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The sun shone down on a beautiful grassy field littered with many types of flowers, butterflies fluttering about as a cool breeze was blowing through the air. Mitzi, the cheerful, 12-year old squirrel was frolicking through the flowers, admiring their stunning petals and sweet scent. She was wearing a pretty white sundress, with a flower crown on her head, feeling absolutely joyous.
She turned and saw her best, most cherished friend in the whole wide world, Murphy, also frolicking in the flowers. Gone was his usual attire, he was clad in a white, button-up shirt with dark pants, his trademark goggles absent and his hair slicked back. Their eyes met as Murphy approached her. They joined hands and spun each other around, their giggles echoing out without a care in the world. Nothing could ruin this serene, special moment with her best friend, Mitzi thought.
She was wrong.
Before she had a moment to realize it, dark clouds started to form overhead, blocking out the light and warmth from the sun, before loud thunder started to boom. Mitzi and Murphy looked up in utter confusion. “What the… what’s going on?” Mitzi asked, wondering how the weather could’ve changed so drastically, so quickly.
Murphy’s eyes were scanning the skies, before he spotted strange, glowing lights emitting from the clouds. “Look!” He yelled as he pointed to the lights. Out from the clouds, appeared many strange, flying, disc-like objects. They were large in size and covered in many blinking lights. They surrounded the cat and squirrel duo, Mitzi holding onto Murphy’s shoulder with a feeling of dread sitting in her stomach, not knowing what was happening.
One of the strange objects that was directly floating over the two opened up a hatch on its bottom and a bright, green beam shone onto them. Murphy suddenly started to float up to it at a rapid pace, startling him. “Murphy!” Mitzi yelled out, acting quick to save her friend. She grabbed onto his hand and pulled down with all her weight to prevent him from being abducted. The beam proved to be strong, but the will and determination to save her best friend gave Mitzi all the strength to overpower it. “Murphy! Whatever you do, please do not let go of my hand!”
She started to walk backwards, slowly but surely pulling Murphy out from the tractor beam. Suddenly, two strange figures emerged from the UFO and floated downwards to the duo. They were unlike anything the two had seen before. They were strange and otherworldly, with pale, green skin and large heads with long, gangly limbs. Their large, dark eyes reflected no light as Mitzi looked at them with fear. One grabbed onto her while the other held onto Murphy, trying to pull the two from each other.
“No! Let go of me, you meanies!” Mitzi struggled with all her might, trying to kick the strange creature off of her, but to no avail as her kicks seemed to do nothing against it. After a hard fought struggle, the two were finally separated, as Murphy and the creature holding onto him were sucked up into the UFO. “MITZI!” Murphy yelled, panic evident in his voice as he disappeared from her sight.
Mitzi looked on in shock and horror. Her best friend. The person she cared for most in her life. She had failed him and now he was gone, forever. “No… NO!” She thrashed about to no use, as the alien creature still held onto her. “Come back!” Tears started to well up in her eyes. “Murphy! MURPHY!”
Mitzi tossed and turned in her bed, her sheets becoming disheveled as she thrashed about. With a quick yelp, she jolted wide awake, sitting up as she breathed hard, her body covered in sweat. She took a few seconds to catch her breath and let her eyes adjust to the dark surroundings. She found herself back inside the safety of her bedroom, no field of flowers and no aliens or UFOs around. She took a moment to register what had just happened. It had all been a dream, none of the awful things that had happened to her and Murphy were real. But why was she still shaken up as if it had happened? Usually, if Mitzi had a bad dream, she could just shrug it off and quickly go back to sleep, but it didn’t seem to be the case this time.
She swung her legs over the side of her bed and landed down softly onto the floor. Clad in her orange pajama top and bottoms, she went over to her window and looked out. The night sky was clear with minimal stars present, lit up by the moon as well as all the lights of New Lennium City. Despite being safe and sound, Mitzi couldn’t help but to feel on edge strangely. While her room was dead silent, the sounds of her dream kept echoing in her mind, especially the awful sound of Murphy screaming her name as he was ripped away from her. The image of her best friend being forcefully taken away sent another shiver down her spine.
She decided she needed to see him, the late hour be darned. She quietly exited her room, hoping she didn’t wake her mother up.
The cheering and adoring roar of the crowd filled Murphy’s ears as he stood atop one of the biggest ramps he had ever seen in his 12 years of life. At the end of the ramp was a large body of water, with hungry, blood thirsty sharks swimming about looking for their next meal. Above the water, three large rings were suspended in the air, set ablaze with flames. Murphy smirked at the sight, oozing confidence.
Below the ramp, the Action Channel 4 News van was parked, with Delia, Murphy’s mother, talking to the camera in a live broadcast. “This is it, ladies and gentleman. We here at Channel 4 news are proud to present exclusive coverage of the Stunt of the Millennium! Skateboarding prodigy Murphy, has already won every award and accolade there is to be earned in skateboarding, but if he can jump through three burning rings over shark infested water, he will officially be cemented as the greatest skateboarder to have ever lived!” Delia told the viewers with great enthusiasm as the camera panned over to Murphy, not a single ounce of doubt or worry present in his face.
Murphy adjusted his red, fingerless gloves and pulled his goggles down to cover his eyes. He steadied himself on his skateboard as he prepared to perform the stunt. “Alright, time to shred!” He told himself as he pushed off with his foot, quickly descending down the large ramp. The wind in his fur and the ruckus cheer of the crowd was like a shot of adrenaline to the young cat’s heart.
“Murphy!”
The crowd chanted his name as he waved to them. It still felt unreal, Murphy was finally going to achieve his life goal of being the greatest skateboarder ever!
“Murphy!”
But it shouldn’t really be a surprise to him. After all, he was a prodigy and everyone knew he was destined for greatness! Even someone like Vivian had to admit he had what it took to get here.
“MURPHY!”
Murphy took notice that the crowd sounded off. Specifically, that it sounded like someone familiar. But he had no time to think about that. The end of the ramp was coming up and he was prepared for the greatest moment of his life-
“MURPHY!”
From out of nowhere, Mitzi’s face popped out in front of him. This startled Murphy so hard that he lost his balance on his board right as he jumped off the ramp, causing him to bail and fall into the water. The last thing he saw was a hungry shark jumping out of the water for a quick and tasty snack.
“Murphy, wake up!” whispered Mitzi as she shook Murphy’s prone, sleeping body, before Murphy jolted awake with a slight yelp, his fur standing on end from suddenly being startled awake. “Oh thank goodness, you’re awake.” Murphy stared at Mitzi as he rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was still somehow dreaming, until his vision cleared up.
He raised an eyebrow, utterly confused about what was happening. “Mitzi? What the heck are you doing in my room? It’s…” He looked at his small digital alarm clock, the bright red numbers easily visible in his dark bedroom. “...2 in the morning!” He would’ve also asked how she even got into his apartment, but she has already somehow managed to enter numerous times in the past and at this point, he and his family had stopped caring.
Mitzi looks down at the floor, her feet rubbing against the blue carpeting nervously with her hands behind her back. “Well… I… I had a really bad dream earlier and I… was wondering if I could sleep in your bed with you tonight…” She said sheepishly with a faint blush. Even for such a goofy and carefree girl like her, even she had to admit that she sounded a bit silly asking him for this.
Murphy had a bit of an uninterested (and tired) look on his face at her words. It seemed so typical of Mitzi for her to ask something like this, but he noticed something strange with her. She was always a ray of sunshine, a shining beacon of joy and whimsy, but she seemed to be anything but. She seemed disheveled, stressed even. It’s not very often he saw his friend like this, but there was always an odd feeling deep in his heart when he saw her like this. A feeling that he needed to bring her smile back. With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, he scooched over to make space on his bed and patted the empty space.
Mitzi’s eyes widened and a small smile showed up on her face as she quickly hopped in next to him, rocking the bed slightly as she pulled the covers up over herself. Murphy decided to question her. “So, you said you had a bad dream, huh?” Mitzi silently nodded. “You want to uhh… talk about it a bit? If you’re comfortable with it, that is”
Mitzi sighed, deciding it was probably a good idea to talk about it with him. “Yeah, that’s fine. It was me and you, having a good time together in a pretty field of flowers. It was so wonderful. Then, it got all dark and stormy and suddenly, these UFOs showed up from out of nowhere, with aliens!”
“Aliens, huh? Knew it was a bad idea to rent that crappy UFO documentary…” Murphy’s humorous comment drew a soft giggle from Mitzi, the sound melodious in the quiet room and making Murphy feel a bit warm inside.
“Afterwards, they started to try and pull you up into a UFO using their tractor beam. I held onto your hand as strongly as I could, but then the aliens pulled us off each other and they abducted you! I don’t even know why they wanted you, I felt so awful for letting go and losing you! I don’t know what I would do if I ever lost you! I’d… I…” Murphy’s eyes widened when he heard her voice start to quiver and look to her to see tears starting to well up in her eyes.
He immediately sat up and started to rub her back, trying to comfort his best friend. “Hey hey! Calm down! It’s alright, everything is alright.” He rubbed her back in small circles as Mitzi’s sniffles started to die down. “It’s all just a dream, I’m right here for you and I’ll always be here for you.” He gently lifted her head to face him. “No matter what comes between you and I, we’ll always have each other’s backs and that’s a promise I’ll never break.”
Mitzi meekly looked into his eyes, seeing nothing but genuine care, but she had to make sure. “Promise?”
Murphy chuckled and grabbed her hand, gripping it tight. “Promise. Besides, it's gonna take more than some freaky aliens to separate us.” He added with a chuckle. Mitzi blushed and smiled, before engulfing him in a tight hug, nestling her head into the crook of his neck. Murphy was a bit embarrassed, but he will gladly accept it for his friend as he returned the hug. He let go of the hug as he said, “Now, let’s get some sleep.” Mitzi nodded, snuggling up against Murphy’s chest as the two proceeded to get some well earned shut-eye.
With the comforting warmth of Murphy’s body heat and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, Mitzi quickly re-entered dream world.
The sky was shaded a dark and soothing orange and purple hue as the sun had begun its descent beyond the horizon. Mitzi and Murphy had set up their spot on top of a grassy hill, with a perfect clear view of the sky above. In front of them was a box of many different kinds of fireworks ready to be lit.
Murphy brought a lighter out to light the fuse to the fireworks, quickly rushing back over to Mitzi and sitting down next to her to watch the show. After a few seconds, the fireworks flew up into the air, whistling loudly before exploding, booming and echoing out as the evening sky was lit up in a variety of colors and patterns.
Mitzi rested her head on Murphy’s shoulders, glad to be able to experience this with the person she cares deeply for. As the fireworks show was drawing to an end, the last few patterns exploded in the shape of Murphy and Mitzi’s heads, with a large heart behind them. The cat and squirrel duo looked into each other’s eyes as they softly held hands.