Chapter Text
A small mouse scurried through the undergrowth, woefully unaware of the blazing red predator watching it.
Rusty flicked his tail from side to side, preparing to leap. He didn’t dare to blink or breathe, just in case his collar’s bell rang again. Excitement coursed through him, making his heart pound loudly in the silence. This was so much better than dreaming of the forest!
Then, a moment before he could leap for the mouse, a sudden sound of cracking twigs and crunching leaves made him jump. His bell jangled treacherously, and the mouse darted away into the thickest tangle of the bramble bush.
Rusty stood rooted to the spot and turned his head to look for the source of the sound. He could see the white tip of a bushy red tail trailing through a clump of tall ferns up ahead. He smelled a strong, strange scent, definitely a meat-eater, but neither cat nor dog. Distracted, Rusty forgot about the mouse and watched the red tail curiously.
He wanted a better look.
Rusty avoided any sudden movements or heavy steps in an attempt to silence any more annoying chimes from his collar, but he couldn’t keep up with the animal’s pace. The strange tail kept bobbing in and out of view as it slid further and further away into the bushes.
The branches around him seemed to jut out at every angle, and they raked his pelt with their thorny claws when he tried to move faster to close the growing gap. The tail snaked faster and faster between oaks and elms, only to vanish into the shadows behind a thick bush. Rusty, completely forgoing stealth for speed, leaped through the brambles after the red and white tail. With a protesting shriek of his collar, he emerged from the leaves. But the animal was gone.
Rusty’s tail lashed with frustration. He can’t hunt anything! He can’t even catch the mouse in his dreams! Rusty sat down with a huff.
But… he didn’t want to go home yet. The forest still held its mysteries and Rusty was in too deep now to go back. He didn’t want to go home. There was a chance that the animal hadn't gotten away. And there was still more to explore, more to see and do.
He thought of the forest and of his dreams, and pushed away the lethargic routine of his perilous housecat life. Rusty shifted through his senses to pick up any trace of the animal.
He could see the early stars peeking through the canopy. He could feel the dew on the grass beneath his paws. An owl cooed somewhere overhead and the canopy creaked in the slight breeze, but he heard no crackling undergrowth that would hint at the animal’s presence.
Then, his nose picked up the strong, peculiar scent from before, and he could suddenly see the animal’s trail when his eyes could not. He breathed in the forest air, focusing hard to narrow down which direction the animal had disappeared to.
Rusty padded through the forest, his nose leading his paws onward. Rusty knew of the fabled vicious wildcats and mad unleashed dogs, but this scent was new, different. Bright sparks of excitement lit a kindling fire under his paws. He continued forward.
Rust padded into a small moonlit clearing and paused. Beads of dew gathered on each blade of grass and sparkled in the pearlescent moonlight. They shone like millions of stars fallen onto the lush forest floor. He couldn’t help being amazed by the sight. The forest was so much more beautiful than Henry’s foreboding stories made it out to be.
Rusty was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a steady sound coming from the bushes behind him. It was quiet and still distant, and he had to pause to listen. ‘Are those…pawsteps?’ He tilted his head and turned towards the clearing. ‘But the scent leads towards…’
Just then, Rusty saw the white-tipped tail vanish into the shadows of a small cave in the center of them clearing. Rusty bounded into the clearing, before slowing into a quiet crouch before the cave entrance. Excitement and curiosity pooled together in his mind, washing away any thought of the sound behind him.
Rusty ducked into the low ferns and grass and stretched his neck to peer into the dark cave. There was a figure, lithe and slim, standing in the shadows. Its bright red-orange pelt was darkened and dulled by the cave’s shadow. It looked similar to a cat, but slightly larger than any cats Rusty’s seen before. (And he knows Henry!)
Its slim muzzle was pointed down at something moving around its thin, brown legs. Rusty followed its eyes and saw two smaller and lighter bundles of fur bumbling over and around its paws.
‘It has kits’, Rusty realised.
The kits circled their mother’s slim brown legs, greeting her with scratchy mews. In their excitement, the more vocal kit stumbled, paws colliding with its mother’s, and fell flat onto its nose. But before Rusty could worry about the kit, it got up only to continue bouncing around its mother, apparently learning nothing. Rusty let out an amused purr as he watched the stumbling kits, his whiskers quivering in amusement.
But as Rusty purred, the mother’s ears swiveled back towards the sound. And it wasn’t until its sharp muzzle followed, that Rusty realized his mistake.
The mother let out a low yip that sent the two kits running back into the concealing shadows of the cave. Rusty pressed his ears flat, lowering himself down into the undergrowth as far as he could, willing himself to remain unseen. The red shadow, half mother, half beast, stepped away from the cave’s cover and into the clearing.
The light of the stars fell suddenly on its red coat, making it glow slightly and ominously like smoldering embers. Its lips parted to reveal a row of fangs, glistening in the moonlight, as it let out a low warning snarl, directed vaguely into the clearing. It hadn’t seen him yet, but just a few pawsteps further and he would be in range of its fangs.
Rusty was beginning to think Henry’s weary stories of the forest weren't so made-up. He felt horrible picturing Smudge and Henry telling his shredded remains a disheartened “I told you so”. He could not let that be his funeral.
Rusty discretely looked around the clearing, desperately hoping for some way out. His ears pricked and he suddenly picked up the same distant, padded sound in the bushes behind him. It was the pawsteps again. They seemed quicker and louder than before… like they were charging.
Thoughts of a larger, murderous mate filled his brain–a father beast to join the mother beast in the hunt and ensure the kill.
Rusty panicked and before he could stop himself he turned to look into the wall of leaves behind him. But when he twisted around, his collar meekly clinked on the grass blades below him. Rusty froze in the silence that followed and suddenly realized how much of his fur was exposed to the sky.
The mother beast had spotted him and rattled its tail with an accompanying snarl. It didn’t move to snap at him yet, seemingly trying to scare him off instead of fighting. It was working; he was terrified. But he didn’t run, not yet. Instead he listened for the pawsteps behind him.
Rusty waited, just a moment longer, his panicked heart pounding against his chest like a prisoner begging to be let free. He held his stance, mind aflame with a single, admittedly rushed idea that might work. The leaves behind him started to shake and quiver as the pawsteps ran closer.
He waited until the mother beast decided to take another threatening step forward and the third shadow leapt from the bushes behind him, before finally making his move.
…Now!
Rusty shot sideways, dashing with the speed of a comet, ducking underneath the two lunging predators. Rusty knew he wouldn’t outrun the mother beast, so he had to hope his stalker would keep it busy enough for his escape. He bolted across the clearing, hearing the yelp of the mother beast as the two figures collided into each other. Rusty immediately felt electrified with adrenaline and triumph.
…But he hardly made it past the treeline before he skidded to a stop, paws frozen in terror.
A hissing screech echoed from where he left the two attackers. His eyes widened as the sound seeped into his pelt like a fast setting venom. It was not the father beast he thought it was. It yowled again, but this time the poisonous echo was congealed in pain.
He had made a terrible mistake.