...............................................................................
My eyes flickered open.
Immediately I sprung up, gasping for air and looking around.
The dining table was still on its face. Torn, ripped pieces of cotton were scattered everywhere. Mushed up food cresses on the walls and the floors.
I sighed, the hollowness in my chest returning.
I was back in the space.
"Thank God I wasn't actually dead" I voiced, relieved.
Now I had a chance to prove to myself that I could live a good life. A great life, filled with love, peace and prosperity. For myself and those that have passed on.
The future didn't seem so drab and dull anymore. Of course, the stubbornness in me couldn't believe I was putting trust in such an imaginary, unintelligent idea such as Faith.
But seeing my Family and being encouraged by them reminded me of the purpose I had before, when all three of them were alive. It reminded me of my why, my reason. I had a mission again, I had hope. I have their blessings.
....Blessing. That word was a bit delusional sounding... Okay maybe blessing was too strong of a phrase. Let me rephrase it with "well wishes".
Their well wishes would strengthen me to continue with my operation which was: Get the hell out of here.
I couldn't lay here in defeat anymore. I had to do something about this. It was time for action.
More determined than ever, I pushed myself off of the floor, rising to my feet and standing up.
"Oucch..." something felt off. I realized that my legs and the bottom half of my body felt peculiar. It was oddly very painful down there.
"What in the hell..."
I looked down to identify the source of my pain and, to my horror, from the waist down, the entirety of my lower half was engulfed with a sea of tiny, crawling, black ants, all of them hashing and digging into my skin.
"Shit!!!!" I screamed, hurriedly dusting them off of my legs and my stomach. They were everywhere, a sea of black, wriggling mass coated over my legs and lower gut, crawling up to my chest. Every inch that they covered stung horribly, a paroxysm of stinging, piercing pricks spreading, itching into my skin.
"Drats!!!" I jumped up and continued dusting them off quickly, cursing as they bite into my fingers.
The ants that came for the food must have been taken over my body while I slept my life away, the scent of dried blood and my own musky, sweaty stench having them mistaken me for a dead rodent. After a few more pats and plucking of them off of my skin, I tiptoed over the line of them that filled the room floors, barely finding a clear enough space a few inches closer to the flipped table.
"Oh my gosh..." I sighed.
I figured that my last act of suicide, I would have a positive effect in them using my body as a means of a food source. Since there's been a change of plans, now I had to figure out a way to get rid of them. They were all over the place.
Crowding over the mashed-up cabbage that stuck to the wall, grabbing pieces of the chicken, beefs and breadcrumbs that I flung to the floor. Itching themselves into the ripped pieces of cotton. I stood there watching them, disgusted with myself for letting it get this far.
"Was this really how I was living???" I asked, not believing that this was how bad I allowed things to get. Then, I closed my eyes, inhaling and exhaling, quieting my nerves.
"It's not your fault Burrow. It's okay. You were in a deep, dark place. Now let's get up and get ourselves out of that place" with that, I began going around and starting to work.
Firstly, I peeped through the peephole to see if anyone was outside.
The house was empty, the giant was gone, and the cat was nowhere to be seen.
"It's time to clean " I started with the nasty, discarded pieces of food that was etched everywhere. Going around scrapping food of the walls, off of the floor, flipping the dining table back on its legs. Using the cotton as a garbage sack, I wrapped all of the discarded pieces of food, wood splinters, and whatever else I counted as trash and stuffing it into the bag, carrying it to the peephole and dragging it across the Kitchen floor.
I stopped from a minute, bending over and resting on my knees. I was in a weakened state having not ate for so long, and now I was feeling the effects of that on my body.
"Phew!!!" I swiped a droplet of sweat onto my arm, preventing it from running down my face. Getting the Ants out were a huge challenge to me, since they kept biting me up. My hands, legs, fingers and toes were swollen and tender from all the stings I received, and the bag was filled with gross, mushy stuff that was a bit too heavy to climb up and throw in the bin.
So I left it right there, behind the Giant's tall garbage bin.
"Hmmm...The Giant would probably think it's To-mas that made this mess." I said proudly. That grungy, destructive cat deserved some heat on him after all.
Turning on my heel I went back into the holdings, putting everything back where it was, wanting to leave this place in reverence and respect.
The water bucket to the side, back by the peephole, the dining table cleaned off. I took a piece of cloth and shined the walls of food splatters and mess.
Standing at the door I smiled, taking pride in my work. The floors were spotless, the walls were clean, all the ants were gone. Well, most of them. The only thing that existed was a new padding for when I would sleep tonight, the dining table, and the game table.
Taking a step back and getting a general view of the room had gotten me into a frame of humility. I used to view this place as some kind of restricted, messed up prison but looking back at it now, I realized that this place reared me and my Family. At the end of the day, we had somewhere to sleep, eat, and pray (even though I loathed praying entirely). We had somewhere to laugh and joke about our day, somewhere to cry and grieve together, to play games in. This place allowed us to have a home, filling it with laughter and love. My desire is to leave it in pristine condition. I was and will always be grateful for the need it fulfilled in my life.
Now I was leaving it behind, and nothing could stop me. Not my fear of birds, not the Giant, not even that homicidal cat. I sat down at the gaming table and breathed, enjoying the cleanliness of my surroundings. Then, I heard a low rumble.
The sound came from below my ribcage. Puckering my lips, I gazed down. The noise sounded again.
It was my stomach, snarling. Grumbling loudly, it roared and bucked, sounding as if it were arguing with me.
"Don't worry. We're gonna get something to eat" I said, talking to it as if it were a person and rubbing it affectionately.
Having lost all my inclinations to eat, I was stripped of weight, so much so that I resembled a skeleton. In between all that sleeping, I created a game myself, where I counted the number of ribs that created an imprint of itself from under my skin. It was a sick, sadistic game now that I thought about it...
I sighed feeling exhausted, knowing full well that I had no chance of escaping in this weakened state. I had to get something to eat. And I had to wash all of this stinky, sticky blood and sweat off of my fur. I hopped up and ran to the bathroom, washing myself under the dripping shower. Then it was time for me to find something to eat.
"To the Kitchen I go"
So I went in the Kitchen and climbed up the cupboard, looking to see if there were any crumbs, on the counter. Surprisingly, the counter was spotless. The whole place was cleaned to such a great degree that there was nothing left. Not even a speck of dust. I only found a few rice grains here and there.
I nibbled on them in the meantime, to keep my energy up while I hunted for more.
Climbing back down I dug into the garbage bin that I was too lazy to go into before. There was nothing in there but an empty, black sack. I came right out, disappointed.
The giant must have emptied it this morning before he left.
"Damn I'm starving...there isn't anything in this house?" in a moment of desperation, I climbed down to the cotton sack behind the garbage that I left not long ago, digging into the bag dusting the ants off the food that I threw about the place.
A putrid, sour smell hit my nose. I closed the bag immediately.
It was no use. The food was either spoiled or eaten up by them.
"Urrrrghhh....." exhaling I sat down, leaning against the bin, just a few spaces away from the line of Ants that followed the same bag beside me. Tilting my head to the side, I saw that there was a que of them marching from the garbage bin beside the stove, going straight to the living room, past the border of the wall.
I followed them. They went all the way to the clearing glass I used to sit under.
There was thousands of them lined up on the wall, struggling to carry a half-eaten chicken leg up through a hole under the clearing glass.
I watched the ascent of the leg pass over their tiny, black bodies. After they carried it up a little over half the space, it fell off.
"Dinner is served..." As the chicken fell, I took it and dusted the ants off, grabbing it in my mouth, climbing on top of the clearing glass and finding a comfortable place to eat to the opposite side of their line to go outside. No one was home, so I considered it safe to sit at the window, besides I hadn't looked out through the clearing glass in ages.
I sat on top of the window and looked out, chewing into the chicken leg and munching restfully, noticing how bright and beautiful the day was. The rays of the sun shone through the window and warmed up the furs on my body. The heat felt good on my skin and fur, and now that I had cleaned myself, I was in a better state of mind.
The sun gave me energy, and in this moment, I was thankful that I could sit and just enjoy the snugness of the lukewarm sun.
I bit into the chicken again and swallowed, its smoky, meaty flavor going down my throat. Even though every part of me wanted to ravenously rip this chicken apart and gnaw on the bones in a split second; I held back instead, taking my time to enjoy the flavors, the textures.
It was time for me to enjoy the small things. The sun on my fur, the breeze going through the Giant's holdings, eating chicken on a window ledge on a sunny afternoon, not worrying about anything. It was all about the feeling, the being. I was able to feel again, the hope, the happiness, the satisfaction. Having that back was like a gift that fate had re packaged and handed to me, and from now on, I would enjoy it.
No one could take that from me. These experiences were mine. It felt natural, because it came from me.
I finished eating the chicken down to the bone and looked at my tummy, patting it and calling it a "good guy". It was no longer hurling swear words at me, and with the bone in my hand, I opened my mouth, ready to chaw it down to boney dust, then I paused.
Something told me to look down out the window below. I did, and as I did my eyes rested on the colorful garden that was directly underneath the window I was sitting at. Being so engulfed in enjoying my meal, I had no noticed that it was there.
I began to enjoy the visuals of the garden, lavender petals, red posies, delicate pink cedars and other varied colorful beings in a neat, rectangular section bordered with minute rocks right around the edges of it. There were spaces in between the canopy of flowers, showing the brown, earthy soil. From such a heightened view I could see an orange, furring head with two protruding ears, bobbing up and down. I realized it was the Cat. His head was up and down, his snout to the ground.
I looked even closer, then I saw something else on the ground in front of him. It was pink. Fleshy and small, with two furless stubs, a small beak and two legs. Its eyes were closed.
In the middle of the miniature garden, the murderous, blood sucking cats ate away at its insides, taking the thing apart from limb to limb, digging deep down into its flesh and bones, feasting away.
I felt sorry for whatever it was he was eating. The only thing I was able to deduce was that it had a beak, which meant that it was some kind of bird. Its body was still pink and naked, no obvious signs of feathers coming out, almost as if it had just been born.
"Just what is he eating??..." I muttered to myself.
As I whispered that To-mas' ears perked up. He stopped what he was doing and turned his head to look up at the window.
I gasped and sunk behind the ledge before his vigilant, watchful eyes spotted me above him. An eerie yellow glow danced on his black irises as he surveyed the window ledge. He peered at it intently, feeling as if two eyes were in the back of his neck.
"Hmmmm.." he groaned in his throat after having watched the place enough. Seeing that it was empty he went back to what he was doing, finally biting off the head of the poor victim in one gnash, leaving nothing but a stubby, bloody neck where a head used to be.
I peeped my head out, continuing to watch him.
That cat had no remorse and only cared about himself, and I hoped that one day he would suffer for his actions. For all the rodents he tore from limb to limb, for all the babies he had eaten and all the families he tore apart. Truly, it was unbelievable that one cat could cause all this destruction in its walking path, just because it felt like it was a predator that is entitled to the bothers for its own sustenance.
I decided that that was enough for me. Losing my appetite, I threw the chicken bone on the floor and turned to climb down, heading back to my holdings.
Before I did that, a horrified screeching noise went out behind me. I turned back to see where it was coming from. Across from the garden out into the field was a very tall oak tree. At the top of it shook violently, and more noises came like a bawling shriek, filled with misery and dismay.
I paused, continuing to perch to the side of the window and watching to see what was making that sound.
Suddenly, a huge black and white bird emerged from it, flapping its wings and shaking; Its heightened pitched squalls loud enough to impair hearing. I cringed at the sound beating in my eardrums, covering my ears and watching anyway.
This bird appeared a thousand times more frightening than the one that chased us about the fire. It had a white, snowy head with a piercing, beady black eyes. From the neck down its massive body was blackened with dark feathers like someone dipped it in ink; Its chest was broader than ever, and the length of its wings swallowed the skies.
The bird was in a state of turbulence, evidently outraged about something. Its white head was spinning back and forth, side to side as it flew about, perching from one limb to the next.
Its eyes looking around as if it was searching for something desperately.
Slowly, my eyes moved back down to To-mas.
He sat there in the bed of the cool, earthy soil, munching away carelessly. He continued eating away to his delight, unbothered by what was going on.
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"Where are you??? Just cry out to Mama and I'll find you!! Where are you, my baby??" The Mother Eagle panicked, flying on each branch looking in between the spaces of the tree. She flew down on the grass, searching to see if her poor baby had fallen out somewhere in the grass. To-mas lowered his head quietly in the garden, watching as she went back and forth.
They were only a week old; their eyes were barely opened, she thought. The worried Eagle looked and looked, finding nothing but a great apprehension in her chest, giving her cold sweats and a pounding heart. Desperately she flew back up to her nest. Her eyes beamed in her nest at the cluster of pink, hairless babies.
"One...ttwo..three..." she counted, looking to see that maybe this was all a bad dream and her baby had been there all along. But there were only three of them, an empty space, where there was to be four.
Everything was real, so dreadfully, painfully real; The crazed Mother couldn't handle it. Just for a moment she left them to get some worms she saw in a nearby farm, just for a second and she came back, only to see three of her babes.
"I knew I should have waited until the morning. I don't ever go out in the afternoons, and this has proven why...how could I have been so careless..." she cursed herself for her wrong decision, sitting down and sighing.
She lowered her head in shame, a tear dropping from her eyes on to the empty lot. Blinking she opened her eyes. Then, she saw it. She saw the clue. Quickly, she gently rose each baby up by her beak, moving her three cooing pink babies to the other side, one by one. Only leaving the spot where her sweet fourth child once laid.
The Mother investigated. She leaned down to see it, before she could believe it. It was a thin, single strand of orange fur.
She came closer to it and sniffed.
"Cat fur...."
The mother knew the familiar scent of the Feline, for years and years had had grabbed them and feed them to her babies before this group she had, as this set was her third set. On seeing that strand of fur, she knew one thing.
Her little baby was dead and gone. Her heart sank.
''But how...how could it be??I haven't seen a cat anywhere near here. Whoever this cat is has completely lost its mind and has no idea who or what its messing with. Insane!!!" she flew on top of her nest and sat over her babies, warming them from the cool, afternoon breeze. herself
"Mommy's sorry for leaving you my loved ones. I will never let anyone harm you ever, ever again. We will move far away from here" she said, wrapping her wings around them as she watched them.
The three cooing baby birds flapped their tiny, featherless arms, barely moving their soft heads around.
" Yes. We will go far away from here, so I can raise you up safely. I will see to it that you are all safe. I will rid this world of anything that means harm to you.."
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A few more days had passed, and, unsurprisingly, everything was much of the same.
My routine was like a cycle. I would get up, went to the Kitchen for something to eat, snuck the food undetected and got back into the holdings. It was the same stuff, just a different day.
To the Kitchen for food and water, sleep for majority of the day, and stay up at nights with my thoughts. It was the same reoccurrences going around in my head.
Regrets I had about how I treated Cheesy, the rivalry I had with Sharp. The time I wish I had with Mother...No matter how much I wanted to drown these thoughts out, they just wouldn't leave me alone.
When I saw them in that dream, I thought that from then on, things would be different. Their messages of encouragement and love had burned a fire in my heart. It renewed my hope, cleared my head, centered me. Gave me a vision of happiness, a glimpse into the future of what I could have. I even started dreaming again.
For a while I started dreaming of being at the top of that tree. When I did have those dreams, they were so clear and vivid. I could see the shine from the sun beaming off of the leaves, the tiny houses and tiny Giants walking up and down below me. Looking down To-mas was nothing but an orange dot, and so was the lizards, the small birds, and the flowers.
Then I'd wake up, back in this room with my doubts, fears and loneliness.
The plan was to get out of here as soon as possible, and every time I got up determined to do that, I would strike out. Then I would be alone in this space, my thoughts keeping me up at night.
I shouldn't have made some silly pipe dream of my Family to ever allow some misguided hope to insert itself into a hopeless situation. If I were to be perfectly honest, those dreams were not some "Hope" or "Inspiration" that a higher source called God was trying to give to me to let me know that there was better for me out there.
Hell no.
I was ill. I hadn't eaten in days, I was beat up and fatigued from trying to save Sharp, not to mention how much the way he died traumatized me. Seeing my loved ones die back-to-back like that would traumatize anyone and drive them crazy. I was even hallucinating Cheesy offering me a cup of water!!! How crazy was that.
All this was to show that whatever "dream" I had was a fever dream, induced by the state of shock I had of losing my Family in such a rapid succession.
Everyone I cared about had passed before my very eyes. Nothing mattered to me anymore. I knew not of the world outside this house, all I knew was that it was filled with others that were different than me.
They were all monsters. Hungry, ravenous beings that were out to get a meal from of my kind, and I didn't know how to handle them. If I wasn't getting chased down by a four-legged furball, it was a huge, winged hulk that could swallow me without a second thought. Or a dog, or the Giants. And I knew there was more creatures that I had never seen before. I was terrified of finding out the different varieties and shapes that they came in.
God knows what else was out there. I could feel a pain in my throat, the same kind of annoying, numbing, sticking pangs that itched my passage every time I felt depressed. Lately, the pressure in it was building. It was becoming too much, and I felt at any moment, I would break down into a sob, and cry.
I wanted to go back. To be with them in that Fever dream.
Forget this idea of proclaimed "Freedom" to "live my life". My life was with them, and they were gone.
Closing my eyes, I drifted off for a while in my nesting, thinking of that place on the bridge.
I could see it. I was running through the luscious fields of sweet-smelling fruits and wonderfully scented flowers, sinking my teeth into the voluminous plums, bananas, apples, and whatever else. I could see the water that flowed peacefully under the bridge.
Mother Mince, Sharp, Cheesy dived in the clear water under it, we played about, taking our paws and splashing the water on each other, our laughs ringing through the air.
Then, I heard a noise from outside. It sounded like the slam of a door.
The Giant must have just entered.
Slowly my eyes opened, and I was back. Back in this cold reality of four wooden walls, in an empty, lonely space. Every day it seemed to grow more spacious, and I felt more and more alone.
Sighing, the heaviness in my chest came back.
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That night I woke hungry and snuck out, while everyone was asleep.
When I climbed up the counter and got into the cupboard above, I saw a whole chicken leg near the salt and peppers. There was this weird green and white pebble like thing that peeped out of its center, obviously stuffed in there, as it was unnatural to the texture and shape of the chicken. Someone had inserted it in the middle, and it stuck out.
Mother had shown me too many times what danger looked like, and even the densest rodent could easily detect that this was rat poison, so carelessly stuffed in chicken. There wasn't even an ounce of deception in this. I could see everything. The Giant had been deliberately setting traps to take us out for a while now, thinking that we were foolish enough to ingest poison or push ourselves onto traps like we were a collectively a "brainless" species.
Instantly my mind flashed back to Cheesy stretching his neck out to grab a piece of the cheese off of the rat trap.
"Hmm...on second thought... maybe some of us are not the brightest..." I corrected.
Sighing I scratched an itch behind my left ear, a feeling of disappointment waving through me.
Humans could be so insulting sometimes. He really thought "Oh, that gullible rat will surely devour this without a minute's thought and boom! He'll be dead". The audacity of those beings to think my intelligence was this low...
Walking around it with curious eyes, I observed it, the thick, rounded tip of the chicken sat there, slimming down gradually to the bone. There was a cut in the middle of it, and I could see some of the horrid stuff peeking out. A piece of it dropped on the white tile of the counter, rolling to my feet.
I looked down at the piece. Studying it. Observing it.
Of course, I was not an idiot. I knew eating it would be the end of my journey. But...would that be such a bad thing???
Maybe this was a way out of this miserable life. To escape this world that was vast, scary and unknown. In this world there were too many enemies, too much strife, too much struggle. It was no place for rodents. We were so small in stature, and even our minuteness held too much space in the realm of this reality, so everyone in the wild sought after us, to keep themselves "alive".
I began analyzing the greenly white, infused poison, that wrecked of Death. Bending over, I picked it up in my paw.
It was dry and dusty, like a breadcrumb grain in my hand, and as I grasped it, the green, white granules of it escaped through my fingers. I held it up to my eyes.
My nose scrunched up at the scent of it; it was sour and horrendous. I closed my mouth and pushed it away from my face, something in me feeling like I wanted to hurl.
"Come on Burrow. You want to see your Family again? This is the way. This is the path. This is what God wants me to do..." without thinking, I closed my eyes, shoving the green and white stone concoction into my mouth, the bitter taste of it on my tongue as I chewed away.
For something that appeared grainy, it was oddly chewy. I closed my eyes while I chewed, actively thinking about my life in that food filled, flowered breeze smelling paradise. Seeing Mother's smile. Mocking Chessy's repetition of the word "Therefore" with his puny, high-pitched voice.
Perhaps Death would free me from all this. From this torment. From this pain. From this hell. Chewing, I clenched my fists to bare the bitter, acidic fluid that was about to fly down my throat. I coughed and covered my mouth, forcing myself not to spit it out.
Before I swallowed it my eyes popped, I saw something that looked familiar in the far distance. It was a scribble, on the wall of the cupboard in a corner.
Mouth filled with the poisonous soup, I walked to the corner slowly, rubbing my chin and examining the drawing carefully.
It was four squiggly, unidentifiable symbols, some kind of drawing.
Unconsciously, the jaws in my mouth stopped moving, and my entire focus was drawn to the scraggly carvings on the wood. I examined it carefully, tracing along its lines with my hands.
It took me a while to figure it out, but I remembered. It was some markings that we made, the four of us. Years ago.
I remember this day like it happened yesterday...
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