Chapter Text
His new tank is… cooler than his last one.
That’s the main thing that strikes Sam about it. It’s a little smaller, with less light, and the aspen under him stinks like fresh pine, but it’s cooler. Not enough to be uncomfortable, but enough to make him feel sluggish.
That’s okay, though. They haven’t fed him, yet. Heat without food just means hunger, creeping up on him sooner and more fiercely, and Sam hates being hungry.
He contemplates this all, slowly. The draft makes even his thoughts creep along. Make it hard to focus. That’s okay, though - less thinking means less energy, less energy means less hunger. Least hunger of all, if he sleeps.
So he sleeps. The bedding is cleaner than his last house - not days-old and packed down by his weight. It’ll lose that softness, in time, but he enjoys it while it lasts, shimmying his body down into the soft mulch and letting it cushion his aches.
Eventually, the light cycles off with an automated click. He hardly notices - the room doesn’t cool too much more, and the dark barely registers as more than a flicker to his drowsing brain.
-----
“What is that?”
Jimmy scrambles up onto the table after Lizzie and freezes at the sight of the - the thing that she’s peering at through a sheet of clear but solid glass.
It’s - horrifying, is the first word that comes to mind. Massive - bigger than five of him put together, but with a horrible, slinking length to it that is completely unlike the cats. It’s - an animal, maybe, but there’s no fur, or feathers - it’s smooth, but not like a human. There’s a mazing pattern woven down its skin, a sleek glossiness that glints in the light -
“I don’t know,” he hisses back. “It’s - I don’t know. We should get out of here -”
“Is it dead?” Lizzie asks, considering it. The creature hasn’t moved - it might be, except Jimmy is pretty sure he can see the slow, steady shift of breathing as its ribs swell and contract.
“I don’t think so,” he murmurs to her. “It’s - that’s a predator -”
“How do you know?” she asks, and maybe that’s fair, because he can’t see the grinning teeth or slit pupils of a hunter. Instead, it’s instinct, wild and ancient, that fills his chest with dread -
“I just do,” he tells her. “We need to get out of here. This isn’t - that thing isn’t safe.”
“Is it sleeping, then?” she asks, and makes her way gracefully around the ledge at the edge of the tank. “Or - do you think the humans trapped it, like they did us?”
“I don’t think it’s trapped,” he hisses. “Look how big it is - it could probably smack right through the glass -”
“Why hasn’t it, then?” she says, and there’s a touch of defiance to it. “Why would it be sitting in there if it wasn’t stuck? It’s so exposed -”
And - it’s a valid point. The creature hasn’t even bothered trying to hide itself, sprawled out and sleeping. Jimmy hesitates, but - he approaches, anyways, to get a better look.
“Why would it hide?” he asks, finally. “Look at it - it could probably eat a cat.”
“It’s not that big,” Lizzie says, but she doesn’t sound confident. “I wonder what it does eat - maybe the humans have a box of food around here -”
“I don’t want to eat anything that that thing does,” Jimmy hisses back. “Come on - let’s get out of here -”
“Fine,” Lizzy tells him, with a snort. “Safety rat,” she adds, more teasingly, and he gives a relieved little chuff as she makes her way back to the ground with a delicate leap.
He can’t help but cast a glance back over his shoulder at the monster as he goes, though. It slumbers on, unflinching.
-----
The lights come back on, and heat begins to warm him back out of the heady daze of topor. Sam stirs slowly, hopefully -
His tongue flicks the air, but there isn’t any food. He lets himself slump down against the bedding, disappointed.
He wants eggs...
He’s not picky, at this point. Some ground meat, or fish, or a shrimp - he’d like a shrimp, crunchy, with the shell still on… Blueberries, maybe. Spinach. He doesn’t like spinach as much, but he would eat it, at this point…
Instead, he sags, and shuts his eyes, and sleeps some more. His body is sore from it - it’s been too long since he had the energy to move around, much, and his muscles ache with the stress of being so still for so long.
He’s woken from his drowse by - a noise. Vibration - someone entering the room, heavy footsteps on the floor.
There’s a moment where he’s disoriented. It’s - not a whole class, not if it’s so little, and there’s none of the loud that accompanies students. The Professor?
But - no. He’s at - a house, now. He doesn’t live at the school anymore. The Professor - isn’t there.
He raises his head, anyways, and bobs his head pleadingly as a human comes closer. A young one - student? - but they tap on the glass, and don’t seem to care when he flinches back from the noise -
“~~~, Sam,” they say, the human-speak incomprehensible, but he recognizes his name. “~~~ ~~~ ~~~~ food ~~~ ~~~. ~~~ ~~~~~~?”
Food? He knows food. He bobs his head. He’s hungry.
He bobs his head, and they laugh, and open the lid for his tank. He weighs the advantages of going up, but the human will just catch him, and, hungry as he is, he doesn’t really want to wait through hand-time before food. Students are - risky, anyways. The Professor keeps them gentle, but even then, they can get too rough, and the Professor isn’t here -
Better to stay in his tank and wait. Blueberries? He parts his lips and begs.
The human laughs, above him. “~~~~~ ~~~ ~~,” they say, reaching in, and there’s something in their hands - a box?
They open the lid to the box, and Sam raises himself up, excited. He understands boxes - he’s opened plenty of them, with the Professor, tricky ones, even. There’s always food inside, even if he’s never been given food in one when he was this hungry -
Then the box tips, and -
That’s not food.
He’s not sure what it is, for a moment, but - it’s not food. It’s - fuzzy, and smells a little like he might be able to eat it, but it’s too big, and warm in a way that food usually isn’t -
And then the things shuffle, and uncurl, and squeak in terror, and - oh.
Sam stares at the rats, and they stare back at him, and Sam honestly isn’t sure which of them is more panicked, in the moment.
-----
“This is - they’re not taking us to the cage, Jimmy,” Lizzie hisses, voice tight with panic, and Jimmy presses into her side in the dark box and flattens his ears to his head.
“I know,” he hisses back. The box they’re in is tiny, cramped and dark, and no matter how he scrabbles, he can’t get purchase on the rounded edges -
The box shakes, roughly, and they’re tossed against each other. He has to scrabble back upright off of her, and she lets out an undignified squeak as his foot squishes her head,
“Sorry,” he mutters, “Sorry, but -”
“It’s fine,” she mumbles. “Just - owch. Where do you think they’re taking us?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “It - Martin and Oli will be looking for us, they’ll save us -”
“Yeah.”
There’s not a lot of hope in the word, though, and her claws scrabble uselessly against the corner.
And then -
Thump.
Thump, and the world rocks. A human voice rumbles above them, incomprehensible, and then something clunks against the side of the box and the world rocks -
They both scream as it tips, completely, and they’re dumped down onto a bed of soft, fluffed woodchips.
It takes a moment to scramble to their feet, eyes wide, teeth bared in panic -
And then Jimmy freezes, pressing Lizzie back behind him as another scream chokes in her throat.
In front of them, the mulch shifts -
And the monster rises up above them, eyes flickering and golden and predatory.
This time, there’s no glass between them and the beast.
-----
Sam doesn’t know what to do, exactly.
He’s seen rats before - never this close. The professor keeps some, he knows - little, soft things, white-furred and red eyed and hard-working. They’re terribly clever - he’s seen them working through mazes before, systematic and quick and eager.
He’s never been introduced to them, though. The Professor kept them to their own tanks, well away from him on the far wall.
He slides forwards, a little, and the larger rat bares glint-sharp, white teeth.
There’s a clunk above that has all three of them flattening themselves to the mulch, eyes shooting up to the now-closed lid of tank. The human’s hand taps on the glass, once - and then there’s a laugh, and he starts to walk away from the tank.
“Wait -” one of the mice scrambles back, eyes huge, and the other presses forwards in front of them.
Sam - looks at them. He’s hungry -
But they’re not food. Even if he was desperate enough - they’re too big for him to hunt. They’re not little fish, or crickets, or crunch-soft mealieworms.
He isn’t sure if they realize that, though. They’re looking scared - scared of him?
He hisses, trying to form words, but his head pounds with the effort of it. He wants to eat and curl up and sleep and be warm - he doesn’t want to eat them -
The larger rat steps forwards, and bares his teeth, again, and - there’s a knife, small and silver-bright, in it’s paw -
Sam rears back as it lunges, letting out a helpless cry as the knife twists across his skin. It catches on a patch of stuck shed, glancing off, but the tip still nicks a thin line of blood -
He hisses in panic as the smaller mouse shouts, “Jimmy -!”
Jimmy, apparently, doesn’t falter, the knife swinging wide as Sam thrashes back across the tank in panic. It’s a tiny thing, but jagged-sharp, and his side throbs where it’s been sliced -
The rat doesn’t keep chasing him, though. It - falters, as he scrambles through the mulch, the aspen dust sticking to his side and clumping as he bleeds, and circles back to it’s companion -
“Yeah!” it shouts, and bares its teeth, again. “You like that?”
“Jimmy -”
He presses himself to the too-cold glass. This side of the tank is - cooler, and he can already feel himself getting sluggish, as his body starts to lose warmth -
But if the rats want the light, they can have it. He doesn’t have the energy to fight one, let alone two, if they’re going to leave him alone while he stays over here -
He’s so hungry. He’s hungry and - hurt, now, and tired - he needs to rest. Conserve energy.
He can’t, though. He settles in to watch, wary but exhausted, as the two rats check each other over, and half-bury themselves in his mulch. They’re dangerous things.
They don’t try to come over to his side of the tank, though. He contents himself with that.
-----
“Lizzie!” Martin’s voice is a shrill hiss of panic. “Jimmy!”
“We’re -” Lizzie almost gasps with relief, voice too loud as she answers him - but the monster doesn’t move, its eyes unflickering as they stare at Jimmy.
“Sh - Lizzie -”
“We’re up here!” she calls, still too loud. “Martin -”
“We’re coming, Lizzie!” Oli yells after him, and it’s a moment before the pair manage to claw their way up over the edge of the table, claws like tiny needles gripping the runner.
They scramble up onto the ledge, and Lizzie scrambles to meet them, as Jimmy watches the monster.
It looks - interested. It looks - hungry, and he lets out a panicked warning-squeak as it shifts -
All three of the mice freeze, and spin around to see what he’s looking at -
“Snake!” Martin manages, voice - panicked. The thing - and Jimmy has never seen a snake, but he’s heard of them - suddenly he realizes that it is, it must be, a snake. It’s too long, serpentine, with a wide jaw and no limbs and paralyzing golden eyes -
It curls back as he bares his teeth again, but now he can see the threat in that, like it’s waiting to strike -
“Oli -” Martin’s voice is on the edge of panic - “Jimmy, Lizzie, stay there, stay safe, we need to get them out -”
“We’re alright!” Lizzie tells them, but Jimmy can hear that she’s seen what he has - her voice is shrill, panicked, she’s trying to claw her way up the glass. “Just - it hasn’t bit us, or anything, just get us out -”
“We will -”
The snake lurches, swaying. Jimmy tightens his grip around the knife - but it doesn’t lunge. Instead, it turns, tracking Martin as he scrambles up behind the tank -
“There’s a mug!” He calls back. “I’m going to push it down, just - hang on, try not to get cut -”
It takes a moment for Jimmy to register the plan -
And then he’s diving on top of Lizzie as a heavy mug smashes off a shelf and through the sheet-thin glass of the tank.
-----
The two new rats are outside of his tank.
That’s - a relief. They’re too fast - he’s so slow, right now, and he hurts and he doesn’t want to waste the energy to move. He doesn’t want to have to fight them - they have sharp, nipping teeth, and he doesn’t know who’d win, if they all decided to gang up on him -
They could gnaw him apart, maybe. He’s made of meat just as much as they are.
They’re yelling to their - friends, maybe? Mice like other mice, he’s pretty sure, there’s none of the rattling thrum of territory/threat that he feels when he thinks about his own long-gone nestmates.
He hisses, low in his chest, but keeps to his wall as he tracks them. They’re - nimble, too, scrambling up the wires of the wall, out of sight onto a shelf -
And then there’s a horrific noise and vibration as something heavy slams into the wall of his tank.
It shatters. Glass sprays - everywhere, small pieces that bounce lightly off of his scales without much harm, but scatter through the aspen and leave the whole tank a maze of jagged edges. The mice - panic, they’re all panic and fastness, and he can hear them shouting as they get their legs under them and half-fling themselves off the table -
Tiny claws scrabble across the floor as he - considers things.
He’s spent a long time in his tank. He likes his tank - there is food, there, and the Professor, and warmth - but there hasn’t been food in a long time. There hasn’t been enough warmth to force the fog of sluggishness from his brain.
The Professor is gone, and Sam knows, despite himself, that he won’t be coming back.
But - he’s been outside his cage before. He knows there is food, there - the centipedes and crickets that lurk in the little wet places, the spiders that string their webs beneath the cabinets, the crunchy plants that the Professor doesn’t like to let him eat. There’s warmth - the gentle rumble of the humidifier, the toasty spot beneath the snake-rack where he can coil up, the windowsill, in summer, when the glass isn’t letting the cold sleep in and he can lay himself flat in the sun -
Instinct, more than anything, sees him slide out of the tank. He isn’t an ambush predator - he doesn’t want to curl in wait for prey that isn’t coming. If there’s no food here - he can find it.
It hurts. He - can feel the little shards of glass scraping against his belly, his thin scales - but he flops out of the cage, and follows the leg of the table down, until he’s on clean carpet that wipes the worst of the glass out of his cuts.
The floor is - dark. Dark, and he can feel running footsteps vibrate through the floor, but - he doesn’t want to get caught by the student again, maybe. He wants to hunt.
He slips into the shadows under a dresser, and relaxes. Dark, and safe, and there’s warmth in the smooth wood under him. There’s -
There’s a tunnel, one he’s never seen before - so much territory that he’s never seen before. He doesn’t hesitate.
He slips into it, and follows the warmth down, and vanishes into the creaking walls of the house.