Hours later I woke up, the broken pieces of the board still clutched to my chest.
I looked around the wrecked room. It was dark, and the evening had crept up and turned to night. I was still clutched up in the corner in fetal position.
There was something in my hand. It was something sharp, and it was pricking my paw.
Opening my hand slightly I noticed that there was a soldier piece I was holding on to.
It was the Eagle chest piece. I didn't remember grabbing this up when I broke down, but I scooped up a lot of things chaotically, and I guess this was one of them.
Carrying it up to my eyes I observed it's structure. It was basically two sticks that I had attached to a pebble, each of them jutting out from opposites ends of it.
On the pebble was two hideous eyes, black, jagged irregular slits drawn from in the middle, to the side, almost touching the edges.
Having seen a bird, I realized its eyes may not have been exactly as I had drawn it out, but the concept was the same.
The evil eyes reminded me of the Falcon.
With a huff followed by the kiss of my teeth, I looked at the Eagle piece and threw it away, dashing it to the side.
"Dratsmate...tch. Wasted my time on such a silly, goofy game..." I complained, in a grouchy, deadened tone. The walls of my throat were dryer than bread, scrapes from the emotional pins and needles having slit scars all throughout its passage. My gaze travelled along the floor. There was a bunch of soldier players thrown all over my immediate path.
I positioned my foot at a side angle and slide them away, pushing them to the side.
With the path cleared I eased back to sit down, slumping to the empty spot, rubbing the temples of my head and sighing.
Every part of me was worn to a frazzle. The salt from my teardrops had completely dried and swollen my eyes from crying, and I could barely even lift them to blink. There was a numbing, blaring sound that went on steadily in my brain, a throbbing pain twinging anytime I so much as harbored a thought for too long.
My fur reeked of musty, dried-up blood that stuck to it like glue, chunks of it threatening to tear my hair out of my pores If I tried to take it off. My back was against the wall.
All I wanted more than anything else in this world, was the sweet, precious relief of sleep.
Sleep was the most pleasant part of my day.
Mostly because nothing harmful happened while I slept. It was in that state my mind was empty.
I had no more of those bubbleheaded, fictious dreams of waving palm trees and nice landscapes with clear waters running under a sturdy bridge. There was only nothingness when I closed my eyes. And nothing was perfectly fine with me. So, I rested my head down on the floor, using my hands as a pillow, curling up into a fetal position and hugging my knees to my chest. As the exhaustion forced my eyelids to shut down, chilly gusts of wind whipped through the tiny arched door, blowing in the empty water bucket that I previously kicked out.
Seeing it reminded me of how thirsty I was. Twinges of pain trickled through my throat. I rubbed my neck, wishing I could have even a sip of water. Then I heard something.
"Brother. Brother Burrow"
I laid there for a few minutes, completely still.
I figured I was beginning to dream. Weird things happened when you were in between that awkward stage of sleepiness and being barely conscious.
"Burrow"
My ears perked up. I heard it again.
It was a faint, charming voice whispering somewhere. I got up.
Gazing around the wrecked room through blurry eyes, there was nothing but me and the mess I created. The flipped dining table, the morsels of torn fluffed scattered about the place. The scraps of cabbage, beef and chicken stuck to the floors and the walls.
I scoffed; Figuring that maybe I was hearing things.
"Brother Burrow. To your left" the voice sounded like it was closer this time. I turned my head slowly, doing as instructed.
Glancing to my left, I saw the outline of a hazy, fizzy image floating before me.
I jumped back, astonished. Blinking my eyes and rubbing them repeatedly, I attempted to concentrate on the image ahead.
After a few rubs, my vision came to some sort of clarity. I was finally able to hold a clear image.
It was Cheesy.
"Brother Burrow..please. Have some water" he offered.
He smiled back at me warmly with his brown, love filled eyes, two chubby cheeks perched up on his face like hills on a landscape. Looking down to see that he gained back all the weight we fought to take off of him, his belly perched out, underarms wobbling as he lifted the water to meet my lips.
"Ch....Cheese??"I whispered, his name slewing out of my mouth like a steady, drawn-out slur; me being unable to speak at what I was seeing. I couldn't fathom it.
"Cheesy???...Is that...is that really you??" I asked, disbelieving what my eyes were showing me.
Placing my paw on the ground, I exerted pressure on it to and pushed myself up to stand, rubbing my eyes again.
"Cheesy...."
Cheesy was here, in this room. I could see a clean, cut image of him. Right In front of me.
The furs on his skin were smoothed down, grey and very real. His ears were pricking back and forth, his whiskers protruding from the side of his cheeks.
"Yes Brother Burrow. If you don't drink the water, you'll die of thirst. Therefore, drink!" His voice sounded strange. Like an echo, bouncing off of the surface of water. How could his voice sound like an echo even though he was right in front of me???
He angled the cup of water even more in front of my face, gesturing for me to take a sip.
Some naive, childlike part of me denied the death that I had seen him partake in; I began to question if I had really seen him drown, or if it was just a bad, horrid dream.
Cheesy was right here, encouraging me to drink water like he usually did. He always offered me water, like his usual, caring and loving self would.
How could he be dead??? His aura emitted so much love and well wishing, and it protruded out of him like a stick on a cake. I wasn't alone anymore.
I wanted to touch him. To hug him. To feel him.
I had to see that he was real.
Maybe all the deaths were a horrible nightmare. I would wake up, cuddled in between Mother Mince, Cheesy and Sharp, all of us together on our nesting. If I just touched him, I could wake up from this illusion...from this torment.
My hand stretched towards the cup.
Bloody, shaking fingers trembled in midair, the distance between my hand and the cup shortening. I got closer and closer to it, until my fingertips glazed the tip of the cups, touching it slightly.
I could feel my fingers rubbing against the edges of the plastic cup.
"It's real....Your're.... real.." I mumbled.
Excited, I leaned forward and attempted to grab the cap, Cheesy smiling and nodding his head delightedly.
I dipped my hand into the cup, and it went straight through it, phasing out, the image of it dissipating into the air, like a thinly veiled smokescreen.
Immediately, my Eyes shot up to see Cheesy.
His whole body morphed into vapor. His eyes, the fur, the smile, the chubbiness on his body. All of it vaporized into smog, rising into the air above my head.
"No...no wait!! Don't-"
Frantically I extended my arms to reach him, getting him back from leaving me, but my attempts were in vain.
I was grabbing nothing but the bodiless space around me. His image faded out of my very hands while I reached out.
Still stubborn and determined I continued to try "grabbing him", losing my balance and falling over, whamming into the wooden floor.
I laid on the floor, in complete and utter shock.
"It wasn't real. What I just saw... wasn't... real."
I woke up, breathing hard.
This wasn't a nightmare. This lonely, deathly reality was not a made-up story in my head. I wasn't about to wake up from a bad dream...
The bad dream was my life now...
Cheesy wasn't actually here..nor was Sharp. Or Mother..
I was all alone...
"None of it was real.." I repeated, tears rolling down the bridge of my snout and down to my whiskers. I drew my knees up to my chest and rocked back and forth, cradling myself.
They were gone. And it was only me that barely survived.
The oncoming train of thoughts fizzed through my mind like grains of sand on a beach. I began to question reality, my own sanity. For a moment, I wondered if I had died myself and not known it. If so, this place had to be Hell, and I was being tortured.
"Lord...help me...please" I held my knees in even tighter to my chest, begging for some sort of relief. For some ease.
I couldn't take this anymore. I wanted to be free of all this. I just wanted to not exist anymore...
My eyes began to buckle.
Sooner than later, the sweet sensation of dark, unconscious nothingness covered me; The delightful, pleasure of sleep knocking me out.
******************************************************
A Few Hours Later...
Light pierced into the space, a ray of sunshine making a line over my eyes. I woke up again, and it was bright out. I had slept through the whole night.
Using my arm as a shield from the blinding sun, I grunted, rising up.
I walked over to the door. It was early in the morning and the sun was high, high enough for me to tell that the earlier bits of the day were gone. It appeared to be midday.
There was so much brightness in the sun. So much hope. So much joy...
Day in, day out the sun would rise. No matter how sad it may have felt the last day. No matter how angry it was with the Moon, or the clouds or the air. Sometimes I got glimpses of it shinning its way through tight spaces in the clouds, enduring through the most gruesome days. Whether rain, snow, or wind.
The clouds were always floating by, despite its surroundings. The trees were always dancing with the wind, no matter what. The sea still roared; the mountains stood tall. I wanted so much to emulate nature and her calm sense of well-being and purpose, but I could not. I was afraid I would never be able to.
Nature didn't have emotions. It wasn't tied to anything or anyone, it wasn't strung to circumstances or people. It never missed loved ones when they died. It never ached, cried, or pained for the presence of others to fill a void. It couldn't feel the heartache, the stinging pangs in its throat, it couldn't cry itself to exhaustion.
I would do anything to gain the capability of not being able to feel emotions..Nature gave me yet another reason to feel envious of its existence. It just stayed in the present moment, the now. Not being burdened with thoughts of hunting for tomorrow's meal, wondering what time you should sneak out and so on. It never felt anything, including hunger.
My mindful thoughts were interjected by the thoughts of a churning, swooshing noise. I looked down.
It was my stomach.
It grumbled and gargled, cursing me for not nourishing it with food. My loss of appetite had allowed it to suffer, and now I faced grappling hunger; the type that twisted your insides and churned your gut into French knots.
I wasn't in the mood for eating anything... I just wanted to not have to think about such minimal needs. Making my way to my corner and resting myself in my sleeping spot, I wrapped my arms around me, for comfort, rocking by as the silent tears pattered against the floor.
Just when I thought I had no more tears left to give....
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Another day passsed. And another day, and another.
Burrow stayed indoors, curdled up into his corner like a child. He refused to move. He decided to not go anywhere. There was no one to go with him, so what sense did it make after all? If he went outside, who would he go with??
He stayed indoors, in that small little space him and his family stayed in all those years. The smell of their scents, the stuff they left behind, the memories he kept calling to mind. This tiny, rectangular room he once viewed as a prison was now the most precious thing in the world to him. It was the only place on Earth that still had some of their essences left.
In fact, everything around him reminded him of someone. The table on its back made him think of his mother preparing meals on it for all of them. The boards making him think of Sharp and how he used to slam down on the table when he knew he won Dratsmate.
The Cheese that was smooshed to the ground reminding him of Cheesy, and his obsession with Cheese..
As he gazed long enough at the crushed-out cheese, he realized that they were lines of ants, picking up the food on the floor.
"I should dust them out...'' he reasoned. Taking his eyes away from the food, he peered down at himself.
Sharp's blood was still on him. The blood had dried so much to his fur, that it was a part of him now. Normally he would have thought that was gross, but he just couldn't muster the strength to groom himself or go to the bathroom and wash if off.
Being in the same space where Cheesy drowned was not the best thing for him right now. Burrow just wanted to go back to sleep instead. Sleep, over everything. Because everything else, was..not what he wanted. So that was just what he did.
The days and nights passed, and he stuck to his corner, curled up into a ball with his knees to his chest, teary eyed. He felt no appetite, refusing to eat anything. Before he knew it the time skipped by, and his weight went down drastically, his body getting thinner and thinner. His arms turned to toothpicks, his legs as frail as a buckling old man's.
One day early in the morning he got up and noticed the trail of ants again. This time he wanted to see something, really watching them carefully, observing their formation. If he had not being driven off of the brink of insanity, he would not have sat down to watch this ludicrous act of seeing something so meaningless. But he knew that there was something to be learnt here.
All of them were in unison. They had an arrangement, and they were synchronizing, the Ants. In that queue they formed, in that line, they were helping each other.
One Ant or a couple would stay next to the food, passing morsels of it over to the next. This cycle travelled down the lengthy line they had formed, and it went on and on and on, until they had successfully carried the smidgen of food to where they desired.
He sighed, wondering when Nature would stop making him feel envious.
The ants had what he didn't. A tight net community of others like themselves that they could trust, work together with, and depend on. They were together all of them, marching happily and industriously getting their food together as a family should. And there he was, alone, with no family. He had no one to go out and gather food with from the Giant's kitchen. No one to run up and down with those crafty food sacks across their backs.
"What has my world come to?" he asked himself.
Why were ants who were ten times smaller than him happier than he was? Was he born in this world just to experience pain and loneliness? Where was the love and happiness about Life that he enjoyed as a child, and why was that taken away from him?
If that was the case, he had to make a decision, and he knew exactly what it was. He had no choice but to emulate Nature. If he was to suffer and die alongside his Family, he would do it of his own will. His own accord, not going through some traumatic experience of being ripped to shreds or being mutilated. He made up his mind. He was going out like Nature.
He'd be as still as the trees, staying in one place and not doing anything, not feeling anything, not being anything, like he was doing now. He was nothing.
"Just..like..Mr.Tree..." he whimpered.
Burrow sat to his corner in the room in fetal position and cried uncontrollably, rocking back and forth, gulping in short breathes like the capacity of his lungs to function had lost itself. He just couldn't inhale deeply, and so the tears came rushing down while he hyperventilated.
Like the tree, the rodent did not move, staying bungled up in his corner for several more days. The time continued on by and with it Burrow began to age and deteriorate. This time he was bone thin, bloody, and filthy. He felt little energy and cared about nothing, just the need to sleep all the time. He had silly dreams here and there, but most of it was the darkness. The nothingness.
Just how he liked it.
One evening he feel into a deep sleep that was so forgetful, so refreshingly nothing, that it eased him out of his heartache. This time when he slept; he remembered nothing. Suddenly the harshness of the world was gone, and he was in a haze of peacefulness.
******************************************************
I blinked and noticed that I was on a bridge now, a sturdy wooden one that had the clearest water river running underneath it. Staring at the water I watched my reflection look back at me. I looked....fat.
"Hmm.." rubbing my chin, I continued to examine my body and notice all the weight that had gone back on. I looked up to see where I was. The surroundings were beautiful, the sun danced on the horizon, leaving behind lines of pink and orange colors, palm trees greeting me in the distance, side by side. The clouds drifted in puffs, an array of colors stringing out across the sky in a light red to pink fade. I even heard chimes in the background. I was at ease, everything so calming and beautiful.
"Oh. This place again....this must mean I'm dead now" I was relieved at the thought of not having to go back to that Hell of a nightmare. I chuckled, happy that my plan to stay as still as the tree had worked. Inhaling deeply, I breathed out, closing my eyes and feeling the breeze on my fur.
"Don't you dare start with that self-defeating talk young buck" I heard a familiar voice behind me. I turned around.
Mother Mince was standing inches away from me, a warm smile on her face.
I stood there, blinking repeatedly to see if my vision would clear. She stood there with her plumy, firm cheeks, hopeful eyes and round face. The image in front of me resembled her to a T, and I wondered if it was like that quick dream I had with Cheesy giving me water. He seemed real too, until he faded out into nothingness when I tried to touch him.
"Burrow? My son?" she mouthed. She opened her arms out to me to greet me with an embrace, but I stepped back, not wanting to be deceived again.
"Are...are you real???" I hesitated.
She laughed and shook her head, grabbing my arm and bringing me to her. I stood there frozen as she squeezed me tightly in a hug that felt so real, this couldn't have possibly been a dream. I could feel her skin on mine, her fur, the fleshy weight on her bones. Sighing, I closed my eyes and gave in, enjoying how good it felt to hug her again.
" I'll never go back Mother. I want to stay here. With you. With Cheesy, with Sharp. All four of us in this..this paradise. Wherever this is, it's perfect. I stay here, forever" my voice was tender and childlike now, I was truly vulnerable being so extremely happy to see her, to hold her. She wasn't just some illusion that phased out.
Tears dropped from my eyes and as I eased back to look at her face, a part of me hated myself for letting her get even that slightly away from me. The warm sunlight glimmered off of her steady, coppery eyes, beaming at me with the love and fondness a mother had for her son.
She took her hands and wrapped them around my cheeks, using her thumbs to wipe the tears flowing down my face, kissing my forehead.
"You can't stay here Burrow. You have so much life to live, so many things to experience and do. It's one big world out there for us rodents, and you need to see it" Her voice was echoing, much like my hallucination of Cheese's was, but way more distinct and clearer.
"We are roodents my love. You remember that. Rodents have pride, rodents have-"
"Stop it!!! Stop it stop it stop it!!! " I walked away from her, my voice banging through the air like thunder. The angers I previously had become even more enflamed. I turned around to face her, my arms outstretched.
Here she was with her ridiculous sugar-coated fantasies, still, even in the afterlife.
"Why are you still so...foolish??? Disillusioned?? Why are you still sticking to this belief that we rodents had rights? That we can live "fully." That we could do and be whatever we wanted.... "I paused, creating distancee between us, then going back to her.
"We can't just do or be anything. There's an order to follow. A rat can't do whatever they want!!" I boomed.
Mother stood there, frowning at me. She came forward slowly, holding my hands into hers and looking affectionately into my eyes.
"Burrow, that's no way to live. You have to let go of the pain, the hurt. You must be free..Not hiding and rotting away in some corner" she mentioned. I pulled away from her, convinced that she would never let go of this. She winced at how I pulled my hand away from hers. I walked back to her, facing her directly.
"Don't you see????? Therre is no hope for us "rodents." There's no bright future, there's no peace..there's nothing!!!!" I came closer, grabbing her shoulders with crazed eyes, trying to shake the reality into her thick, old-fashioned skull.
"All this time... You've spent all of this time lying to us Mother!!! Deluding us with lies of us owning ourselves. Of us being treated with respect, of us being breathing, living beings with emotions and and..feelings. Eating whatever we wanted, having the right to live and..and we don't!!! We just don't, okay??? We don't!!! We neveer did!!!!" I flung my hands into the air hysterically, flooded with emotion of what I was witnessing.
Mother Mince studied me carefully under concerned eyes. Surprisingly, she didn't get agitated at my outburst. There was no shock, no disbelief, nothing coming from her end. She was clean of any sort of judgements. Instead, she came closer to me, extending her hand and caressing my cheek. She held onto my other hand and brought me in, throwing her arms around me.
"It's okay Burrow. It's okay.." she patted my head from ear to neck, smoothing over my fur.
Something snapped in me.
Prior to this my life force had been drained with all the ranging emotions of fear, dread, hate, love and sadness. I felt trapped in that holdings, flipping tables and screaming at that lousy God, debating that he had forsaken me.
Now, all of those emotions came back. My chest began to throb again, the convulsions of spasms palpitating through my ribcage. I blinked repeatedly, trying to subdue the sting of tears that threatened to protrude out of my eyes.
"Bu-but I-I" I stammered while she continued to compassionately nuzzle me. The tears were here. I was already crying.
"I-...I failed you. I let them die, when you told me. Whe- when you told me to protect them. There's so many of them Ma. The cats, the the birds. The Giant. So so so many of them. And they're all bigger than us. I didn't. I couldn't. Without you I couldn't-"
Trying my best to muffle my sobs, I kneeled down and buried my head in her waist. The tears cascaded down. I bit my lip, wanting to scream. Everything was coming up to the surface. The sounds of my cries were convulsive. I wept like a newborn baby.
"I failed you- i -i - i.-"
'' I'm sorry. I couldn't even keep your dying wish" My heart was in my throat, and I kept stuttering, the words coming out like mashed potatoes,with no structure. I was a babbling, stuttering, careless son, that couldn't defend his own Family. A waste.
She bent over and hugged my head into her, trailing me with soft kisses on my forehead.
"You know Burrow, ever since you were a little boy, you were like this. You always worried about protecting your brothers." She took my shivering head from her waist, using her fingertips to gently rise my head and looking into my pathetic, teary-eyed expression.
Wiping the tears from my eyes she held my elbows, helping me to stand up, bringing me up to my feet to face her directly she smiled, her eyes glistening with tears.
"You did a wonderful job at protecting your brothers. Cheesy told me how you saved him from being snapped in a rat trap. Sharp continues to brag how cautious and mindful you are with keeping him alive. You did the best that you could hunny" she said softly.
I blinked, eyes puffy and tired.
"No matter how much you put your life on the line for your Family Burrow, there will always be opposition. Certain things happened the way they happened because they were supposed to be that way. There was nothing you could do about that my love" I sniffled, holding her hands and sighing.
"It's just there are so many things out there Mother. So many things that mean us no good. They murder us. They kill us. We're nothing but pests or food. And there's so many bigger predators out there, all of them hell bent on getting us. How are we as free and deserving of life as you say we are, when your God made so many of them to outdo us??" my voice was shaking as I asked, genuinely concerned. She chuckled and nodded her head.
"Burrow. My precious son...." intertwining her fingers with mine, she brought them to her chest.
" I stayed up days and nights with the three of you in my tummy. I was so worried about bringing you into this world...all these cats with sharp fangs, Owls with scissor beaks and those, ghastly, frightening eyes that never seem to close. I was terrified. Thats why I brought you all into the house..to protect you. To have a safe Haven where I could raise you up properly, and not have to worry about your lives being endangered. I wanted you all to be..safe." The water was gathering up as she watched me, forming a puddle of tears in her eyes.
"But I was wrong Burrow. I shouldn't have sheltered you guys like that. I shielded you all, clouded your reality. I poisoned your minds with fear, filling you up with stories of slaughter, of blood and loss and murder. I only showed you the bad side. I didn't show you the good sides of life. And yes, life does have a wonderful side." she explained. She was crying now, tears making their way down to her rosy cheeks.
"I-I kept you all from the great sides of life. The resting on a riverbed with your feet in the water, chatting with your best friend about the silly cat that you and him evaded. Climbing up a tree and biting into a nice, juicy Mango, looking out at all the buildings and the people, waving to the lizards that crawl on the ground...meeting someone that you love. Adoring them, making a Family, and sharing those same experiences with your Family. Those things are priceless Burrow, precious moments. Moments that must be enjoyed even once in one's lifetime."
Her hands sank into my shoulders, her grip tightening.
"Burrow. I want you to forgive me for everything that I've said to you to make life seem all gloom and doom. Forget about all the horror stories. Forget all those times I told you all about Peaches, about the foxes, about the hungry cats and dogs. I want you instead to remember those nights you crept out to look out into the night sky through the clearing glass, to see the twinkling stars. Remember the luminescence of the moon. The clouds, the nature of it all. You must see the good side of life Burrow. You can't sit in a corner and wait to die. And no, you're not dead. You must, must snap out of it. You have to get out of the Giant's house. To Live Burrow. You must, live on" her voice cracked, the tears having fully saturated her face. I took my finger and gently swiped under her eyes.
Mother didn't understand. She didn't understand how lonely it was for me. I spent my entire life around my brothers, arguing with Sharp about Dratsmate or combatting him and his egotistical attitude. Giving Cheesy the satisfaction of seeing me beating him or helping him curb his eating habits. The laughter, the jokes, the company...
I was alone now. I was alone, stuck in a prison where I may be smacked by one of the Giant's shoes for trespassing in his home, or gobbled up by the cat for dinner. There was nothing to look forward to. I didn't want to go back.
I had to let this happen. I was afraid of Death, for it was sad and bitter. But what was worse??
Rotting away every day in a miserable, frigid, loneliness. Or dying and being reunited in a place like this?? Surrounded by those you loved. She just had to know how much I missed everyone...
"No, I don't. I don't have a life without my family. That was what you taught us Mom. How can I move on by myself??"
Before she could even say anything, Cheesy appeared on her left. My heart jumped again, mind flashing back to his drowned, lifeless body from the pool.
"By moving and getting out of that house Brother Burrow. There's too much food for you out there than in that small, tiny camp" his paw rested on my shoulder. I took his paw off and brought him into a tight squeeze, closing my eyes and enjoying the embrace.
"Ohhhhhh Cheesy ole buddy ole pal, I missed you and your Cheesy ways" I pressed him tighter into me, Cheesy coughing and tapping my back for me to let go of him.
"Brother!! I love and miss you too, but you're choking me!!" he cautioned. I let him go and backed away, tapping his shoulder in a very manly way and straightening up. He smiled at me and continued eating. I heard another voice to my side.
"Oh Burrs come onnnn. So what we're not there with you. Who cares? Stop being a sissy and get out of there Burrs. Make a family of your own" Sharp was there, with the biggest grin on his face.
"Sharpo!!!! you cheeky bastard!!" He grinned as I hugged him, closing my eyes and taking in the moment again, glad that I was able to see him. I inched away from him slightly to get a better look.
There were no deep holes on his neck or chest, the scars having completely disappeared. I sighed in relief, knowing that he was not suffering anymore. He was at peace... Sharp watched me with curious eyes, gazing at me.
"I missed you too Mama's boy" He rustled the fur in my head playfully, Mother nudging him in his side.
"Hey!! I was only teasing Mother..." he defended. Even in the afterlife Sharp was still a prick.
I took my time and stood back. Looking at all of them. I wanted to jump up and down, skipping and singing like a free, careless toddler. I was in a state of overwhelming happiness.
They all looked sooo good. Everyone gained all their weight, lost their wrinkles, blemishes, scares and bruises or burns, image freshly remade as if they were manufactured out of perfection.
"Awwwww guys. Let's group hug" Cheesy's cheeks widened in a passionate smile, his essence overflowing with love. We snuggled together, my heart beating so fast I was trembling, completely ecstatic that I was seeing them right now. My family was here, with me. Suddenly all the desperation, the sadness, the hopelessness melted away, and I felt whole again.
"We may not be there with you, physically, but all you have to do to find us is look within Burrow. Live out your life for us. Carry on the family traditions. Remember the world will always stump us down.. but we are rodents!!We have reason, a brain, a soul, just like them. You must be brave and strong, live your life, free of worries" Mince's soft voice got muddled as she spoke beside me.
"Burrow. Remember that promise you made about us going out and having our own families. Well, this is it. You have to do it for me Burrs. For all of us" Sharp looked at me intently and I felt nothing but joy and sadness in my heart.
He was right. As much as I loathed going back to that shithole, we had suffered way too much to die so miserably like that. All their deaths would have been for nothing...
Something deep, down inside of me knew that I couldn't stay here, in this paradise, with them. I knew I couldn't. I had to move on for them, live for them the way they didn't get the chance to live. It is only through me that I can continue our legacy.
It was my mission to honor them.
"Brothers forever, remember??" Cheesy said, flinging his arms over Sharp and I's shoulder.
"Brothers forever" the three of us said simultaneously. We laughed, playfully fist fighting and picking at each other for a while. Mother stood there and shook her head at our craziness, happy as ever to see her boys running together again.
"We love you Burrow" Mince muttered, looking keenly at all her sons, standing side by side.
"I love all of you too. I always have" I said, my voice crumbling under the weight of my emotions.
"Always have loved you, my Family. And I always will" I looked around at Sharp, Cheesy and Mother Mince. We came together one last time.
After we finished hugging, I noticed that Cheesy wasn't beside me anymore. Mother Mince, Sharp and I were still there, but he was gone. Looking back, I saw him reversing into a group of clouds and then he stopped, melting amongst them and disappearing.
"Chheesy??Cheesy!!" I shouted.
"Burrow, don't worrry about Cheesy. " Mother held me back by the shoulder. I turned around to her.
"Have Faith Burrow. Only Faith and Love can get you through this"
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