HERE FOR A LITTLE WHILE LONGER

A game of Cat & Mouse

'Bzz bzz Bzz bzz!' The most annoying sound ever kept coming from the fly redundantly whizzing past my ear. It continued to taunt me after I'd already grown bored of trying to catch it. Annoying was an understatement. I fucking despise the insignificant vermin. My reflex was to kill and eat it, but it didn't taste too favorable. All of them whether they had 2 wings or 4, left a nasty aftertaste on my tongue that I couldn't get rid of so easily. Scouring the streets that I've known all my life just for food and water was a hassle. I'd be fortunate enough to have found a half-eaten chicken wing on a good day if the creatures that crawl with 6 legs didn't get to it first. Or for the love of fucking Christ, even worse the flies didn't plant their eggs on it.

I can't remember when I first realized I was an animal. I'm guessing it was a few months ago, it had to be sometime after my mother abandoned us, me along with a similar-looking copy of me. Abandon may be a poor choice of words. I think she died, yeah, that's it she must've gotten run over by a truck trying to find our deadbeat father. That thought of what I believe may have happened to her kind of made it all make sense. I knew I was unique because one minute I was laying up with my sibling in a cardboard box, we were trying to protect each other from the frostiness when in the next instance I was suddenly aware of my surroundings. The awareness was frigid and severe, but it was familiar. Perhaps the setting I found myself in wasn't in the memory bank of my newly found powers but it just knew. These new powers gave me knowledge about what I felt the need to do. The sounds of humans talking, cars honking, and music playing flooded my ears. All the different vibrations were so keen it granted me unfavorable headaches. The moment I realized the cat I was nestled with, my sister, wasn't as conscious as I was, I left her. She didn't even bother to follow me, when I turned to say goodbye, it came out as a mere "meww meww". I ran from her dumbfounded by my voice. I ran until I was in front of a dumpster, a few feet away from an abandoned house. I had to duck from people and cars operating disorderly. I thought for sure I'd be a goner but I arrived safely.

The house didn't look so deteriorated so I figured I'd take shelter there. I dug around in the dumpster for a minute before coming back up empty-handed, after almost getting into a run-in with a raccoon that had habited the dump for its own. I never fought a raccoon and that wasn't going to be the day I did. No way! It seemed like it was up to no good with all the black around its eyes so I associated it, and whatever it was doing with negativity and hopped out of its territory. Famished and frightened, I retreated to the house not thinking the raccoon may have lived there and for goodness sake, it didn't. Only insects with 8, 6, 4, and 2 legs occupied the deserted residence I now call home.

The brown wooden floorboards rose from the base of the house revealing holes that led to more wood. Splinters sprouted everywhere. Cobwebs hung from each corridor and corner of the dusty interior. Had I been a human I would've squirmed from the sight. Human. Hallucinated flashes of distorted memories echo in my tiny brain, displaying recollections I can't remember in my existence. They may be dreams but they disappear the same moment they occur. Intangible, and difficult to grasp so I push the epitome of the indecipherable illumination aside and focus on my recently developed heightened senses. 'Psshh pssh' abruptly my ears hike up involuntarily as the sound resonates within my ears. Instinctively, my body reacts looking for where the sound came from. I'm now on all 4s, using my night vision in the encased darkness. The startling noise prompts me to get off of an old blanket I found myself comfortable on. To my delight what flashes past my eyes in a quick motion, was dinner!

Steadily creeping to the hole the mouse was trying to squeeze its way through, I pounced rapidly. Capturing my prey with both my claws. My sharp nails embeds in its delicate flesh, flexing my jaws readying to dive my sharp fangs into it when the squealing turned into, "pleaseeeee!" In a squeaky whine. I released my grip immediately, authorizing the rodent to fall to the ground and took several steps backward. I was taken aback because did it just speak? I've had my fair grub of mice and rats before but none of them ever spoke. How was it possible that I can understand the language of the mere pest? Was my mind playing tricks on me like it would when revealing memories I never lived? Or was this yet another hallucination? Unduly bewildered, and now annoyed that I have lost my dinner to continue to contemplate the unprecedented situation beforehand, I sank back to the spot I've claimed for my own and huffed plummeting down on the old blanket. My blanket. Not a peep since, I close my eyes allowing the sounds of cars driving by in the distance, to put me to sleep with the visions of feelings I've never felt before, wallow in my psyche.