My Life as a Pet Mouse

Chapter 1

There are some days that I wish I were an actual mouse. At least then I'd some fur to keep me warm. Winter has long been my least favorite season for multiple reasons. The cold just happens to be one of them. Other reasons include snow, ice, strong winds and, most importantly, a severe lack of anything edible to be found outside.

After yet another day spent failing to find any scraps, I trudged my way back into my burrow. My stomach grumbled which made me grumble as I fled from the snowflakes falling from the sky. I'd have stayed out longer but this winter had been harsh and I didn't particularly relish in the idea of being buried if the gentle dusting we were receiving decided to become anything more severe. As such, I threw myself into a corner were a dirty cloth I had salvaged lay.

I grabbed one corner of the cloth and pulled over me for warmth. I was shivering so bad from the cold that I curled into a ball with my tail wrapped around me and all but cocooned myself in my makeshift blanket. I intended to stay that way but my stomach growled again reminding me that I hadn't eaten in at least a day. With a groan, I crawled out of the cloth and dragged myself deeper into my burrow.

My home, if it could even be called that, was dug out from underneath a human's house. I had initially started from outside when I desperately needed shelter from a storm and expanded it to tunnel all the way out into the house.

My exit brought me to the human's kitchen underneath their table. I peeked out from my burrow, searching for the human's beast. It was the primary reason why I didn't scavenge this place more often. It's razor sharp claws and fangs were each almost as long as my forearms and that wasn't even considering that the beast was at least ten times larger than I was. Fortunately, there was no sign of the beast. There were days in which the fur covered monstrosity would do nothing but stalk my burrow until I came out to scavenge.

Today, though, I appeared to be lucky. Not only was the beast nowhere to be found, I could see what appeared to be an abandoned blueberry lying on the ground in front of me. I scurried out into the open and stopped in front of the berry to examine it. The beast was terrifying but the human was clever. More than once, ze has attempted to capture me. I sniffed the berry and could find nothing off with its scent and I couldn't find anything around it that appeared to be a trap. Ordinarily, I would have dragged the berry back to my burrow to be eaten in safety but on that one occasion, my stomach angrily reminded me that I was starving thus destroying any sense reason I would have had.

I sat down in front of the blueberry which was big enough to almost to almost reach my knees and eagerly bit into it. It's sweet and tart juices slid down my throat and made me sigh happily with pleasure. I greedily tore into the fruit, consuming every little piece, including the seeds, that I could; like it was the last meal I would ever eat. By the time I was full, a third of the berry was gone and I started to feel drowsy. I tried to stand but my legs felt like lead and refused to budge. On top of that, my head got all fuzzy and I found myself swaying to my sides awkwardly as I struggled to perform any action or even form a coherent thought. In the end, I yawned, too inexplicably exhausted to process what was going on, and fell over. My heavy eyelids steadily closed and, before long, I was asleep.

When I woke up, the first thing that I took notice of was that it was strangely warm where I lay. It was the pleasant kind of warmth that made you want to stay asleep despite knowing you had to get up eventually. It was soft, too. Every little movement I made rustling noises as whatever I slept got shifted around that made my round ears twitch. Unfortunately, the serenity I felt in that moment wasn't meant to last. A sudden thump startled me awake. I hazily cracked my eyes open as I lifted myself up on my arms. What I saw, jolted me the rest of the way into consciousness.

"Mreow."

The human's beast was standing over me, or at least, that's what I thought initially. After the shock faded and I finished frantically crawling back into a solid surface behind me, I realized that there was some sort of transparent barrier separating us. The beast pawed curiously at the barrier, seemingly as confused as I was about this new, unfamiliar predicament. I shakily stood up and examined my surroundings. On all sides of me were the same see-through surface, the floor was covered in some kind of dried-up plant fiber, and above me was a solid black, perforated ceiling. The berry that I had partially eaten sat in one corner of the barrier, left seemingly untouched since I fell asleep. I still couldn't understand what was going on but one thing had become clear. I was trapped.

The beast, now apparently disinterested with getting passed the glass, leaped off of the whatever surface my newfound prison sat on. Seeing it leave allowed me to relax a little and focus my thoughts towards understanding my situation. I was trapped and in a completely different location than when I fell asleep. Then there was that berry...

I was positive that the berry had been poisoned. I was all too familiar with how drowsy a full stomach made me but I fell asleep way too fast for all this to be a coincidence. I glared at the blue fruit with suspicion in my eyes as I considered what could have done this. The beast I doubted had the intelligence to pull this off. That left the human who I knew had been trying to catch me for weeks now. I didn't know what ze wanted with me, maybe ze was saving as good for hir beast, but I knew I didn't want to be stuck inside a glass cage when ze came back. Although, that left the question "how do I get out?"

I wandered over to the opposite wall and peer out to examine the room outside. It was smaller than the kitchen and was much more furnished. I could see what I remembered to be a human's bed at the far end of the room. So this is where the human sleeps? I wondered.

I pressed experimentally against the glass wall and noted that it didn't budge. I then proceeded to hit it in varying ways ranges from a somewhat soft open palm strike to banging on it with the side of my fist and even headbutting and kicking it a few times for good measure. All I got for my troubles was a headache, sore hands, and a stubbed toe. Now out of breath and panting from the exertion, I took five steps back and ran into the wall with a shoulder bash. I bounced right off the glass and landed on my back in a daze.

It was as I was recovering and gathering my thoughts that I heard a repetitive thumping noise that got louder and closer to me with each successive thump. I groaned and lifted myself up into a sitting position just in time to see the human  enter the room. Ze was tall with shaggy, messy blonde hair and brown eyes. Ze also had pale skin and features that could only be described as ambiguous. Ze spoke and hir's voice was the perfect balance of soft and deep to confuse me even further on hir's gender.

"So, you finally woke up, huh? It's about time."