Forever had passed since we were in here hiding from the cat.
Cheesy had fallen asleep under the pipe in the corner, lucky bastard that he was. I wanted to rest to.
I had been laying on my back with my arms and legs outstretched for the longest while, hoping that sleep would cover me. But it never came.
My mind was too restless thinking about everything, and nothing, all at the same time.
First, I was too worried the Giant would come home and open the cupboard. Then my concerns expanded to all the things that were wrong in my life.
The fact that I had been in this place ever since I was born, and here I still was, trapped in a huge prison. Thinking about disobeying Mother again and heading straight for the door, leaving her, the cat, and the other two nitwits she called her sons. Lesser known as my brothers. They didn't feel like my brothers. They were my burdens.
All of these bitter vipers slithering around in the space of my thoughts.
They were just thoughts, I told myself. I knew I was never going to do such a thing.
The matter of the issue right now was the cat and his proximity.
I got up from where I was laying down, having stayed there so long that the spot was warm. Tipping on my toes up to the view of the same hole in the door, I surveyed the place, seeing if there was anyone out there.
The shower area was empty. The weird flushing machine was alone. I couldn't see down to the very far end of the room where the other cupboards were, but I guess I would just have to peep my head out and take the risk of seeing. I hadn't heard any recent noises or movements close by.
So I pushed the cupboard door open slightly by the tiniest bump, the cold air escaping through the crack in the door. A breeze wafted against my snout as my head came forward. I looked up and down.
The room was empty.
"Ohhh thank goodness" I muttered to myself. Coming back inside I closed the door behind me and went over Cheesy, shaking him to get up.
"Alright alright! I'm up, I'm up. Let's go" he rubbed his eyes pushing his hand out to hold on to the pipe above his head, still staggering back from legs that had not woken up yet.
Following behind me we got to the door, coming out cautiously into the Giant's washroom, looking around again for the hundredth time just to make sure that it was safe. The place was clear, no cat in site.
Nodding my head to Cheesy as the signal to go, he returned the same expression, and we moved out, creeping onto the tiled floor. Seeing for the umpteenth time that absolutely, positively nobody was around; we made a ran for it.
Stampeding across the cold floor we raced for the door a few dashes ahead of us. Moving so fast I could hear our feet clapping against the cold tiles. With a few strides we finally came to the door, Cheesy gasping behind me like I just had him run around the Kitchen counter a few times.
"Ju-.....just..wait. My..body..still..waking up" he panted words between shortened gasps, holding his chest and shaking his head vigorously to bring his body back under his control.
''Oh stop messing around and let's get out of here. Now get under this door" I commanded. Peeking my head through the hole at the hinge of the door that we came in through.
The kitchen floor was clear for us to roam free. No Giant, no cat, nothing. The only thing that could be heard was the sound of the huge frozen box thing.
Drawing my head out I spun around and warned Cheesy. We were at yet another crucial moment in our journey, and he was known to make a muck of things at points like this. I pushed my hand out and gripped him by his chest fur like a hook, giving him a stern warning.
"We're heading home now be quick about this. Don't think too much, don't say too much, and just do what I do, got it?"
Cheesy nodded his head forcibly, sounding a series of mhm's in his throat.
Drat knows I didn't want to be mean to Cheesy, but I had no space for any surprises right now. Especially bad ones. Loosening my grip off him, I eventually let him go with an intimidating stare. I think he got the message clearly. Two of my paws were rested on the opposite ends of the rounded hole, so I squeezed my head out first, inhaling and sucking in the weight of my body until I slide through the narrow space.
The vast space of the room greeted me with opening arms, standing there I felt a bit overwhelmed. I could see everything from this angle. The wooden walls, filled with objects of many shapes and sizes. There was a round thing far up on the wall the stove was against, filled with numbers and around the edges of it and two sticks, circling in it, like a rotation.
Squared and rectangular pieces with immaculate drawings of mountains filled with trees. They were three of four of them on the walls, two in the living room to the far ends and three in the kitchen that were miniature. I never understood why the Giant had pictures hung up on his walls of the outside world, when he was out there all the time. Were the pictures reminders of how outside looked in case he forgot what it looked like??
''These Giants live so strangely..." I whispered to myself, still immersed in curiosity. Quite abruptly, I remembered how open I was to being attacked in this position. I snapped out of it. Grounding myself to reality, I turned back to see Cheesy pushing his head out the hole right after me, squeezing himself through.
Good. It's now or never that we got out of here.
Both of us exchanged knowing looks and we headed down to the side of the wall, going to the far left where our home was. We were approaching our mark; The miniature table with the dusty floral cloth on it. Before we got to that we still had to pass a heightened table stand close that stood close by, with a vase of pink flowers on it.
We zoomed along the baby blue wall, getting closer to the stand. Intuition informed me that Cheesy sensed things were going too smoothly, so it was time for him to do something to annoy me. He occasionally stepped on my tail as if he was blind and couldn't see. I stopped right in front of the stand, annoyed. Whirling around I gave Cheesy a death stare, him standing there and raising up his arms in defense.
He batted his eyes and muttered sorry, promising that he would watch where he was going.
With a grunt I shook my head at his nonsense, swiveling around to continue on the journey.
Turning around the only thing I saw was a white and orange paw lifted into the air, swinging back down to me, with claws outstretched. The sharp claws ripped against my stomach, pushing me back. I crashed into Cheesy with so much force that we both rolled back.
"Rawwrrrrrrrrr...." a low, growling noise sounded out into the air above us, coming closer and closer. I was sprawled out on top of Cheesy, unaware and dizzy of what was going on.
"Burrow!!!! Burrow are you okay??" I heard him speaking, asking if I was fine. It sounded muffled.
My body was spread across Cheesy like a thinly sliced Ham on bread. I could feel him wiggling and putting his head up, trying to ease me off of him but I stood still; the fear in my body not allowing me to register what had just happened. Something felt wet underneath my belly. The cat scratched me, I didn't know how badly it was, so I pushed my hand under my stomach and felt lots of moisture. Dragging my hand out from the nudge between Cheesy and I being on top of each other, I drew out my red, blood-stained hand.
Without thinking, I pushed Cheesy off and turned my head straight to the Cat' direction, annoyed at how much he hurt me.
His eyes meet mine. The pupils of its eyes looked like a dark, demonic sun that rose to the sky, supported by its landscape of neonic green. I was terrified; speechless and motionless. He advanced towards us in that dainty, furry, tubby ears flitching in the air.
Cheesy and I held onto each other, walking backwards until our backs hit the wall. He stopped a foot in front of us.
"Hmmmm. I knew there was more of you rats in here." the cat said. He continued stepping to us, a glint of trouble in his eyes.
"Bu bu bu burrow??" Cheesy's voice trembled as he gripped my shoulder.
"Yes.... cheesy?" I answered back, sounding like a disembodied voice that was so tiny and weak, unrecognizable as mine.
"I'm sorry" Cheesy turned his tearful eyes to mine, a look of complete regret and surrender on his face. A feeling of guilt settled into my stomach for how roughly I had been treating him, the scenarios of me clashing with him from the rat trap all playing back in my mind.
"It's not your fault" I muttered back to him. It really wasn't. None of this was.
I was the selfish one who decided to push him past his limits, degrade and shout at him when he didn't live up to my expectations, like he was an experiment. An object. Not the loving, caring brother who had followed me around since forever. Now we both were about to die, bodies glued to each other from anxiety sweat, our hearts beating through our chests.
"It's okay Cheesy, it's okay" I reassured. Cheesy muffled his sounds of sobbing, diving his head into my chest. I could feel the hot tears running down my chest.
The Cat was so close to us that I could smell the meat on his breath.
He opened his jaws, revealing two sets of sharpened, curved fangs, the heat from mouth cascading down on our heads.