Hunter (DISCONTINUED)

Chapter 3

I woke to something soft cuddling into my face, tickling my nose and making me sneeze.

"Mmm..." I murmured. "Cat Noire? Is that you?"

A soft meow was my response.

"I'll take that as a yes," I chuckled, opening my eyes to a black furry face with two emerald green eyes and sitting up, the blanket falling from my chest to my thighs, and stretching, joints cracking in several places.

I stroked her soft fur. "What are you up to, girl?"

My beloved cat looked at me innocently, her slightly wet nose twitching.

A ripped patch of the same mat the Mute Old Man had been meditating on that morning dangled from her claws.

 "Cat! What have you done?" I cried out. "You know you aren't supposed to touch MOM's things!"

MOM stood for 'Mute Old Man', the nickname I had given my adoptive father since he couldn't tell me his real name.

I brushed the square strip of woven twine from Cat Noire's paws, shaking my head. "That mat was his favorite."

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and I looked up, instantly catching sight of MOM limping on a cane and trained my eyes on the dirt floor, slowly crawling out of the hay bed.

"I'm sorry," I said softly.

He looked at me with a 'How many times do I have to tell you' kind of look in his eyes. He arched a silver-flecked eyebrow, tilting his head.

Ducking my head ashamedly, I spoke with my chin in my chest. "Cat Noire ripped up your favorite mat. I'm sorry. I should've taught her more."

I fidged with the woven twine Cat Noire's claws had saved as a souvenir.

He made the sign for You're all right, I don't blame you, it wasn't your fault.

He and I had created a sort of code for communication over the years together, like clap for yes, snap for no, and this one was by far the one he used the most. He tapped his chest once, clapped twice, and pointed at me. 

I was always apologizing for things I didn't do, but this one was sort of my fault.

I blushed. "Sorry, I just... I don't know..." my voice trailed off when I realized there wasn't really an explanation. 

He nodded understandingly. 

I bent down, scratching Cat Noire's furry chin and trying to harden my heart. "You still made a mistake."

She tilted her head cutely and I cursed myself for falling for her antics.

Sighing, I stood back up, stray hay sticking out the sides of my bed poking my legs.

I headed toward the wooden door of the hay hut, ignoring the apologetic meows of my cat.

________________________________________________________________________________

I walked towards the back of the hut, fallen leaves crackling under my feet. 

The hay hut wasn't small, but it wasn't big, either. It was almost six arm lengths wide, jutting about four arm lengths into the sky. MOM had built it himself, completing the project about a week or two after my arrival.

I came to two piles of sticks, sticks with lots of meaning. There were exactly 1,595 twigs lain neatly on the dirt ground in bundles of a hundred. The first pile had exactly 1,327 sticks, and the other was 268.

By now, I'm pretty sure you've realized these twigs were how I kept track of my scores.

I had cleared out the place, so these were the only sticks around. If I wanted to add a stick to my piles, I had to go some way out of the clearing on which the hut was built. 

I turned away from these sticks, walking away with slow, deliberate steps to keep from kicking up a flurry of dirt behind me.

I scavenged the area. No sticks here.

I looked behind the hut. Nothing here, either.

Searching for a twig in the north side of the hut was futile, too.

I decided to just snap a twig off a shrub. I walked to a bush and yanked at a small branch sticking out. 

Crack! The twig snapped off into my hand.

With a sigh, I went back to the piles of sticks. 

I deliberately moved my legs as slow as I possibly could. I was in no hurry to get there.

Soon, the sticks came into view.

I clenched the twig in my fist. Another Fail. Another clue I was worthless. Another sign my parents were right. 

I set it down in the second pile.

Maybe they were right.

But for now, all I knew was I had to do everything in my power to prove them wrong. 

We'll see who was right later. 

But for now, the battle was still on. 

And despite my recent Failings, I was Winning.

_________________________________________________________________

A/N: Hellooooooo, dear readers - okay that just sounded so phony I had to stop - BUT thank you for actually opening this 'book' to read it. Chapter Four is ready, but I want to edit it before posting. It'll be about 3 days until I update again, okay? (I honestly don't think anyone is reading - I only have about 20 views and all the votes are me) 

If you can, please, please PLEASE click that vote button, star, whatever you want me to call it, at the bottom of the page, or on the top right corner. It would mean a lot to me. And also, tell me what you like about the story! Comments are what encourage me to keep going. If you can comment, please do so!

Thank you!

 Have a Miraculous day!