Rat

Glass

I did not expect this. I can't say what I did expect--death, mostly; to be eaten, for sure. But this? I don't even know what this is.

I am in a box. I can see through the walls. It is made from that peculiar substance that the beasts seem to love. I have had issues when it before: once, when I was younger, and I tried to walk through it into the beasts' nest from the outside, and it stopped me in my tracks; and a second time when I was inside the beasts' nest and I was trying to get to the world beyond. Both times I was confused, but I learn fast and I know that there exists a substance that is both solid and transparent. I do not know anywhere else where this exists except where the large, towering beasts are found.

And now I am inside a box made of the stuff. It is so maddening that I am about to go insane. Every fibre of my being wants to run through these invisible walls and escape, but my brain tells me that this is not possible. I am trapped. There is nowhere to hide. This is all I have.

This box is not empty. There is some soft bark-like substance on the ground. I cannot eat it, and my paws rip it to shreds as soon as I walk. It does not provide much grip; I have already bunched some of it against the far wall, and I did not even mean to do it. It is annoying, but the beasts put it there so I must presume they put it there for a reason. There is a small pool of water. It is tepid, but there is no other water provided for me--and it has been provided for me. The pool is contained by some form of beast-made rock. I do not know what it is made from, but there is a second rock-shaped pool next to the water. This one contains fruit and vegetables and a little bit of some strange grain. I have not eaten any of it; I cannot be certain that it is not poison.

I am wary.

I was caught in a strange moment. I was completely off-guard at the time and didn't even see the sack coming for me. It wrapped me up and then I was in the dark and now I am here. I wish I could make it more exciting than it really is, but I am only just processing the horror of it all. How can I explain the complete darkness? Or the sudden vertigo as I was thrown upside down and side to side? How can you ever understand the terror I felt when I found myself here, surrounded by those horrid beasts with their bulging eyes and hairless faces. They were all looking at me and I was sure I was going to die. Why else had they captured me? Were they like birds that fed creatures to their young to teach them to hunt? Were they liked those four-legged pests that they keep, that play with their food?

I still no so little about them all, and yet there was one that stood out from all the rest. It was smaller than the other beasts, and its proportions were out of place with the other specimens I had examined. I can only suppose that it is a juvenile; it certainly has the clumsy gait of juveniles everywhere.

It looked down at me through this invisible prison and for a moment I thought I had guessed right--it was going to eat me. Its parents had presented me to it as an offering of food. A training exercise.

And yet it did not eat me. It gave me the rock-shaped bowl of food, as well as the water. It seemed... afraid of me. It was nervous, hesitant. Why it would be afraid of me I couldn't tell you. Surely it should realise just how terrified I was of it!

But I will never understand these creatures, and although I am their prisoner now I do not think I will learn much from my transparent cage. If anything, I fear I will forget everything else I have learned. I will forget the smell of grass in the morning. I will forget the smell of my burrow. I will forget the smell of my mate, whom I love.

I will forget the smell of freedom.