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You realize that the trapped creature has cursed you with the same terror it must have been feeling - trapped helplessly in a snare, unable to free yourself, with death only moments away. You regret your cowardice, even as you can hear with your long new ears the sound of a human approaching. 

"I am so sorry!" you cry. "I want to help you! Please! Turn me back into a human and I will save you!" 

But you do not hear your words. You are a rabbit now, and can make no sound . The spider has already captured its prey, and you are left to your fate. 

The steps grow louder, and then the black, looming shape of a human appears over you. 

"Oh! Oh!" A young woman in a long cloak kneels over you, and with one deft movement gathers the skin on your neck in one hand and snaps the trap open with the other. As you flail helplessly in her grasp she whispers to you in a soothing voice, "Now, now, my little pet. I've saved you from my brother's horrid trap. Shhh! Let me take you from here, and we shall mend that wound on your leg, no?" 
The girl takes you back to her home and, after bandaging your leg, slips you into a small rabbit hutch with three or four other rabbits. After some months you begin to forget your life as a human, and happily munch along with the other rabbits the vegetables dropped into the hutch, like them scuttling away from the huge, smelly human hands when they open the latch. You live a year in the small wooden hutch, until the girl comes one day, weeping. "I'm sorry, my little pets. The drought has ruined all our crops. We are too hungry to keep you as my little friends any longer." As before, she gathers the skin of your neck and lifts you up. You no longer understand her words, but trust her soft touch. "I have fed you and cared for you, dear one. And now you shall feed us in our need." You cuddle into the warm crook of her arm as she turns and heads toward the kitchen. 

'''The End'''
[[Category:The Light in the Wood]]
[[Category:Endings]]