Rho Dent prepared to leap, she squatted down on all fours and push… I can’t do it, the drop’s too big. She took a step back, but the wood veneer on the top of the cupboard chose that minute to unstick, making a loud pop. Holding her breath, she looked down… and met the gaze of the human.
For a moment nothing happened, a human and a rat stared at each other silently, one terrified and the other confused. Then Rho Dent realised it was her last chance to get the key and managed to make herself leap forward.
The human seemed too stunned for a moment to react, which gave Rho the perfect chance to fall down towards its back. Then Rho realised she’d got the angle wrong and prepared to hit the humans back running.
The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion, first she landed on the very steep slope, her legs a blur as they tried to keep her balanced and going forward, then the shiny keyring got closer in her vision and she reached forward, managing to grab it in her mouth.
The key came out easily and she was falling towards the floor, the ground coming to meet her way too fast. There was a flash as pain shot through her body from the impact, the sudden hit making her see stars, but knowing the human was about to chase she forced herself to move forwards.
Initially tumbling she found her feet and pushed forwards into a full run, using every scrap of energy to shoot forward. With the burst of speed she shot out of the kitchen, and turned right jumping straight onto the bannister of the spiral staircase.
Her tiny clawed hands scrabbled at the metal surface as her fur caused her to slide down it frictionlessly. There was no loss of speed in the transition to the bannister, and it caused her to accelerate downwards. It would have been very scary normally, but the speed was a bit less than it had been when she was directly falling.
While she shot down the bannister, the key that dangled freely from the keyring in her mouth pinged against all the bars holding up the bannister, making a loud d-d-d-drring noise and sending horrible vibrations straight up into her skull.
All too soon the ride was over, a small lip on the end of the bannister sending her flying up and across the room in a parabolic curve like a tennis ball fresh from the racket.
Briefly she was weightless, there was no up or down and she spun chaotically through the air, curling up into a ball to try and escape the situation. Then it was over all too soon, something large and padded caught her, decelerating her safely.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
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Bobby held his bladder, playing cards had been fun for a while and the talking rats had been very interesting to interact with, But now he really needed the toilet and didn’t want to go in front of his friends. “Will they be back soon?” He asked the ferret guarding the pickle jar alone.
The ferret shrugged and stared at him unnervingly, he got the sense that it understood everything he was saying.
Suddenly a very loud ringing noise came from across the room like a phone. He looked up in confusion just in time for a small furry ball travelling far faster than it should have been to hit him in his good eye, the one that hadn’t turned black from being hit by a flailing skeleton arm.
“Owww, not the other one,” he yelled, bringing his hand up, and managing to catch the small missile that had hit him before it bounced away.
“What’s this… oh?” He said looking down at the dazed form of the small rat that he had been talking to earlier. Rho Dent was struggling to move, a bit too dizzy from her flight. Bobby noticed a glint and took the key from her, slipping the rat into his breast pocket.
He turned to the rest of the group, holding up the small shiny key, “See, I told you I could speak with them!”
Gary opened and closed his mouth with confusion, not managing to say anything, Mcgunkin looked unimpressed and Michaela had no face so he couldn’t read her expression.
Bobby slipped the key into the lock and turned it, walking out of the cell that they had been trapped in for the last few hours. He raised his hands and stretched as someone barreled down the stairs and their captor came into view.
“I really need to go to the toilet, your hosting skills need significant improvements.” He told her.
Lucinda looked wildly at the open cage door and reached down for her gun, but found herself grabbing at nothing. “What? There was a rat? How did you get out?” she asked in rapidfire, her hand delving into her pocket to find the key, but once again coming back empty.
“Err… It’s complicated, I’ll tell you after I’ve done my business,” he said, climbing the stairs before she could stop him. He came into the hallway they had been brought along and noticed a little door with ‘unoccupied’ displayed by the door handle, right next to the entrance they had come in from.
As he walked by the lounge, he noticed some of the group of rats congregating in the middle of the room, “Thank you” he said, taking the small rat from his pocket and putting her down beside them, before entering the toilet and finally relieving himself.
A minute later he came back out and found the rats had vanished off somewhere, shrugging he went back down the stairs to find their host, who was looking a bit unsure what to do with the group of people in her basement who no longer were following her orders due to the strange vanishing of her gun.
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