The Journey Home

My whiskers twitched as I walked through the tall grass. I had to move quickly so I could avoid the large spotted creatures. They mostly ate grass, but they never paid attention when they sat down and I wanted to avoid being crushed. I made my way under the zapping wire and continued on towards the large structure that was filled with the dry grass.

I’ve lived here for as long as I can remember. There are four of us in total that live in the dry grass, but they travel farther than I do and sometimes they are gone for days. The furthest I’ve gone is the field where I can catch mice. I have to be careful though, because the tall furless creatures dislike having me around. Whenever they see me they make loud noises and run towards me and I’m afraid of what will happen if they catch me.

I was almost to the bar when I heard the slam that comes from one of the tall creatures leaving the structure. I started to run so they wouldn’t see me when there was a loud pop and then all I could feel was pain. My eye felt like it was on fire as I continued to run, but this time I ran away from the structure I had called home.

Once the structure was no longer in sight I stopped and curled up trying to ease the pain in my head. I had no idea what the creature did to me but I could no longer see anything with my left eye.

I don’t know how long I layed there before I forced myself to get up and start moving again. I walked down the hot black ground for a short while before I came across another structure, but this one had random trinkets instead of dry grass. I decided it would be a good place to stay for now.

When the sky turned dark I smelled a strange scent on the wind. It was getting closer to me and I hid behind one of the trinkets so I could see what approached without it seeing me. I didn’t wait long before a creature my size walked into the structure. It had a white face with beady eyes and long gray body. It’s feet were different from mine with visible claws and it walked funny. It nosed it’s way to the spot I had been sleeping in and layed down. I slowly made my way over to the creature and sniffed it. The creature stilled when it saw me but then sniffed me back. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.

From that day on we would wander the field behind the house in search of food before heading back to the structure to sleep. It was the same everyday and it was a good life. Until one day the big machines came in and when we came back to sleep we found that the structure was gone and so we had to move on. A short ways away there was a similar structure to the one we had been living in and so we decided to stay in that one now that ours was gone.

Living in the new structure brought another tall furless creature into my life. This one had a white furry face and his skin had folds in it. I tried to hide from him because every tall creature I had come across had always been the same. This one, however, started putting white cream out for me to drink and hard pieces of food that tasted good for me to eat. They left the food on the wooden structure that led to the door of where they lived.

I found that the best times to go out to get the food was after the sky got dark because multiple tall creatures would come to the structure from across the black ground and the structure that lay on the other side of it. This tall creature may have been feeding me, but that doesn’t mean they are all good. It was nice to know that there was food available for when I couldn’t find any mice.

Once again things went bad for me as the giant machines came back again. The structure the tall creature lived in was gone and we had to go back to hunting for food. Shortly after that I found out that the structure across the black ground had the same hard pieces outside as the tall creature had given us. I started going over there to get the food instead of hunting for mice and so my companion would go hunt for their food when I went over to the structure for mine.

The ground had been covered by the cold white fluff on the day that me and my companion went in search of food together for the last time. When I came back I curled up and waited for my companion to come back so we could get warm. I waited as the sky turned dark and then as it turned light again and my companion had still not come back. I went in search of them but could not find their scent on the wind and I knew that they were gone. I walked back to the structure and tried to find the heat to stay warm by myself as I felt the loss of my companion.

I started going over to the other structure more and more to get food and I didn’t stray far. I barely went back to the old structure because I didn’t want to miss my companion anymore. I was tired of the cold and I was always tired. I was finally getting food on a good basis, but the cold was starting to get to me.

One day when I went to get food the tall creatures who lived in the structure were putting the food out and the door behind them was open. I didn’t want to be alone in the cold anymore and so I ran past the food and straight into the open door. From what I’d witnessed the tall creatures were nothing like the ones I knew when I was younger and so I took that risk and entered their structure.

To this day I’m still stretching out in the light that streams into the structure. I’m curling up on soft surfaces and pressing up against the tall creatures to get them to pet me. I don’t have to be worried about being hungry or cold anymore. I’ve finally found my permanent structure.