A few moments of silence. Then the wailing resumes. A trail of blood slithers in from under the door. In the corridor we await our turn. Some are already lifeless, petrified by the realisation of what lies ahead. Others frantically search for a way out. There is none.

Click.

The door unlocks.

My eyes close,

and my breathing slows.

This furry heap

falls asleep.

Hours passed by

since the moon took the sky,

but I am not at peace.

My nightmares won't cease!

My paws twitch, but I don't stir.

A ripple goes through my fur.

Dream cats chase me,

as real ones will for enternity.

I looked out across the plains, watching my children run free. I swong my trunk around, feeling love fill my heart. I felt the warm sun on my back and stomped around on the ground. I was free.

I heard a pop and a pain filled my left foot. I fell to the floor, thrashing and scared. What was happening? Two more pops and pain filled my chest and back. Blood spilled from my wounds as I thrashed and shriked for my children. My eyes became hazy as I watched the blurry image of a tall creature coming towards me. It was something I had never seen before. It’s foot kicked me and I cried out. A large object was raised to my head and the world blacked out right as it rang out. Pop.

Be aware of animal abuse and illigeal poachers, and please do everything in your power to stop it.

Cat attack! Rat had enough of that. Rather?

Rat upon rat gather to see to this matter!

Rodents get together and they still have static.

Nests are a mess. Stressed! By tales?

Scenes are tragic.

Rat on rat crime is a?

Whole different pattern of violence that mire

Mighty mouses.

Can’t hide out in their door less houses!

From feuding family or those feline louses.

Doubtless anything other than exile or death will cease.

The endless trouncing.

A dark figure pounces no announcement is it met with.

“I Give Up” Is the expression on the rat face.

“How do I keep letting these ambushes take place?”

Rat rants. No attempt to out pace.

“A high price! To pony up and ride in the rat race. Are we mice?”

“No. A little racist maybe” The figure speaks.

As the busk of a fluffy bunny rapidly replaces the fear inspiring cloak of shadow it arrived in.

And adds. “Such disgrace can leave bitter distaste. If your cheese don’t stink. It’s Crap! Me thinks? I know where there’s some that does. If we hurry and scurry will be there in a blink. No worries.”

Leery clearing rat reply’s.

“Rabbit! Well dagnabit lets take a stab at it. Is it worth it? What if it’s a trap? This could put me on the map”

“It Stinks” With a wink the rabbit relates.

And rabid down the rabbit hole. Hungry rat goes. Seeking glory. Following his nose not in the know.

“Oh no-oooooooo”

SNAP! Sprung the trap.

“Oh what’s that rat? You got a wild BDSM hare up your ass? Is right. Holy hell you made a wrong turn and ended up in “Albuquerque” With a quirky turtle hurdler running you thru.”

I (the fly on the wall) who watches and writes what’s in sight. Takes flight. And that’s a Rap!

Yeah, I know I own it all. If there is any question about it, I flick my pee and drench whatever I want. Because it is mine. The doe next to me...she's mine. She knows it too.

She and I had a litter together. I wasn't there at the birth, but I know I have six bouncing little fur balls just as fluffy and beautiful as me. They call me Honey Bear. I am a Satin Angora buck rabbit. My cinnamon colored hair is soft, thick and waves oh so gently in the wind when I hop around. I look fabulous until my human shave my hair. I mean really...it is insulting to a stud as myself to be shaved in the first place, but to leave me half naked with a terrible hair cut. Come on people!

My humans are pretty good. I especially like the two that feed me and groom me. The human girls let me out of my cage each morning and I have full range of the yard. The doe and the children have to stay in this metal pen. I can see them, but I can't go in. My humans freak out when I try to get into the cage with everyone. I heard them say something about, "We can't have any more rabbit babies!" I don't know what they are taking about. We can have so many more babies! The more the merrier in my opinon.

My extended family consists of three dogs. The large black dog is my sister. She and I grew up together. I actually like it when we play. She can get rough though, so I have to put her in her place. I have nails like sharpen blades. They will cut through anything. Haha! I use them when she gets a bit overbearing, and she backs off. The other two dogs are a bit older. One of them is sent out after me to bring me in when I have to go back to my cage. It's annoying how she is always bitting at my hind legs to get me to move. I deal with her because I know she is there as my body guard. Not that I need one. I have scared off two other dogs that have come into my yard. I know I am a badass and protector of my domain.

Although I am tough, I am a very meditative soul. With all the time I spend laying around and waiting for my food to come, I have figured out the world. It can be as simple or as complicated as one wants to make it. Accepting that I am the focal point of life, makes life simple. It is when the humans start thinking there are other things to attend to is when life gets difficult. Well...I am off to get my weekly grooming.

As all the puppies do, I have been born blind. Luckily for me and my siblings, because we will be frightened even more then we already are. It wasn’t enough that we all are for the first time entered a brave new world. Some kind of creature, dressed as an astronaut in that silvery and shiny suit with gaggles and wearing strange woolen cap on, reaches toward us. It picks up one by one and out of smelly, choky but warm pit. If I wasn’t with any sight with only my nose to direct me to what is good and what it isn’t I would be very afraid. Later, I find out that actually it was Milica, the granddaughter of my owner Rose and not some huge monster that preys on newly born little animals. My owner Rose and her sister Antonia, another granny, prepared and dressed unsuspected Milica to this mission – retrieving poor newborns. They were so afraid for our benefit and shocked of negligence of our own mother Katica. Poor older ladies aren’t that familiar about relations in the canine world. We were just fine down there, but nevertheless it is good to sense care and attention right from the start.

Now we could run around and across the yard, but we were all very tired and hungry, so after quick nourishment from our mother, we all fell asleep. In the meantime, another important human enters my life – it was my co-owner Jovan cousin to my owner Rose. He was very upset, when he heard that Milica has been down in a rescue mission.

-“What about if she was stuck there? What would you do then?”

I was awoken by his shouting, but that happened just for a second or two. When I got up after many hours of baby sleep, my mother was gone. My brothers and sisters looked in dismay but nobody has been concerned about us. However she returned with Jovan and everything was fine. Except the window for our feeding was very short, and we all had to jump one over another to get any food which hasn’t been sufficient enough. It happened regularly and as I make my first thought I concluded that my owner Rose was right and that my mother Katica isn’t really a fit parent. But she was only one I have and I will have to do with that. One couldn’t choose ones parents. Right?

In following weeks our number depleted as agile Rose, former Red Cross official, offers here and there many of my cousins. I was destined to go at Jovan`s colleague from work. In that proper hour, he grabbed me in his arms, on the bike and that was my first time outside the yard into brave new world.

Frickin’ giants left me again.

Must be a weekend trip: four bowls of chow and three bowls of water. I can tell based on the amount of food they leave.

Plus they turned Sportscenter on the TV, thinking that hearing announcers and crowds will make me feel less lonely. What a bunch of chumps.

So, after peeing on the bathroom rug; knocking over a glass of water from the coffee table; and parkouring off the forbidden couch, I nestle into its delicious squish and pur into the microfiber, planning my food ration for the next couple of days.

They’ll be back, I think as I lick the inside of my paw, scratching my nails on the back of my teeth. And they’ll be sorry they ever left me.

My family (he and she) had gone to bed. That's when I usually retire too, at the foot of the bed or in the crook of their knees if I really want to get comfortable. They've learned not to move too much as it disturbs me. That night, I heard a rustle and squeak. A mouse on my territory! Unacceptable. I leapt off the bed after it, but it disappeared under the wardrobe before I could get it. My people mumbled and grumbled and turned over in bed, but didn't even get up.

Next day I spent hours crouched in front of the wardrobe, staring unblinkingly, whiskers forward in full alert mode. I got cramped and stiff and nothing happened. I had time to think while waiting for that mouse. I realized that my people don't appreciate the effort I go to. They freaked out when I caught a baby squirrel and hid it under the rug. It was ridiculous. I'd only eaten the head. There was plenty left to share. No need for all that fuss. So why was I going to all this trouble? I left the wardrobe and went to the couch for a good grooming and a nap.

That evening, while they were watching television, that mouse ran bold as brass across the room in front of them. They shrieked and looked at me. I looked back disdainfully. They chased it around and eventually cornered it with a broom and a dustpan and a lot of crashing and banging. I think he dispatched it by whopping it on the head with the broom handle. Such amateurs! Maybe they'll appreciate my skill more in future.

People enter. They carry with the a cacophany of aromas. My family seems nonplussed by their arrival, so I resume my vigil by the fire, allowing my mind to wander on the olfactory voyage proposed by the infusion of unfamiliar scent into my all to familiar surroundings.

The tall one that entered first, likely the alpha of their pack, smells most strongly of the others who followed close behind in the entryway. Yet he also carries a host of other aromas, which whaft my way as he passes by. Nary a glance in my direction, but I don’t mind. After smelling him, I would not have wanted his hands anywhere near me. My pack may be fine with him but that doesn’t mean I will tolerate his touch, with its scent of his own pack intertwined with the most intimate smells of another pack and far more exotic cuisines than his own had enjoyed. Underpinning it all is the sterile stench of alcohol. Though I like the warmth it generates on human skin, I have my fire and no need to seek out the borishness that often accompanies that scent.

The older female entered next. She was fragrent with the odor of pups, combined with the more traditional bouquet of the kitchen, and not just of the confection she had brought with her, but of a myriad spices. I now understood what could drive humans to new lands just to find more spice.

The pups came rushing in past her, nearly spilling her culinary masterpiece, which ordinarily would have made me at least jump up in attention, lest she lose a crumb and subject our home to potential invasion of vermin. Yet the warmth of the fire and the calming scent of her composure betrayed a professional level of experience with such things, allowing my watch to resume unperturbed.

The pups scampered onward past the adults, redolent of vigor. The smallest of them spots me and and tentatively makes her way over. She was scrawny, with frizzy hair and so many spots on her face, I had to lick her chin to ear just to make sure her brother had not played tricks with a marker on her. They lacked texture and tasted indistinct from the rest of her, and not a wiff of alcohol on them, so she was just spotted. Clearly the runt of the litter, I decided to call her spot. I was patient with her in that moment, careful to display my indifference as she tugged on my face and ears. If twelve long years of life have taught me anything, it is that the runts leave the best spoils under the table at meal time. My patience would yield a hefty return in due time. For now, I'll continue to stand (or lay) guard by the fire. I still don't like their alpha. He smells of deceit.