Her Pride

The Change

I awake with a start to someone gently shaking my side. I roll over and begin to shiver as the hands leave my body.

"Hurry we have to get going!" a panicked voice says from somewhere behind me. I sit up quickly and pull my knife out of my boot in a swift motion. I see Scattered Leaves and I instantly relax.

"Where are we going?" I ask him confused as I put my knife back in my boot.

"We are escaping. You will change into a mouse and you will follow me through the food slot and we will get out of here" he says.

"I don't know how to change into anything but a panther" I say shyly.

"Think of yourself as a mouse and want yourself to be a mouse and then you will become a mouse" he instructs. I close my eyes and imagine myself turning into a mouse and then running around. I feel a nudge at my side and I open my eyes. Everything looks so large from this hight. I turn and see a grey mouse behind me.

It motions towards the door and we scurry towards it. I hear three pairs of footsteps hurrying through the hallway. The locks begin to click and the door slowly opens. I quickly follow the grey mouse out the door and down the corridor.

"Ugh rats!" the Alpha says in disgust as she spots is running from the room. Why is the Alpha here? 

"Where are they?" the Alpha yells at the guards from behind us. The guards mumble something that I can't quite make out.

"Mouse!" one of the prisoners yells as we pass her cell. We run faster as the Alpha walks towards us.

"Catch that mouse!" she yells and points to me. I look to the grey mouse and he points to the stairs with his nose and then to a hole under them. I change directions as the guards start running towards us. Thankfully we managed to make it almost all the way down the hall so we only have a few cells to go.

The taller guard bends down to pick me up and I swerve out of his way. I run through the bars and into the cell. I bolt through the cell and into the next. I run through the cells until I reach the end. I turn back and see the grey mouse following me closely. He leads me into the hole and we stop to catch our breaths.

"You let them get away!" the Alpha yells "he taught her to use her powers and now she is gone! I told you not to let her into that cell without me present! Now you have lost the reason we could have won this war!" she continues to yell as we slip into the darker corner under the stairs. He walks into a hole in the dirt and I follow quickly.

We follow the tunnel for almost an hour as it turns and twists underground. We slowly come to a stop and the mouse turns to face me. It points up and I see another tunnel above us. I climb into it and pull myself up. I feel something move above me as I finally climb out of the hole and into a pile of leaves. The grey mouse climbs out after me and disappears out of leaf pile.

"You did well" I hear and I realize he changed back. I think of my human and allow myself to change back. I glance around and see we aren't in their territory anymore.

"What just happened?" I ask him as I stand and brush mud off of my clothes.

"You learned how to change into a mouse and we got out of the cell and territory before they could begin" he says as he turns and starts to walk off. I catch up and walk beside him.

"Where are we going now?" I ask confused about this whole situation.

"I am taking you home" as soon as he says home I stop. I begin to panic.

"Home? Like my old Pride?" I ask and my voice shakes.

"No, your home in our town, where you were born and should have been raised" he says and continues to walk away.