He was somewhere utterly breathless, yet he sat, or stood, unable to really differentiate, breathing. It was quiet, outside of a faint murmur, a quivering, the pitter patter of small feet shuffling, perhaps huddled into a corner. He’d hit his head, that’s for sure. The last he’d remembered… was actually quite bright, cheerful even. It was cozy, warm, an inviting jingle played as he quickly formed an intimate bond with, with… red, hat. Red hat. There was a nickname too, “I was special!” he whispered, pushing the thought back while scanning the dim room. There was overhead lighting, but it never fully reached the floor anywhere. Anything more than four spaces ahead of him was little else than a blotchy ambiguity to his near-sighted eyes. His head was pounding, as other’s breaths were wafting over now. He attempted to move in curious desperation. It was an unnatural sensation wholly opposed to learned sense and reflex; a clunky shift left space through windless air, clanked in place like a chill cog. Well, he hadn’t been battled yet. He marched on. A right this time, then another left up a space, wincingly fighting back the jarred nausea. Snaking away from the corner he woke up in, those muffled sounds closer now became familiar cries. 

He approached with cautious intention. What he saw first triggered him to wild instinct - an instant feral switch-click into bared fangs and bloodied vision - before another pang of remembrance strung him back into distraught sense. These faces, he recognized them deeper than a simple species resemblance or offhand encounter. They were friends, brothers-in-arms, family estranged and bitter rivals with the scars to bear it, or even just passing acquaintances through the occasioned glance between tufts of tall grass; all corralled into the corner, or possibly extending the length of their dank enclosure, and all staring back with a tense, knowing pierce. All but two. The first, a child still young, maybe barely just hatched, it’s fur a smoothing lavender-lilac, it’s learning fangs teething on a berry nub. 

Its face bore a spitting mirror’s image to his own as a youngin’, but then, what are the odds, don’t they all at that stage. The second was older, even than him, and carried a walking stick, as well as a wry smile about him from the row furthest back. His patchy, weathered skin, nipped whiskers, and the trench scar poking around his midriff curving down to his lower back, all spoke of battle-hardened experience facing the throes of aged decline. They locked eyes; the elder male approached, too fast and casually natural for his twitchy nerves to register as anything other than intentioned hostility. He jerked an awkward back-a-space in the time his counterpart’s cane clicked two spaces forward, closing the gap. He hissed and reared his tall, square incisors in a reddening flash before another deafening pang left him weak in the knees and skeptically inviting. Face to face, the wily smirk smudged down at the edges and a faint teariness gathered at the low gleam hammocking his eyes, watching down about the amnesiac vagabond.

He lent a hand, lifting off of his cane, and landed on the other’s right shoulder finding purchase through the fur with a stern grip. The passive threat always lingered, but the wizened figure’s casted silhouette shone a radiating cool, anticipating a want for patience. His hold digressed. 

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Welcome to BOX 17 pal, don’t sweat a thing, I’ll help get you situated. Though, with a name like yours, you’ll be prone to moving around a lot. It’s fine, you’ll always have your spot reserved. Them's the perks for outsiders.” 

“Out… what? What perks? What, name?” 

“Sorry, you’re still decently banged up. Here, have a look:” 

A sheen, then a UI menu appearing somewhere in his head, but presenting some inches ahead of his eyes. He scanned it over, reading, then reading again, twice, three times; the platter of phrases never quite sticking. 

“Can you… ah, excuse me? What is this saying?” 

“Right here? Species: ‘Raticate’, ability, ‘Hustle’, name is HM Sl-”

They were interrupted by an incredible, encompassing, digital swooshing shouting out from the ceiling-ed heavens. Emerging from the black came a whirlpool to elsewhere, swirled with greenly-shining lines of rapidly spinning alphanumerics; ones and zeros, Unowns in excess, all faintly calling to the primitive in him, at a level as base as the double-helix was in humans. He shrunk in his tile with one eye shut, the other at half mast awaiting a sentencing, doled out by whatever judging spawn could crawl out of such a maw of an entrance. Instead, it imploded to a point, taking it and it’s tumult seething down into… a rather rapidly expanding pale-ish figure, tearing down with the speed of a lightning crash yet descending with all the soft control of a feather found in mid-flight.  It paused dead above the corner most tile, silence in its wake. His head dared a look around. It appeared a disconcertingly disembodied, gloved in white and featureless otherwise, hovering hand offering no hints as to its next move. 

“Well, that was fast,” the older resumed, “here for you I reckon. Don’t disappoint up there, you go and represent our box well now.” 

His suddenly dried throat made it hard to utter strongly against this request. Like all else confined here, the hand moved startlingly from square to square, creeping intentions more forward with each advance. Gripped in a psychic paralysis the likes he’d never encountered, he only knelt watch as it’s presence reined in overhead, pausing again in selective wait. He went raised without effort, defensive instincts kicking in had him grasp the elder’s cane with fight despite futility. Having no heart to shake him off and cast him back to a daunting once-known, the elder grabbed back at his shoulder and reeled him in closer to whisper good partings.

“Bring back stories of sunshine and fables of fresh air. It’s what the little ones live off of, and what us others left here to dust ration out as remembrances of a life once lived.” The grip slipped, and the captured rat’s brain wracked. 

“What’s my name!?” he chose to shout.

“Your name is Lucky, luckier than many.”

He rose with the hand seeing the box from great height, it shrinking beneath him where once it was huge. He saw the whirlpool, its birth, then saw himself within it unravel, then all was warm, and soft, and fuzzy again, time skipping ahead again.

…

He was somewhere utterly breathless, yet he sat, or stood, unable to really differentiate, breathing.