Rat

Silo

The ground was soft, but it could have been hard like stone for all I cared. Soft was good for some things--like digging--but for running around it was an absolute nightmare.

But there it was: the silo. It was so big. Dark, too. Ominous. It wasn't made of stone and it wasn't made of wood but of something else. I could eat it--I had tested that, of course--but it did not make me feel very good when I did, and it certainly didn't nourish me. Perhaps calling it edible gives the wrong impression. Small rocks are edible, too, but they aren't food.

I didn't know what it was. It didn't matter. I had to get inside.

I looked around. The grass was as tall as I was. Dangerous. There was nothing around but me and the wind. Even so, I hesitated. Just a moment. You could never be too safe. No, nothing there. Just the urge to eat.

I ran to the back, where the vines towered halfway up the silo, caught in their alien webbing. They acted as a shield. I kicked away empty husks and seed kernels and there it was: my hole. It had collapsed since last time, but the ground was soft and now that I was here I was truly thankful for that. I started digging; the earth came away effortlessly, no harder than moving through water. I swam through the dirt, emerged on the inside of the silo.

Darkness. It stank. It was such a glorious smell.

What was this place? Why had they put it there? Questions for another time. There were more important things to do: there was a mountain of fruit in front of me. Vegetables, too. Nuts, as well. All kinds of things. The food at the bottom of the pile was rotten, but the food at the top was glorious. I gorged myself, danced around the pile like a nymph. Such a wonderful find. A proper bounty.

My family would never be hungry again.

Then it happened--from out of nowhere. The silo opened up. Light poured in like lava. It blinded me, and then I saw it. It? Her! I knew she was female, even though she was not of my kind. She stared down at me, eyes as large as the sun, with a terrifying mouth of blunt teeth and skin that was devoid of fur except for a long mound of the stuff that flowed down her neck in a mane. She had no whiskers.

She had food. It fell from her hands even as she gasped at me. What was this creature? Was she the saviour of my kind? Was that what this place was? A haven?

Or was it something else? Something more sinister. her eyes were not loving. Her mouth was not welcoming. She was alien to me, and yet I could read her body all too easily. This was not a haven for me. No, not at all.

This was a trap.