Animal Crossing: An Oral History Of The 2020 Bunny Day Massacre

The forecast for April 12 in the small island community of NuckFuts called for sunny skies, perfect fishing conditions, and laughter among friends. The much-anticipated Sunday, designated as “Bunny Day” by local officials, was to be a day of celebration.  Zipper T. Bunny was scheduled to spread holiday cheer and encouraged residents to craft a variety of household goods and clothing items with eggs he’d hidden across the 11 days prior.

But there was no laughter on NuckFuts that day, and it may be some time before the sun shines down on its residents again.

CHARMSTON (gorilla, 43): I woke up early that day, frienderoo. I had a full schedule planned of wandering around aimlessly, handing out free shirts to anyone who could guess whether I was holding a red or black card. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw that morning, beepbeep.

The Bunny Day Massacre is speculated to have begun at 7:45am that morning, reaching a blood-soaked conclusion a full two hours later. When islander representative Petor emerged from his home at 10am, he wasn’t greeted with the festivities he had expected.

PETOR (human, 26): The first thing I do every morning is check my mail, right? My mail, and my Nook Mile goals, so I can buy that sweet robot. I see my mailbox is blinking, and I think, that’s funny. I didn’t order anything from the catalogue yesterday.

What Petor found that morning shook him to his core.

PETOR: It’s not unusual to find bones buried around NuckingFuts. But I wasn’t expecting a damn elephant skull in my mailbox first thing.

The skull belonged to Jemderson, a local elephant that no one had really formed an opinion on yet. He was Zipper’s first victim, but he would not be the last.

JILLICKERS (rat, or maybe a mouse, 3): You know me, hickle-pickle-doo! I’m just here lookin’ to get laid and hang out by the lake, hanging my fishing line in the water even though nothing ever bites. I was up early that day, walking around and thinking of inane conversation topics, when I saw Zipper wandering around, coated in blood, holding an axe, hammy-slammy!

Oh! Did you want something, pip-pip?

BERTENCE (another damn gorilla, 36): I heard the chop of metal connecting with bone from my house when he took down Sanson. Sanson was a…giraffe, I think, broseph? And apparently Petor had asked for him to be removed, anyway, so I doubt he would have been around long. Left a message up on the community board that said ‘Sanson sux ass’ and complained about him to Isabelle. But I don’t think even he wanted this.

In the confusion of the aftermath, there’s one thing that everyone agrees on—they should have trusted their first instincts about Zipper.

CHARMSTON: Honestly, I knew something was off immediately. Those dead eyes. That haunted grin. And, look, it was too many fucking eggs. Every damn day, I was finding them in trees, fishing them out of the water, catching them as they floated through the same sky, beepbeep. He put so many in the fucking river that they formed a dam and flooded part of the town. It’s too much.

WITHERS (weird cat-thing, 22): We all knew that Zipper was going to kill one or two of us. But six? That was unexpected.

Oh, that reminds me – how’s it going, meowman?

Before he was taken down by the heroic Tom Nook, who spend much of the morning asking residents to gather materials for him to craft into a shotgun, the wild-eyed rabbit took out four residents and two employees of the island, including one of the Able sisters (we can never remember which is which) and Blathers, who operated the local museum.

PETOR: So do I just, like, not have a museum anymore? How does that work? Is a replacement owl coming?

We’ll never know the exact motive for Zipper’s campaign of violence, but the popular theory is that the rabbit was tired of being called a “yolk-ass bitch” by residents of NuckFuts.

BERTENCE:  Petor, in particular, really had it in for him. He trapped the guy in a fence and put up a sign that said “yolk-ass bitch,” broseph.

But enough about me, what’s up?

JILLICKERS: I received multiple letters asking if I “hated this yolk-assed bitch.” There’s no appropriate “Reaction” option available for that. Honestly, I think Zipper snapped because everyone hated him so much.

GULLIVER (pelican, age unknown): All I know is that it’s a good thing I was already playing dead that morning.

As the residents of NuckFuts mop up the blood and seek out loans from the heroic Nook so that they can repair the damage done to their homes by the rabid rabbit, it’s unclear when life on this island paradise will return to normal.

PETOR: It used to be that every day I’d run around, pick fruit from trees, catch bugs, write threatening letters to the other residents. But, I dunno. I might just play Smash Bros. tomorrow.

JILLICKERS: It was the darkest day of NuckFuts’ short history, and what I saw and heard will haunt me until my dying day. On the plus side, turnips were on sale that morning for only 92 bells, hickle-pickle-doo!