Of mice and men

Kato was cold, shivering and emotionally numb and just when he thought it couldn’t get much more grim, he started seeing things that weren’t there.

‘Really wish I hadn’t eaten the mushrooms’ he thought weakly.

There were two moons and the last time he checked that was one more than there should be. He rubbed his eyes and proceeded to blink furiously, “still two…huh” it was interesting but there wasn’t much he could do about it, he didn’t even know where the moon that hung over Redusk came from let alone its apparent buddy that had now appeared.

“Maybe different parts of the world, have different moons, that would be cool” he paused for a moment to stare upwards. His eyes met the two glowing orbs that gazed back at the earth unblinking and uncaring as they fought to dominate the sky.

One glowed a faint, sanguine red, and its’ buddy, a pale, otherworldly blue, their respective colours clashed before retreating and doing more of the same, locked into an eternal struggle, with the sky as their battlefield.

Kato looked at the two behemoths for a few moments more, before reprimanding himself “what are you a lunar-tic” he chuckled mirthlessly, letting his eyes settle back onto the dense foliage he had wandered into.

It was silent for now, but Kato had seen how easily that tranquillity could shatter.

Subconsciously, his fingers reached up brushing against the feather nestled in the dip of his ear.

The bird hadn’t paid attention to its’ surroundings, and he was painfully aware how that had turned out.

Kato walked onwards he was still upset about what had happened, but the cold, desolate feelings were slowly being chipped away by the sheer mysticism of a world unexplored.

He breathed in, deeply, letting the cool night air invigorate him.

THUNK!

Kato stopped in his tracks abruptly, his head ringing in pain. He swayed a little and his hands rose up instinctively pressing against the splitting pain emanating from his temples, “ugh” he muttered.

The world lurched as he tried to step forwards.

There was some faint tittering noise and the sound of quick movements in the undergrowth.

Bile rose up in Kato’s throat and bitter astringent taste filled his mouth. He turned to the side, his head spinning, his arms rising to defend himself.

THUNK!

Another sharp pain, this time radiating form the back of his head, brought Kato crashing to his knees.

He blinked slowly, unsure of what had happened, his vision was blurred, and the low gentle glow of the moons now seemed blinding. He tried to stand, but immediately stumbled, his balance failing him.

He could vaguely make out the shape of some creatures standing over him and more confusingly the unmistakable scent of damp fur.

THUNK!

Kato collapsed again his knees no longer supporting him. He laid to the side breathing heavily his eyes drifting in and out of focus.

Kato tired to talk but he couldn’t even understand what he was trying to say, the words coming out as one long drawn-out mumble rather than anything coherent.

“Huh” he finally managed to get out a word and it was just one that expressed confusion. ‘Good going’ he thought dazed.

A gnarled piece of wood rapidly descending towards him was the last thing he saw before everything went dark.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

Kato wished it could have been the gentle warming rays and birds chirping that woke him up as he rose out of bed to start the day on a good note.

Instead, he woke up to a sharp stick being prodded into his side whilst barely fighting off the urge to vomit.

Oh well, at least it wasn’t night anymore, it could have been worse.

He got poked in the side again.

“???////????” some tittering in a foreign language was going on around him.

Kato opened his eyes, before immediately closing them.

“Bright... so bright” he murmured softly, the effect was immediate, the tittering stopped, and a cold abrasive silence settled over the area.

Kato opened his eyes slowly, his head still ringing, his lips were parched, and his throat was rough and sore.

He tried lifting himself up from the prone position he had found himself in but found he couldn’t. Vines as thick as his arm had been layered over him their weight alone enough to effectively clamp him to the ground.

After struggling for a moment more, he took in his surroundings.

‘I know it was dark last night, but this definitely isn’t where I was when I slept’, Kato thought somewhat groggily,

He was in a clearing, roughly enclosed by large trees that were wider than a person lying down, each of them had large boughs with plump dark green vines, hanging down, that glistened in the sun, coated by a translucent liquid.

Kato reached over with one of his hands feeling his chest.

‘Great I’m sticky’ he sighed; this was not how he envisioned his day going.

After a few minutes of staying, tied down in an abandoned clearing, futilely struggling against his bonds the tittering returned “/???///” sounded out in a faint whispering tone, the creatures had apparently found their confidence.

“Ow, do you mind?” Kato spat the words out as something sharp poked him in the side yet again.

Eventually after a few more pokes and vague threats from the man tied down, some creature was pushed into his vision, stumbling forwards.

Kato immediately fixated onto it; it was a small rodent type of creature standing on its hind legs.

It stood around a foot tall; it was brown and lightly speckled with soft patches of grey. It had two beady, black eyes that sparkled with a mixture of excitement and fear. It had long whiskers and a sharp pointed nose, it resembled a mouse, but was much larger and vaguely humanoid, with hands that clasped a short wooden stick, with a nasty looking point.

Kato glowered it and it stood stock still for a moment, before trembling uncontrollably.

“Boo!” The creature turned suddenly its paws skidding out from underneath it as the wet grass sent it flying onto its back.

In such a rush, it didn’t bother standing back up scrambling away on four limbs.

For a few more minutes Kato was left alone, slowly seething as he recalled the night before.

“Ahh” the sharp poking returned; they were getting braver. Kato snarled bucking against the vines holding him down, he could feel their grip weakening.

And soon he would have his revenge.

The group of creatures seemingly emboldened by his lack of meaningful response were now confidently assaulting him. Standing in his line of vision while practicing their sword uhh stick play. There were several of the rodent looking creatures, each armed and eager to poke the strange human they’d found.

Each time they got him to grunt from a particular sharp jab, the creatures just started tittering.

‘They were evil’ Kato glowered at the pokers, as he had begun calling them in his head.

But it looked like they didn’t care, tittering further and some even rolling around on the floor in apparent mirth.

The longer this went on for, the more confident Kato became that these creatures were not adults and were more similar to kids just playing with him albeit in a somewhat violent way.

He didn’t do it but back home a lot of the kids used to play in the same way poking wild animals just to see if they were dead, or maybe just to see how they would react.

Eventually they would get bored, and he would escape before the pokers realised that with each twist and bend his body made the vines hold over him waned.

“///???///” A rougher voice aged by time, echoed over the clearing.

The effect was instant, the creatures, stopped roughhousing and some even dropped their vicious weapons.

A slightly larger hunched over poker stepped into the clearing, it was closer to two foot tall and towered over the younglings, through age it seemed that the creatures patterning reversed. The light brown fur with patches of grey morphing into light grey with patches of brown.

The creature strode forward, using a gnarled wooden staff to support itself.

‘Wait’ Kato jolted up, his eyes thinning, ‘gnarled staff’ he chewed over the phrase for a moment in his mind. ‘This was it, the weapon that had rendered his unconscious just hours ago.

It seemed that the pokers did not get wiser with age, instead keeping their violent habits and attacking any perfectly innocent forest goers in their quest to satisfy their primal debauchery.

‘Monsters’ Kato thought to himself furiously.

He had to get out of here, he bucked harder and harder against his restraints.

The elderly poker just continued forward approaching him with an innocent enough looking smile, but Kato knew the truth, it just wanted to poke him, they all did!

“////????///”

‘Was, was it talking to him?’ Kato was confused, the others hadn’t even tried.

‘Maybe it had come to gloat before the inevitable poking!’ He had to escape.

With an adrenaline filled roar, Kato sprang up, finally freeing himself of the vines that had been holding him down.

“YOU WILL NOT POKE ME” he bellowed.