that didn’t perish right away. On one side of the bridge a vixen quietly sobbed, in unimaginable agony. Her bottom half had been completely torn away, while her broken arms remained attached to the bridge. Her digestive system hung loosely from below her, before she abruptly went quiet as it and some other organs became dislodged all at once, landing on the poor couple below.
Soon the world’s media would be plastered with the details of this horrific attack, and the tales from the two that survived it. Nobody would know what it meant quite yet, but Vason had all the attention he could ever need. Now he just needed to direct that attention toward the truth, and finally rescue everybody from their fake society.