This morning, when I woke up, I had become a rabbit.

It must have only been a few hours since my transformation, as I had initially woken at 4 a.m. with a dry throat. I knew I had been dreaming because my dreams always left me wanting. For a snack. A drink. A cigarette. Something or another.

I remembered padding to the kitchen with my very human feet and feeling the cool glass and splash of water on my very human hands. After gulping it down to my satisfaction, I sleepily trekked back to my bed and glanced at my roommate. She slept facing me, clutching her sheets with tight fists, like she was afraid of something. The clock read 4:08 a.m.

When I opened my eyes for the second time, it read 8:05 a.m. My roommate remained in the same position, although she seemed far more relaxed now. The blinds were cracked open an inch and a stream of light had fallen over her eyes. She turned to the other side to avoid it; her back faced me.

I looked around myself when I realized my bed had grown impossibly tall and large. My nose twitched. I scratched it with my foot before pausing.

To my knowledge, I couldn’t do that before.

I turned to glance at my reflection in the mirror but couldn’t see anything. I hopped — I hopped — up to see myself and saw something peculiar. In my place was all fur and ears. I looked down at my hands. Paws.

I sat in the center of a pile of my clothes. I was thirsty. I glanced back at my roommate.

The first day I arrived at the dorm, her things had been strewn across the room: Open suitcases lined the floor; toiletries were stacked on the empty bed I’d yet to claim; and books and other random junk were scattered haphazardly wherever there was room. Terrible electric music was blasting on a small speaker.

A girl was sitting criss-cross on the other bed, which was already furnished and covered in a multitude of stuffed animals. She had a long slender nose and a slim face with a pointed chin. Her eyes were shaped like almonds; they were large and unnaturally wide-open as if they were forever searching for something. She looked like a fox. I coughed.

“Oh my god,” she gasped. “Sorry, I didn’t hear you come in.”

I didn’t respond and, instead, eyed the mess she had left on my bed.

“Oops,” she laughed. It sounded asthmatic, like it was being squeezed out of her throat. “I’ll grab that.”

As she got up to collect her things, I looked around our room. She seemed to prioritize decorating over cleaning. The wall beside her bed was lined with one thing: rabbits. Motivational posters of cartoon rabbits. Framed photos of random rabbits from the internet. A paper garland of rabbit silhouettes, with pale pinks, blues and yellows, strung from both ends of the room. No photos of forgettable friends and family. Just rabbits.

They weren’t just on the walls. They were everywhere, like an infestation.

Tucked soft, baby blue sheets with a pattern of watercolor Peter Rabbits and his sisters suffocated the mattress. All of her stuffed animals were different variations of rabbits lined up like they were prepared to battle in a war. Huge bunny slippers, resembling a nice shade of vomit, stared at me with beaded eyes on the foot of her bed.

“Do you like them?”

“What?”

“The rabbits,” she said. “Do you like them?” She was obviously insane.

“I don’t like rodents.” My neighbor had owned a hamster once; it had died of a heart attack. I could still picture its fur matted from the sweat of damp, careless palms and the smell of dirty bedding. Rodents were pointless animals.

She frowned so deeply I thought the corners of her mouth would touch the floor. She dropped the pile she had grabbed off my bed at her feet.

“They’re not rodents,” she said as she flung herself back onto her bed. It was too elevated to climb normally. “Not since before the 20th century, anyway. Rabbits are part of a different class of mammals called lagomorpha. The difference between the two is…”

I slammed the door on my way out and pulled from my coat pocket the pack of cigarettes I had stashed before leaving my old room. I spent the next four hours looking for a lighter before settling on the roof of the building. I had then promptly fallen asleep with the dying cigarette between my lips, and dreamt of a fire: burning walls, blazing picture frames and melting rabbits.

Despite my indifference toward her, I was a good roommate: always picking up my clothes, throwing out my own trash and smoking outdoors to keep the smell away from her belongings. I couldn’t say the same for her, however; the mess she had left on the first day ended up foreshadowing the future of our room. She was an unbelievable slob, leaving rabbit t-shirts and pants draped over both her desk chair and mine, and regularly letting her trash build up to the point where the smell made me gag.

And if she wasn’t disgusting enough already, I was convinced that she was possessed.

She wept over rabbits constantly. How cute they were; how important they were; how smart and cuddly and brilliant and versatile and soft they were. And just how badly she wanted one.

Perhaps her insanity derived from her impressive devotion to praying. I never saw her read the Bible or any religious text in general — the nature of her religion was still a mystery to me; the Easter Bunny was my first guess — but I regularly saw her clasp her clammy hands so tight the blood pumping in her veins became visible. In hideous rabbit-themed pajamas, she would kneel down before her bed and beg someone above to save her and all the rabbits in the world from harm and despair.

On the days I could stomach it, I watched as she whispered to herself and clutched her rabbit plushie so hard I was convinced it would spring to life just so it could die. She was truly the craziest person I had ever met, but I never reported her to anyone. I worried that if I did, authorities or animal control would drag her away.

So, when I couldn’t stand to be near her, I compromised. I rarely stayed in the room for more than three hours; instead, I opted to smoke in the stairwell until I dozed off and the cigarette butt burned my skin awake.

Sometimes, I even slept on random benches around campus after drinking too much because the dark prevented me from seeing how far into the bottle I had gotten. Then, I would get up, walk back to my dorm where my roommate would be snoring or moaning in her sleep, brush my teeth over our chipped, stained sink, change into nicotine-free clothes and leave to play hooky or attend class.

One of these nights, I walked in and stifled a scream. My roommate was sitting upright and staring right at me. I clutched my chest. My heart was hammering in my ears.

“Did you know that smoking more than 25 cigarettes in a day makes you 25 times more likely to develop cancer?” she asked, genuinely curious.

“Where did you hear that?” I asked skeptically, slinking toward the sink.

“I Googled it. It popped into my head while I was scrolling through the PetSmart rabbit adoption catalog. I want one really badly …” If my eyes rolled back any harder, I think I’d give myself brain damage.

“I’m aware,” I said. “We’re not allowed to have pets in this building.”

She stopped talking after that.

The morning of my transformation, as I watched the rising and falling of her chest, fear clawed up my throat. I felt it coming out of my mouth. My heart, which had shrunken along with the rest of me, was beating so furiously, similar to the night I had just mentioned, that I worried I was going into cardiac arrest and would need to call an ambulance … the vet.

When my roommate eventually woke up, she would surely capture me; I would promptly become her pet and toy, and any autonomy I had to slack off and roam as I pleased would be squashed. Whatever god that answered her desperate cries had clearly failed to consider my well-being.

I weighed my options. Maybe, we would finally bond. Although I would have to listen to her incessant cooing and weeping, it could be funny.

If she chose to adopt me, I would be unable to defend myself verbally or physically. She would try and squeeze me to death, and the thought of being anywhere near her scent made my eyes water. She smelled like a funeral home: awash with strange chemicals, and burdened by the rotting elderly. A rabbit like myself, having a strong sense of smell, would likely suffocate and die.

On the other hand, I could skip class with an excuse. It’s not like I would be able to take notes or answer any questions. Plus, I could quit smoking — again, no hands. Maybe it would help her build some cleaning habits too. Yes, this was shaping up to work out in my favor.

Suddenly excited about the effects of my transformation, I hopped — I hopped — off my bed and landed on her bony hip. I was already turning out to be an impressive member of my species.

My impact wasn’t strong enough to wake her, so I crawled over her and promptly sat over her mouth. If the worst came to worse, she would suffocate. But I didn’t really feel concerned about that at the moment. After a minute or two, she sat up abruptly and sent me tumbling down off her bed, which I’m sure would’ve broken my spine or twisted my neck, had her hundreds of creepy stuffed memorabilia not saved my fall. It was all very Shakespearean.

She rubbed her eyes. Exhausted from my tumble, I laid in a heap until she noticed me. She gasped.

My roommate glanced at my bed before glancing back at me. “Bunny,” she whispered. “Is it really you?” I nodded my head — the best a rabbit could muster. Useless rodent.

A tear ran down her cheek.

“My prayers have been answered. Someone listened.”

Apparently, while I slept in my bed — I made the mistake of drinking indoors for once and passed out before I was able to find a bench or even reach the outside — she had pleaded with some omnipotent figure above to give her a friend. Someone she could talk to, share with and love. She begged for a rabbit. And lo and behold, there I was.

“I thought you hated me,” she said solemnly. “You never speak to me. You just smoke your awful cigarettes and drink yourself to death. You refuse to sleep by my side and you hate my rabbits. My lovely bunnies. And I was so lonely.” She sniffled and I twitched.

“But now, I know you really just didn’t know how to care for me! You changed. You made yourself better. I prayed and prayed and you answered. I knew your looks of disgust were really glances of deep sympathy. Your silence was just … contemplation! I just know you’ll make the perfect pet.”

Pet. I had become her pet. My foot started to thump — horribly and involuntarily — and I frantically searched for a crevice to hide in or a crack to escape through. She attempted to pick me up but I nipped at her finger, causing her to hiss and clutch her withdrawn hand. She whimpered, like a dog, before tearfully speaking, “I’ll be the perfect friend, too. I promise.”

I sat for a moment, allowing her words to sink in. Something about her tone, the sad look on her face, was making my stomach churn. She was so lonely, and obviously, this was a cry for help. I thought of cold nights alone outside and I was too lazy to run away anyway.

Over the next few days, she proved to be a better caretaker than she was a roommate. She was accommodating. She provided what I was craving, although she initially tried to feed me pellets; she let me sleep in my own bed instead of on a pile of hay, and she took me outside in the grass when necessary. I liked the attention and leaned into it. I played the pet she wanted: I learned tricks and sat still as she brushed me, chewing grass.

I was surprised by my own contentment. This new life — being cared for, unable to live alone, no nicotine — satisfied my appetite, my unknown hunger for something. It was a longing I knew my roommate had shared, and I believed she was satisfied, too. I could see it in her oversized eyes. I rarely thought about my former life.

But I clearly did not understand her as well as I thought, and her obsession with me kept growing.

She stopped eating entirely, too focused on fattening me up. She started to lock us in the dorm, skipping classes, closing the blinds. She put ribbons in my hair, gazing at me with love, running her clammy fingers through my hair. She clutched my little feet and pressed our faces together. I realized we smelled the same.

One day, she left me alone to buy more food. A rare occasion. I took the opportunity to glance in the mirror. I saw an animal with unfamiliar eyes. Its teeth had grown unruly. Long, dirty, unnaturally so. The creature twitched, shifting its head. Restless.

Later that night, I dreamt. Of my hands, my face, my stomach. I saw myself sleeping on benches. Smoking in stairwells. Drinking. Watching. Waiting.

That former self morphed into my roommate, wearing her hideous rabbit pajamas; she knelt down and clasped her hands, but as she opened her mouth to pray, something jumped out. A rabbit sprang from her throat. I thought she would embrace it, but instead, she shoved two fingers down her throat and began to retch. I watched as she started to vomit rabbits.

I asked her to stop once before giving up; I wanted to see what would happen. She finally stopped when there were hundreds of them, scattered across the floor. She wept for joy, laughed hysterically too, clutching as many as she could to her chest. But something changed.

I watched as the rabbits started to shift into the creature I had seen in the mirror. Their teeth grew, their eyes shrank. One bit her. Then another. And another. Until suddenly, she was overwhelmed by the animals as they tore her apart.

I woke up with the taste of copper in my mouth. Something rabid was growing and beating furiously. I was hungry for something, and the rabbit in the mirror knew what it was.

My restlessness started to take a toll on my roommate. My hunger was insatiable; I screamed for more food — pellets, bread, rotting produce, anything — but still, I was unsatisfied. She tried to comfort me, but I threw more fits. Knocking bowls over. Making her chase after me. I thought of the rabbits in my dream and started to bite. The taste of her blood had a familiar tang I had grown to like. Her wide eyes had begun to droop, and focused their attention solely on me.

My impatience turned to anger, and I could tell she didn’t know how to control me. I clawed at her sheets, shredding Mopsy, Flopsy and Cottontail. I chewed on her fingers when she tried to soothe me. I spit up pellets in her slippers. My wounds cut deeper, and the blood tasted better.

During one particularly bad tantrum, she reached out to grab me, but I opened my jaws and bit down as hard as I could. She shrieked in pain and flung me against the wall. I heard a crack.

I woke up in a box. Surrounding me were stuffed rabbits, ugly pajamas, rolled up posters, paper garlands, bunny slippers, loose pellets and soft bed sheets. I smelled blood and craned my neck to spot the dried patches of red on my back. I quickly realized I had been abandoned. Suddenly, I heard rustling and briefly considered investigating before I was met with the mysterious source of sound.

A rabbit. Wild, with untamed fur and cautious ears. He looked like me but with more cautious eyes. They shifted in search of danger. He sprang away from me but paused to look back, waiting. I was meant to follow. I didn’t have anything better to do.

For the rest of the day, I trailed after the rabbit, deeper and deeper into the bushes, further and further into the dark. The noise of busy streets and people escaped me. The longer we walked, the hungrier I got. I ate grass, bugs, dirt. My rabid appetite wouldn’t hold down any of it.

One night, I stumbled upon a box with a ripped open top. It smelled strongly of something familiar. I took a deep inhale and a memory forced its way into my mind: damp skin brushing against my fur, drops of water dripping onto my nose but not rain, my hunger temporarily satisfied. I glanced at the few pieces of rolled up paper lying in the box. My stomach grumbled so I put my teeth around the stick and chewed. Tobacco. Something settled inside of me. I ate and ate until I was so full I couldn’t move.

That night, I slept happily for the first time in a long time. I didn’t dream.