Banquet of the Ashes

Grey Scarum's whiskers twitched involuntarily with the excitable smell that drifted into his nostrils. He hadn’t eaten in a day and a half, and the pangs of early starvation were triggering his survival instinct. He approached the smell with the heightened sense of caution he’d developed since he’d been in the big shelter. The other mice had warned him of the dangers of exposing yourself in this place. Despite it being sheltered, dry and with no direct view of the sky or threat of swooping talons, other, larger creatures roamed during the day, and Scarum had seen with his own eyes the panic they displayed towards his kind.

Their smell was everywhere here, but a mouse of his age couldn’t survive another winter without the shelter that he had found himself in now, and among their smell, there was often dropped morsels of exotic delights, if you were brave enough to venture into their territory.

And this was no exception, a chunk of hardened milk the size of Scarum's head! With enough salts, fats and proteins to keep him running for another full day, he couldn’t believe his luck. He considered dragging some back to the nest his new mate had been constructing, but it would be enough that he would eat and keep himself alive for both of them. She wasn’t ready to birth yet and there was a long road ahead.

“CRACK!!”

The sound was so visceral and sharp, it seemed to hit his sinuses first, his body had done its trick and his honed reactions had twisted him in the air to face the other direction before he even heard the sound, it all happened so fast he couldn’t even taste the bite of hard milk he had been reaching for. ‘A lucky escape?’ He thought, ‘a fallen stick somehow destined for his exact location?’ He went to run, to get clear of this perilous area, but his leg seemed to be caught. It was only then that he felt it, the searing agony; his hip and leg bones had been destroyed by this tiny, strangely shiny twig. His instinct was to scramble, but no amount of clawing would free him. He considered chewing through his leg, but with a bit of twisting, he could feel himself pulling a little freer, he sipped it out until it got to his ankle but with every tiny movement, the twig somehow increased its grip, like a biting fox, but not cutting, just squeezing, tighter and tighter. Scarum felt his heart was about to burst; the effort and fear had left him exhausted. His body flooded with adrenaline, and for a moment, everything went dark.

He woke, and an ancient and fierce voice spoke. “You're going to die”, it said matter-of-factually. His starvation had grown, and it had pushed his brain back into consciousness: “If you don’t free yourself now, you will die. And your offspring won’t survive their first winter, and it would have all been for nothing.” With a tremendous, agonizing thrust, Scarum ripped his broken foot from the shiny twig and set about limping his way as quietly as he could to the safety of his nest.

Shunned

The other mice sniffed him with trepidation as he skulked past them, trying to hide his injury. He knew that if a mouse his age showed weakness or sickness, they might be forced out to die alone, far from the others, to avoid spreading any sickness. He found himself despising his horde, fear, pain, and hunger had twisted him into hatred. As he rested he found himself dreaming up vengeance against his own mice for the betrayal he perceived. He watched as they scurried about finding tiny morsels of food. His mate even seemed distant, as she distracted herself with making a warm place to give birth. He felt no safety in this place anymore, he hid his pain and fear as best he could, but as he moved among the other mice he would hiss and snarl at them ‘they probably think I’m too old’ he thought ‘they’ll wait for me to die, then they’ll eat me. I need to eat before they do.’

Scarum searched his nest for anything edible; he and his mate had stowed away food as the light had grown shorter, but through the dark and cold days, they had been forced to nibble on bits of it, especially when his mate's belly had started to grow bigger with pinkies. Scarum licked the tiniest of crumbs from the floor of the nest, so desiccated and spoiled it felt like ash on his tongue. The despair this brought him was not only for his survival, but for that of his young. The light had started to grow longer over the past few days; this didn’t mean much in the shelter, but it might allow him to venture out and find something beyond the walls, where he remembered himself being young.

‘When the light comes back, I’ll venture out, ’ he thought to himself as sleep took him.

He was born in the days when the light was plentiful and the warmth spread through the world, he remembers being able to live outside the walls. Food was never plentiful, but there was always an opportunity if you knew where to find it. Scarum felt these memories coming back to him as he slept, sweet smells of berries and flowers filled his mind, and gave him the energy to push on once more.

When he woke it was dark, he felt himself so close to death. He could hear the sound of food, smell it as it was dropped by the loud things that lived beyond his nest. he knew this was when they intentionally dropped dead things for the voracious, clawing, sharp-toothed death that they kept subdued, perhaps in fear for their own lives.

'If I move with cunning and quiet, I could get to the place where they leave the meat before the furry, long tail even knows it’s there, it’s beyond the walls now, and it makes a lot of sound pushing its way back through the opening in the weakened wall.’ He thought, building his courage.

He scurried with as much skill and stealth as he could manage with three working legs, sometimes pushing against the wall for support, skipping from shadow to shadow. The smell grew so strong in his mind that nothing was going to stop him. When he edged closer, he could see the meat was in a hollow in a smooth-sided stone. He pulled himself up to it without the use of his hind legs, but when he got his nose to the top, he had to scrape his broken foot on the side to lift his head closer to the chunks of moist, salty meat, the agony of his bone scouring through his unhealed flesh threw fire into his eyes. He grabbed for the meat and let himself drop. He could no longer pretend to walk on his destroyed, crumpled limb, he dragged it behind him as he desperately tried to get as much of the bounty back to safety.

Just as he was close enough to sense his familiar horde through the gap in the wall, he could hear breathing getting closer behind him. He froze in the shadow, hoping that the breathing wasn’t close enough to know he was there, but knowing that the vicious creature was only ever that quiet when it intended to be, his mind raced. ‘If I run now, it will see me for sure, and if it’s close enough, it will grab me before I can get to the safety of the crack in the wall, it can’t get itself in there. It has, on occasion, swiped its claws through the gap, in the hopes that one of us would be foolish enough to have our faces nearby. But it can’t fit entirely through,’ he thought, panicked, as he glanced behind himself as carefully as he could while clinging to the chunk of meat in his jaws.

First, he saw its looming figure, in a tense striking pose, ready, almost trembling with prepared energy. A viper-like coil of murderous intent. As he carefully looked up he saw its eye, fixed on him, laser-focused. ‘That’s It!’ he thought as he pumped his remaining usable muscles with as much adrenaline as his chemically drained body could fulfill. He no longer felt pain, just the strange sensation of forcing bones to move with will power alone. As he darted, so did the creature. His head flew into the gap and was met with a flurry of panicked feet, all scurrying into their respective hiding spots. The chunk of meat flew from his mouth as he involuntarily gasped it open, all the pain he had discarded came flooding back in one fell swoop. Along with an entirely new but wholly more bitter pain, the sensation of five, razor-sharp thorns slashing through his one good leg.

Acceptance

His mate's whiskers came up to meet his as he was pulled backwards through the gap, and the chunk of meat slopped down to lie at her feet. The last he saw of her and his unborn young was a look of relief. Relief for the meal that would see them through one, perhaps two full days of this most threatening time. Relief that he had come back for them, and not simply eaten to fill his own starved stomach, but most of all relief that he wouldn’t suffer the hurt and indignity of being pushed out by his horde.

Scarum felt his insides being shaken to jelly as he was flung back and forth in the bite of the creature, a bite enough to hurt, enough to squeeze the air out of him, but not enough to kill. Although he could sense there was ample power to cut him in two, if that was what it had wanted, but for now, flinging his organs around inside the sack of meat that was now his body seemed to be the intention.

“DROP THAT! YOU CRUEL THING!”

What Scarum heard was a booming, unintelligible roar coming from a disembodied, distant place, like thunder from faraway hills.

“WHAT IS IT?”

”A MOUSE”

“WHERE’D THAT COME FROM?”

“I DON’T KNOW? CAT MUST HAVE BROUGHT IT IN…”

“IS IT STILL ALIVE?”

“I THINK SO, PRETTY BEATEN UP THOUGH, DEFINATELY GOT A BROKEN LEG, FEW BROKEN RIBS, BY THE WAY IT’S BREATHING I’D EXPECT A PUNCTURED LUNG”

“AWW, IT WOULDN’T SURVIVE,”

“WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH IT?”

“I DON’T KNOW, CHUCK IT OUTSIDE!”

Scarum felt the air rushing past his whiskers, he felt the earth fly beneath him, up was down, then down was up, no sense of the ground anymore. He felt alive.

‘Is this what dying feels like?’ he thought.

“SCHLOMPH”

Scarum hit the wet clump of grass hard. he lay there, listening to his heart beating.

‘Still alive, He thought,

He slipped in and out of consciousness throughout the night, no energy or will left to move, even if his body was still capable of movement. Nothing left but to dream. He dreamt of the warm days, the light days, when he was young. He dreamt of running through dry grass, long enough not to be seen, but thin enough to fly through unhindered. He dreamt of the days without fear, before the shelter, before the hiding, before the stashing of crumbs for fear of starvation.

When his eyes opened for the last time, he saw the dawning sun break, and he licked at the dewdrops from the blades of grass. he felt refreshed and peaceful..