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The rats here are fat. Tasty.
There’s one now.
Crouch. Quiet. A tremble in your tail and a taste on the tip of your tongue—fresh blood, warm meat. It skitters away; away from you.
Stay low; stay quiet—you follow. One corner, two; you haven’t been this deep into the dark here before, but the rat is so fat and you are hungry. You squeeze through tiny spaces as you head further and further in.
A light up ahead. The rat stops; it washes its face. Relaxed. Time to strike.
You gather yourself; aim—you see the rat freeze and NOW.
Your claws graze the fur of your prey but they don’t catch—you yowl in excitement, throwing yourself after the movement, after the skittish noises, it’s running but you can catch it, you can—
Then a big loud noise, and something even bigger in your way; something moving; the rat is lost and you're the prey now; you bare your teeth and fluff yourself up as it moves towards you.
The way out is blocked, there’s nothing but a wall behind you, so you show off the sharpness of your teeth and you make a warning noise. It’s bigger than you but you can still hurt it; still make it regret coming too close.
It’s very big and smells strange; a human. Humans are unpredictable. Sometimes they have strange food; most of the time they have loud noises and chase you. This human comes closer to the ground. It makes a noise and stares right at you with its big ugly eyes, but you won’t back down. You hiss as fiercely as you can. When it reaches out a limb you teach it how sharp your claws are.
Again a noise, loud and deep and then—
It won’t hurt you.
But it’s big and it’s a human and humans are dangerous and unpredictable and—
It’s not like other humans.
You don’t know what this is, you don’t know what this big thing wants; you curl your tail tight around you and hiss again. But it’s a quiet confused hiss.
You shouldn’t be here. This place belongs to the not-like-other-humans. It’ll take you away.
And it puts its big furless paws around you—you hiss because you have to hiss, you have sharp teeth and sharp claws and it shouldn’t forget—but you don’t bite and you don’t scratch because it’s taking you out of its lair and you do want to get out of its lair.
When you can smell the outside, it puts you down, and swats you softly on the back so you almost lose your balance. You hiss at it for that; if it does that again you’ll show it how sharp your claws are—properly this time.
It’s not afraid. It thinks you’re... funny?
Well, you don’t know what that means but it better watch itself. You’re not afraid of it, and you show that by starting to clean yourself. See how much you care about a not-like-other-humans. It can have its lair as long as it leaves you alone.
You know it’s leaving before you hear the sounds of it; it lets you know. Good. Better watch itself. You look up to see that it’s properly disappeared, and then you trot off to find other prey.
The other prey is worse. You catch a mouse but it’s small and unsatisfying. The birds all escape; up into the air where you can’t follow. It’s not fair. The rats in not-like-other-humans’ lair are so fat. You want one. You could catch one, if the not-like-other-humans wasn’t there to stop you.
But it can’t stop you forever.
It’s dark both inside and outside the next time you sneak back into the forbidden lair. It doesn’t take long before you catch the scent of fat rat—but the scent of the not-like-other-humans is weaker. It left! The lair is yours! A lair full of rats!
And this time, when you spot one, you are so quiet and so careful, and when your claws dig into it, it’s the best feeling you have ever felt. When your teeth break it’s skin and it squeaks in terror, oh, your whole world is full of excitement and joy.
You bite down firmly and lift the big fat rat, dragging it with you to a higher place. Soft and protected, a corner, and then you dig into your meal. It is a wonderful tasty rat. No wonder not-like-other-humans wanted to keep it for themselves.
When the rat is gone you feel so full and satisfied and so tired. Sleeping in the scent of your food is unpleasant, though, so you jump over to one of the other raised soft places and there are good corners there too. An excellent place for sleeping.
The light comes on, and suddenly there’s noise. Quickly you tense, listening intently for—
Ah. It’s the not-like-other-humans. Annoying, but not dangerous. It’s not going to hurt you. You tuck your head back under your paw and try to ignore it.
It keeps making noise, though. Strange growling noises with its mouth, like humans do towards each other. And you’re awake now—stupid thing. You stretch your legs, feel the tension in your spine all the way to the tip of your tail. Relax.
Then the not-like-other-humans is blocking the light. Watching you. It makes one of its growling noises.
You scream back at it. It didn’t want you to eat the rat, sure, but there are lots of rats still left.
The rats aren’t food.
This thing is clearly stupider than other humans, that’s why it’s different. Stupid-human.
Stupid-human takes it’s stupid furless paws and puts them around your stomach to lift you up. You stare into its big ugly face with it’s strange ugly eyes, and you scream at it first, this time.
It really thinks you’re funny, whatever that means. Or maybe it doesn’t—there’s something here that doesn’t like you at all, something baring its teeth—
You hiss, and try to regain your freedom by squiggling—then it’s gone.
It’s all right.
It’s not all right. You want to be back on the ground, but the stupid-human’s grip is to strong. You bite its stupid human paw in one of its long wierd extra limbs. Just to make a statement. You’re not funny. You don’t know what it means, but still, but your teeth are sharp and your claws are too, and this thing is big and stupid but you could show it. If you wanted to.
It swings you through the air and sets you down on a new surface. It smells strange. Like food but not really. You sniff the surface, the strange shapes, until you find what the source, and it might be food; it’s not a rat but you want to lick and and when you do it tastes—
It’s a taste you want more of. Much more. It’s good. Almost as good as rat, almost as good—
The stupid human yelps at you—not for you.
You scream at it and it screams back. You’re about to turn back to the strange food when it puts something else in front of you, and, oh—
It’s even better than rat. It’s cold but there’s so much of it; you’ve never had anything like this before. You look up at stupid-human and find that it’s looking at you again—you hiss. This is yours now. It better watch out.
It leaves you alone while you eat, and you finish all of the yummy strange food. Then you wash yourself. When you look around, the stupid-human is gone. You scream—maybe it will scream back? But no.
There is a new sound coming from one of the openings in the wall, though—maybe it went over there. You jump back down to the floor and trot over, the sound getting louder as you go. The space beyond the opening is where the noise is loudest, and yes, the stupid-human is there. Leaning against a wall, holding something up that’s...
Ew, that’s wet! It’s water, everywhere!
It really is stupid. You scream at it again, and it screams back.
Yes, of course you’ll get wet if you go in there. It is the one that doesn’t seem to understand that, standing right in the middle of all the wetness. If you get wet you get cold and that’s bad. Doesn’t it know that?
It does, and it makes the noise and the water stop. It comes down close to the ground again, and holds out its paw. The sound it makes now is slightly less unpleasant than its usual growl, and you decide that if it has more of the yummy-food, it’s worth some wet paws.
When you smell it, though, there’s just stupid-human smell and wetness. You scream at it again, just to let it know how stupid it is. If it wants to get wet, that’s its business—you’re going to head back to the cozy sleeping corner.
You just finished cleaning yourself again when it comes back. Holds out its paw, again, and still no food. Maybe you’ll forgive it. You’re not that hungry now, anyway.
It growls quietly at you.
Yes, you’re going to stay here. Why would you leave? It’s warm and the stupid-human is clearly not using all of this space. There are rats to eat and maybe more yummy-food somewhere.
Fine; you’ll leave the rats alone if it gives you more yummy-food. Maybe. It touches you with its paw, touches your head and—
Oh, that’s nice. That’s the itchy spot—you like that. You scream at the stupid-human to let it know.
It growls back, and moves its paw as the itchy spot moves. Good. Maybe the stupid-human is not so bad. You close your eyes and purr.
It makes a quiet human sound. Maybe you are not so bad either.
It’s… afraid? It lost its colony, just like you. There are other humans hunting it.
Well. You have sharp teeth and sharper claws and you’ll show them, if they dare come here.
