“Kitty!” That was close to my name but… “KITTY!”

My ears perked up, fur frazzled as I was jerked from the ever peaceful realm of sleep. At first I thought we were under attack. I rolled off the bed and scurried to try and get underneath it. I was about halfway there when I heard the voice again. Clarity began to return after I had rammed my face into a boot of some sort. I hit all drives into reverse and pulled myself out just as I heard the voice again. The Human! Right!

So it turns out ‘Short Nap’ was a little longer than I had intended for it to be. My superior lieutenant intellect and training told me this—I basically saw it was quite bright outside and could assume that if the Human was back its job was probably over. You do some basic math here and multiply the square root of the hours the Human had been gone by the number of boots stuffed under that bed and you come up with the answer—it had been some hours.

I stumbled into the hallway, reaching out for the railing I couldn’t quite seem to get. It kept moving away from me or something. This is why you shouldn’t wake up a Qwuedeviv so abruptly. We have sensitive equipment that must be adjusted slowly and with care.

“It’s too early for all that shouting.” I mewed once I had reached my destination—the rail.

I opened my eyes to half slits and flicked my tail once. I could see the Human scurrying about below. It seemed rather frantic. Of course I had no idea if this was normal Human behavior or not so I just yawned.

“There you are!” It called out as if it had found me or something.

My ears felt heavy—like at least ten pounds per ear or something. They were like weights. I shook my head without much of a result. “Me?”

“Yes you! Come here!”

There were certainly nicer ways to address your guest and future ruler—but I wasn’t gonna complain much. I’d let it off easy this time and we could work on the tone later. I made my way back to the stairs and plodded down them with feet that also had to way a ton a piece. It was amazing how sleep could change the weight of things so quickly. Eventually I made it over to where the Human stood, tapping its foot impatiently.

It was in the living room, standing remotely near the sofa actually. The TV was still on and—one of my ears drooped. Seems I might’ve forgotten to cover up a few tracks of my previous endeavor. When I got to thinking about it, it just might have had a lot to do with why Grumps-A-Lot looked a bit irritable.

I decided to play it cool and casual so I stood beside him, tail still behind myself and innocent brown eyes gazing up. The Human was quite a bit taller than me—that’s why I had to look up.

“Did you do this?”

I followed the path its finger was pointing to the sofa where, huh, go figure, there was an orange sauce smear that seeped down into the sofa cushions. I had to think about this one a bit. Naturally admitting to having any part of this was out of the question.

“Umm…no.”

The Human raised an eyebrow. “You didn’t do this?”

I glanced at it again and shook my head.

“So you’re telling me you’re innocent.”

“Yep.”

“Even though no one was home aside from you.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you expect me to believe it?”

“Exaaactly.”

There was an awkward pause as I stared at it and it likewise glared at me. Well we carried on that way for quite a bit longer then I realized was even possible. Must have been about five to ten minutes and then finally?

“Well I-I don’t believe you.”

My ears folded down.

“You don’t? I’m hurt! To think that I would be so rude as to disregard the rules.”

“Get out!”

My ears perked up about this. Perhaps it had forgotten the dilemma I had with being outside. I took a few steps back and frowned. Maybe the sad eyes would help me here again. It was worth a shot anyway. I had just gotten them worked up into their ultimate state when an annoying ringing noise sounded from the other room. The Human looked at me, glared and then dashed for the phone.

That was fine with me. Meant I had a few minutes to think of what to do next. I could run and find a new place, but it was late afternoon, probably swarming with Earthians, and then afternoon would lead into night which was...dark. Kind of like Spork’s face when I told it I hadn’t done the paperwork I was supposed to.

Have we discussed Spork? If not this is a topic we should cover. Spork is a unit in my crew—our interrogation officer as a matter of fact. The job description in itself says a lot as to the character of it. Spork has a habit of sort of…well I guess co-leading the crew, and when it gets something set in its mind there really isn’t any changing it; nor a desire to. Spork is tall and mean. The quick version, if it didn’t even happen to show up let’s just say I wouldn’t exactly miss it.

How did I get off on that though? I was supposed to be plotting how I’d get out of this. Toooo late. The Human was already back. I made a run for it, but I’d hardly gone any distance when I felt a hand tighten around the scruff of my neck. This was bad. I was tugged back which sort of forced me to stumble along backwards too.

“Out! I said you were going out!”

“But I don’t have anywhere to go!”

“Too bad!”

“Remember the fate of the world—the fate of your friends, family—”

It opened the door.

“You can’t do this to me!”

“Sorry, Kitty.” It grumbled.

I clung to the door frame as best I could, but it wasn’t long until my grip faltered. I was slowly being yanked out into the cold, cruel world and—

“Mew!”

I lost my grip and we both tumbled. I ended up on top of the Human who had apparently broken my fall. But…I was almost certain that unless outside had obtained a barrier that looked like walls we weren’t ‘outside.’

“You can stay in here if you want.” The Human huffed as it got itself up and dusted itself off.

I scrambled to my feet and looked around. I had neglected to notice the Human had turned on a light before we fell through.

The room was colder than the others had been and seemed a lot less friendly. There were metal benches with all kinds of strange menacing tools and bottles. I didn’t like the looks of this. It was reminding me a lot of the areas Spork worked in. That was quite alarming. Now I don’t consider myself easily frightened but let’s just say this had gotten me shaking. I knew what Spork did to people.

This Human. Had I really messed up that bad that the Human was gonna—

“I’m sorry! Really! I know I shouldn’t have eaten the food on the sofa or even been on the sofa. I’m really really super sorry!”

It just shook its head and turned away. Before I could follow the door slammed shut. I was left all alone in the scary room. That was all part of the process. Spork did it too. Leave them alone for a while, let them dread it. Well I was certainly dreading as I paced around.

Cement floor, dim lighting, whole display of violent tools—oh and a car. There was a car in the center. After coming to terms with my fate I decided to look at some of the labels to see just what kinds of horrors awaited me. The first said ‘tire shine.’ Odd, but I didn’t like it. I set it down, let a long yowl escape and then flopped down on the cement.

A puff of dust rose up around me. Tickled my gills and made me sneeze. I stayed there for quite a while; considered my fate, my crew’s incompetence, and a number of other depressing thoughts. It was unfortunate that someone like myself would be needlessly sacrificed.

I must have dozed off for a while as well. It was to be expected after all the work I had accomplished within the day. I was pretty cold and stiff upon prying myself up off of the cold cement though. I don’t recommend sleeping on cement if you can avoid it. The cold seeps right through your bones to zap all of your life energy.

My life energy had been sufficiently zapped and I had to limp around a bit to get all of my various limbs functional again. Perhaps I had dozed off for more than ‘awhile.’ I wasn’t entirely clear on what lengths of time had gone by. Had no clock in the prison cell and no light of day could penetrate these walls of iron.

I yowled a sad song with no true words. It would have had words if I could’ve thought them up, but I’m not the best song writer on the spot. I need a little more time to think these things out. It was definitely a song about the sadness and depression that hovers around a ‘deviv caged like an animal. Touching song.

Near the end of the…hm, not sure what verse, had been singing it for quite a while, something strange caught the corner of my Visual Scanners. I rotated the position of my head to track the ‘something’ to its source. Strangely enough, it appeared to be light. Furthermore this light appeared to be coming from a small gap beneath a primitive, manual-rising, panel door.

The door began to rise. I took a few steps back to give it some space. At once blinding light attacked my eyes. I hissed and scrambled back after tripping over a can or two that I had knocked down during the performance of my song and brief, but fierce, rebellion against my prison cell.

Once my Visual Scanners adjusted the brightness/contrast ratio I was able to make out a vaguely Humanoid shape. Within a few more seconds I was able to make out even more details about this individual. Unless I was mistaken, which is not often the case, before me was standing the Human who had placed me here in the long past late afternoon. Its head fur looked even more chaotic than it had during our last meeting.

It grumbled something as it fought with the panel door for a moment then sighed.

“Hey Kitty.”