It was early in the morning and all three of us were up, mindlessly playing Dratsmate. I was leaning on the door for a second, enjoying the toasty glow of the yellow sun seeping through the peephole. I moved and sat around the table with the others, watching Sharp attempt to teach Cheesy the game for the Hundredth time. Sharp wasn't exactly the best teacher, so you knew how this was going...
"Darn it all Cheesy!! Whenever your soldier goes to the homebase they turn into a Bishop. How many times have I told you that? Now knock my soldier out like so" Sharp shoved his own soldier out of the way, Cheesy nodding and following him after he fixed it back up.
"Ohhhhh now I get it" Cheesy commented, Sharp raising his hands to the sky.
"Exactly. Now, this is what's next.." Sharp and Cheesy continued their learning dialogue while my mind pondered.
I wondered how Mother was doing. She had gone out an hour before we woke up when the sun wasn't even there yet, the cotton food sack tied around her waist. She told me she would be back within the hour. The sun kept going higher in the sky, making the place hotter and still she wasn't back yet. I found it odd. Playing with my whiskers I turned my head to the side, getting up and walking to the corner of the room where the food was stored in a corner, some paces behind the dining table. I wondered if there were any bread pieces left that I could munch on to alleviate my anxiety...
"Motherrr!! Your finally home. Did you get any Cheese for your Cheesy?" Hearing Cheesy say this I turned around, relieved to see Mother walking through the peephole with the sack on her back. Cheesy got up with a glint of hope in his bright eyes, smiling as he moved his head from side to side, his eyes glued to the knapsack hitched on Mother's shoulders.
"For Heaven's sake Cheesy, help me with the bag. It's heavy'' Mother gritted her teeth and sighed, her ears pacing back and forth. I looked closely at her from where I was.
Her eyelids were half shut like she just rose out of bed, and her body was heaving up and down. The furs on her body weren't laid down in that silky coat she always liked. They looked...ruffled. Tussled, spikey even. She seemed stuck at that point in front of the door, lingering there instead of bursting inside like she always did.
Rising from the table I came towards her, reaching to help her take the bag off her back. Cheesy and Sharp followed me.
"Here Mother let me get this off for you " Our paws meet as we took hold of the string around her neck that held up the Knapsack; I drew it back over her head gently and slid it down to take it off. At one moment, the side of my left paw brushed over something that felt wet on her back, and I shrugged it off, figuring she was just sweaty. I patted the bag to rest it on the ground, but when my paws felt around the corner of it, oddly it felt soaked as well. I took my paw and placed it in my vision, wondering just how much extra Mother war perspiring today.
My paw was stained with red all over it. My heart jumped out of my chest as I staggered back at the sight of it.
We were in for a rude awakening when we removed the bag from her back.
When we did, white flesh stared back at us from a sheet of blood that sipped over a horrid, jagged cut that was so long it went from the nape of her neck, to almost touching her backside. She mumbled something I couldn't understand under her breath, and with one elongated groan she swayed from side to side. I leaped forward to catch her.
"Ohhh- Drats!! Mother!!!" I screeched, her body landing with a thud against the ground. Sharp rushed over to try and grab her but she escaped us both.
"Mother Mince!!!" Cheesy gasped, his paws covering his mouth. We hovered over her collapsed body, completely immovable from shock of what just happened.
"Shit that's a huge scar. It must have been that big, filthy puss... that damned cat! Why I'll knock the fur off his skin until his eyes peel back " Sharp swung around, enraged. He marched towards the peephole, and I stretched, grabbing the innards of his elbow and pulling him back.
"Are you freaking insane? Don't you see Mother's passed out??? And you're worrying about some cat??? Help me left her to the bed for rodents' sake!" I hollered angrily, dragging him back to his senses. He peered back at me with narrowed eyes and shook his head, leaning down to grip one of her fore legs while I grabbed her front arms.
Cheesy stood there, completely stiff, and motionless. He held the bottom of his stomach, his mouth wide open. He blinked back tears furiously, trying his best not to cry, but it escaped his eyes and ran down his face in drones.
"Motherrrr!!!" he bent down, trampling on his knees. His fingertips lightly touched the outskirts of the broadened scar, whose surface was overfilled with blood until it dripped down to the floor.
"Burrow...Burrow....my son....." softened noises were coming from her lips. Her eyes were opening lazily, and I could tell she struggled to fight against the oncoming unconsciousness that was creeping on her. With cold trembling hands and staggered breathe, I leaned over her, bending down and holding her paw. My throat and chest were tied in knots, and if I wasn't so focused on doing something about the wound, I would've curled into a corner and started crying. I held her hand and looked into her closing eyes. Her hands felt cold, and limp.
"Mother I'm right here, right next to you. Just hold on a little more okay??" I rubbed the tousled hair on her head gently, kissing her forehead and hugging her. She continued speaking in the slowest, softest, most drawn out way. I perched my ears to listen carefully.
"Burrow...the cat..he's dangerous...stay. You- '' Not being able to finish her sentence, Mother burst into a fit of coughing. She attempted to stretch her hand to cover her mouth, but her hand fell to the ground, lifelessly.
"Mother..oh my sweet precious Mother..please just hang on we're going to save you. Please Oh God, please" my voice was shattered like a vase that had fallen to the floor, my hands shoke violently. I lifted my head to the ceiling in hopes that my eyes would swallow the tears, but they fell to the floor rapidly, raindrops of despair.
My chest was about to explode. I sucked in all the air under sobs, burying my head into her body and closing my eyes.
"All...al..." I heard her faint whispers again. I hiked up, looking down at her lips through tear glossed eyes as they mouthed something wordlessly. Sharp and I were sitting in a pool of blood now as we kneeled by her. It was running out of her wound in drones. Her lips were moving. She wanted to tell me something.
Lowering my head, I perched my ear as close to her lips as possible, feeling the warmth coming from her mouth.
"Aloes..bring..me...aloe-" She passed out as she said that. I heisted myself up, looking down at her. She had fallen unconscious now. Tremors of cold sweats washed over my body, a chip of ice nestling into the pits of my stomach at that reaction. Was my Mother really about to die in front of me?
No.
Not like this.
"Mother!!!" frantically, I held my head down to her nose.
Warm breathe bounced off of my eardrums, but in a slow and steady pace.
Thank Goodness she was still breathing. We had another chance, but we needed to stop the bleeding, fast.
"Cheesy hold her underbelly, please! We need to get her on the bed to stop the bleeding, now!" Cheesy looked up at me and nodded, gently thrusting his paws under her tummy. We counted on three and all of us lifted her up, barely able to carry her weighty, adult sized body. With a grunt we carried her over to her nesting, a trail of blood following us as we did, resting her on her side so the cotton wouldn't get in the wound.
"Cheesy, pass me the water bucket. Sharp, grab some of those paper napkins!" Cheesy ran over for the water bucket and brought it over to me, Sharp dug for the paper napkins by the wall and hurried them.
I took the bucket and rested it at my feet, dipping half of the dry paper napkin into it, rising it out and squeezing some of the water off. Cheesy did the same with his. I started to extend my hand to the blood infested, palpitating open flesh, and before I got the chance to press against it, my hand stopped, midair. My eyes revolved to the far right where her head rested, and I paused, staring at her for God's knows how long. It was as if time slowed down.
She looked so...helpless laying there. Her eyes were shut tight, fur rustled about, mangled, like a stray rat on the side of the road.
I breathed heavily looking at her, my hand still in the same position. The morbid thoughts continued to run my mind.
What if she died? Was she going to die? Is she already dead?? What would the three of us do without her?
She looked like she was merely resting. Is that how dead rodents looked? Like they were resting??
"Let me help you with that brother" Cheesy came forward and took the wet napkin out of my hand, seeing that I was traumatized. Gently, he pushed me back and began patting her wounds with the dampened cloth, dipping it in the water bucket and sapping her wound, doing the same thing over and over again, until the bucket was bloody.
"Ohhh that foolish, stupid cat!! That pussey doesn't know who the hell he's messing with!! I'm gonna tear his asshole through his eyes when I get my hands on him!!!" Sharp was rummaging up and down across the expanse of the wooden floor, his eyebrows pinched, whiskers fluttering.
"I'll get you some more water Cheesy! And some napkins!" With that Sharp zipped through the peephole and zoomed to the bathroom; with such a quickness that I forgot to tell him to be careful out there. I shouldn't have allowed him to go for the materials in the bathroom next door, because Gods knows what impulsive action he would take against the cat. We didn't need him wounded as well..
I had a horrible feeling in my stomach..... Breath that was supposed to be flowing out of my lungs cringed, materializing my fear and turning into hard blocks of stone, and straining itself on top of my vulnerable air sack. I felt like I was suffocating.
I snapped out of it and began helping Cheesy.
We continued dipping the bloody napkin into the bucket to wipe away the loads of blood that was coming out of Mother's wound.
But the blood. It was thick and gooey, oozing out of it, nonstop. It was all over the floor, on our hands, in the bucket, everywhere.
"It won't stop coming. It just won't stop" Cheesy sobbed, bowing his head and wiping away tears. His arms shook while he applied more pressure to the gaping wound.
Come now Burrow, buckle up!! You've got to do something!!! You can't just sit there and watch Mother die.
"Let's press harder Brother. Sharp's bound to be back just now with the water and the napkin. The blood will stop as long as we keep pressing down on it" I assured the weeping Cheesy, softly rubbing his shoulders. He watched me through tear filled eyes. I placed my hand on top of his, both of us pressing against the wound as hard as we could, with the bloody paper.
Sharp came rushing in through the door.
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"Mmmm...that could have been one of the best catches I ever had..Wait till I see her again..."
To-mas was snugged in the cushions of a couch in the living room, reflecting on that rat that just narrowly escaped him. He yawned, showing his coarse tongue stained with red, licking away at a chunk of flesh stuck in between his claws. He was right below the window that was above the couch, a sheen of sunlight shinning on the perfectly groomed specks of silky hair that covered his body. His fur coat was a brilliant, orange yellow, the shade of a ripe orange. He paused for a moment, rising his head to the window high up, staring straight into the light glow of the early morning sun.
To-mas moistened his paw and brushed it over his head a few times, his ears bending and springing up into the air after he went over it. He licked his claw again, but the splotch of blood sauce only seemed to shift further and further away, etching its way up into the very curvature of the nail. The droplet of blood stuck in the curve of his claw still had some wetness to it; he wanted to taste the bit of wet blood, wanted to catch it before it began to stain.
"Are these rats getting faster?? Oooor." He paused for a moment, swishing his tail back and forth as he reasoned with himself.
"Am I, the furious feline, getting....Slower?" he asked. To-mas couldn't fathom the idea of a rodent escaping his clutches, especially one that big. Ohh and she certainly was a thick one, he thought. Juicy, plump. He knew that once a female rat existed in any space, there just had to be others. Those things breed like crazy. Besides that, there was evidence of the presence of others in the Human's home.
The infestations left their scents lingering all over the place. Tiny scratches on the bottom of the cupboards in the kitchens, underneath the bathroom doors. Parts of it had teeth marks that were bitten into. The only problem was, he couldn't tell how much of them there where.
"Maybe she's the Mother of them. Of course, I can't tell how many rats there are, but those parasites breed tremendously, in groups. So there must be quite a few of them in here..." He licked his lips mischievously, thinking about all the food he had access to now that he knew that.
The cat was glad he finally weaseled his way into a human's house. Now, he had an abundance of food that he didn't have to fight or struggle for. The Human that took him in feed him chunky tunas, sardines, and chickens breasts every day, three or four times for the day, so he was always full. Along with regularly cleaning his bowl and feeding him fresh, clean water.
To-mas had never been more pleased. He was living the life that he always dreamt of; being a pampered housecat. There was no way he was going back to the streets. Digging in garbage bins for scraps, running from those evil, vagabond dogs; scarping dirty fish bones for meat, eating half rotten hot dogs. Having to fight those awful cats for a marcel of food....
At first, he was adamant on not being a slave to any human being, he despised the whole lot of them, but ever since that Human had scooped him up from that prison, Life had softened its face and showed him better days. Maybe being with a Human wasn't so bad after all he thought.
The truth is that no matter how much food To-mas was being feed, he knew that nothing compared to having to chase your food, fight with your food, play with it. It was all in the chase of it. Deep pride and satisfaction rooted themselves in the pursuit of prey, it was all about the journey. And then finally, only then could one enjoy that meal, because he earned it.
Nothing could compare to that chase. It was all he knew; his whole entire life had been centered around it. And he could already tell that he was going to enjoy his time here.
"Cat food is delicious, and I'm somewhat grateful to that big, stupid Human for saving me from the worst. But...I'm no lazy cat. I need to grab my food while its running, scared, and hot. Something tells me I'm about to have a whole lot of fun here....", The cat grinned malevolently, a pair of pristine, sharp-edged fangs glistening in the radiant glow of the morning sun.
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BACK AT THE PEEPHOLE
After many hours of attempting to stop the blood from Mother's wound, night came down.
I sat on the floor, teary eyed and motionless, with blood-stained hands. My shoulders slumped with burdens, my energy, depleted. Cheesy and Sharp sat beside me, their dispositions much of the same. Sharp had to run to the bathroom numerous times to get pieces of Napkins. Cheesy and I pressed down on the gaping wound that covered almost the entirety of her back, us having to hold up the napkins until our arms wanted to fall off and die.
I looked around the room. Red napkins were scattered all over the space, the white buckets that carried our water was now red.
All three of us sat there lifelessly, our eyes drenched in worry and despair. We watched as Mother's body rose slightly, then depleting as she exhaled. Her bleeding had stopped, and her breaths were stable. For now.
There was a swarm of flies rushing in and out of the room, hunting for dead meat and body fluids. They pitched all over the blood-soaked cloths that laid on the floor, flying around the bloody napkin that covered Mother's wound. It needed to be changed. The blood was beginning to dry and if that happened, taking off the cloth would rip her skin and fur.
Cheesy sighed, barely raising his hand and swinging it wearily into the air, swatting off the flies. He stopped every now and again to breath, and then he continued.
"Cheesy. You need to grab more napkins from the bathroom. That cloth on Mother's cut out to be changed" Sharp ordered. He sighed as his head slumped over, closing his eyes to get a ''quick "rest.
"Oh brother- I, I'm coming. As soon as I find the strength to get up" Cheesy relented, flinging his head back and looking up at the ceiling. He breathed in, closing his eyes as well.
This day had taken so much from us in a way that could not be fully expressed into words. We gave it our best shot, and we were just happy that Mother had become steady thus far. The blood had slowed down, and by some miracle, she was still breathing despite having lost that much. In truth, even though we were all unfathomably tired, deep down there was a fear. A fear that as soon as we feel asleep, something horrid would happen when we left her side, and then she would be gone.
Forever.
But something had to be done. The red cloths were attracting flies, and it needed to be removed from the room.
"I'll go get it guys. No worries" a deep exhale escaped my breath as I pushed myself off the floor, crawling towards the door. There were two things I needed to take care of, one of them taking priority.
"Get..the..aloes. plant.." Her words echoed in the back of my mind.
The aloes plant. I had seen Mother bring that plant to our quarters constantly. It was the most bitter tasting thing I had ever had in my entire life, but Mother insisted that we take it to "Cleanse our Palates" after eating all kinds of food. Mother had spent her whole life living out there in the world, having been exposed to all kinds of herbs and bushes. Within her experience, she must have had a reason to tell me to get that plant.
No matter how tired I was, I had to get it. This couldn't be held off any longer, Mother had finally reached a state of flow, and before anything else were to happen, now was my chance.
Cheesy and Sharp made their ways up, both sensing that they had missions to complete as well.
"We'll just clear up the dirty napkins across the room then. Together" Cheesy glared at Sharp who nodded his head, both going around the room and picking up the mess.
Just as I was about to step out the door, Cheesy admonished a warning.
"Please be careful Burrow. Mothers in a bad state, I don't want anything to happen to you. Its night after all. The puss may be up" I bowed my head, signaling that I was out the door.
Whether he was out or not, nothing would stop me from saving my Mother.
Nothing.
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Tip toeing out of the peephole, my head swiveled from the extreme left to the far right.
Dirty plates and pots decorated with chunks of meat and potatoes filled the kitchen sink that was attached to the wall; five or six of them scattered the counter, filled with all kinds of delectable, left-over foods. Fish steaks, chicken, potatoes, rice, ham, everything that a rodent could think of.
Maybe I'd come back later with my knapsack and fill it with food for the Family. It would be an extreme waste not to take advantage of the situation, but right now,
The Aloes was the only thing in my mind's eye.
I tore my gaze from the buffet and zoned in on the green spikey plant that was far off in the distance, sitting in a small pot by the side of the couch, close to the door.
I looked across. The cat was rolled up into an orange ball, eyes closed, resting comfortably on the couch. I was behind the wall that separated the Kitchen from the Living room, peaking my head out. It was dark, dimly lit by a Lamp that sat on a small table in front of the couch, only a tiny space existed between the table and the cat.
The cat is a few inches away from the Aloes, and no one else is in sight. I can do this...I must be swift and quick about it.
Springing forward, I leapt across the wooden floor, hiding behind a leg of the table. I stood up with my hands to my side, my tail tucked in, making sure I was in alignment with the table leg. My eyes peeked around the corner. The cat hadn't moved.
Perfect.
I rocketed Northeast to the potted plant at the couch side, zooming past the cat. Reaching to the brown pot, I stretched up and pushed myself onto the cool soil in the pot.
The green Aloes plant jutted out into the air, its spikey edges coming out at the sides.
Scanning its appearance, I searched for the most hidden part to snatch a piece of it from, then I spotted the root. Suddenly I heard something shift beside me.
My eyes turned to the couch. The cat was no longer there, a sunken spot to where his body indented the couch.
I turned from side to side in panic, my eyes scanning every corner of the room to find where the crafty cat had gone to.
In no time I spotted him. He was under the table having just jumped off the couch, his back arched, fangs baring as he yawned. I ducked my head, lying flat at the root of the plant to hide.
The cat leaned backward, placing his two paws out and stretching the lower half of his body. He rose gradually, walking in a criss cross fashion to the middle of the rug, finally slumping his body down and turning over on his back.
I stayed there, peeping through a space between the aloe plants. I waited patiently for him to move, but he stayed there, his paws kicked out in the air while he laid on his back, in his deepest slumber.
I never thought that cats slept like that, with their legs in the air carefree, but I guess that was what predators like him were comfortable with.
"It's time for me to get out of here" I muttered lowly. So, I dug into the root of the soil, biting a few chunks from the root of the aloes, and then covering it up back with the soil I removed.
Lodging it in between my teeth, I cautiously made my way down the pot and peaked out from behind it.
The cat turned the other way now, his back facing the table. I rushed out, ripping past him, running across the kitchen floor, and passing the island, making my way to the bathroom, getting the Napkin, and going back into the holdings.
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