Survival Games

Chapter 6

          Lila’s terrified gaze met that of Ari as they both considered the cat’s horrifying proposition. After a few more moments the cat released his grip and dropped Ari onto the table beside Lila. Then he placed his hand flay on the table palm up and smiled.
         ‘You have thirty seconds to decide, then one of you better be back in my hand.’ He said.
         Ari started crying and curled into a shivering ball, prompting Lila to fall to her knees and hug the other mouse tightly.
         ‘Ari…?’ She said, breaking into tears herself now. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll do it… I’ll let him take me so you can go. Don’t worry, you’ll see your kids again.’
         ‘No, you can’t!’ Ari sat bolt upright and hugged Lila in return. ‘It’s… it’s…’
         ‘Twenty seconds!’ The cat interrupted.
         ‘But your kids!’ Lila cried. ‘You have to go back to your kids. They’ll be waiting for you!’
         ‘It’s… too late.’ Ari sobbed. ’I was caught by cats nine days ago…’
          ‘Ari…?’ Lila began to stammer.
         ‘If nobody’s found my kids yet…’ Ari struggled to hold her breaths steady. ‘Then they’re already dead… I’m sorry, I just wanted to get away so much. But there’s nothing for me to go back to by now.’
          Lila couldn’t form a reply, instead just hugging the distraught mother tighter as the pair struggled to control their crying. The cat slammed his hand on the table impatiently. Lila started to move, standing and taking a step towards it.
          Ari stopped her firmly and pulled her away from the waiting clawed hand. With a tearful and stoic expression she took the three steps backwards and sat herself in the cat’s palm before looking Lila in the eyes. ‘Save them… Please, just do your best.’
         If she was going to say more, or if Lila had wished to respond, it was cut short as the cat lifted the mouse to his waiting maw. Lila’s claws scratched into the table top as she was once more forced to watch the result of her own failure.

          Ari closed her eyes, unwilling to face what was about to happen to her. She felt the hand shift beneath her, followed moments by his hot wet breath before she was tossed flailing onto his tongue. Terrified of what she was about to endure, she forced herself to open her eyes. Her first sight was a row of his teeth closing to meet their opposite as his jaws shut around her.
         ‘Aaahhh!’ She cried out in pain as her tail was caught between his front teeth. His low laugh rumbled around her before he parted his teeth just enough to slurp her tail all the way inside. She curled it up and hugged it to her chest, feeling the open bleeding wound where it had been bitten. The tongue curled around her and pressed her to the ridged roof of his mouth. Sliding her left and right he coated her in drool. She coughed and sputtered, struggling to find breaths between his drool and humid breath. His jaw opened and closed as his tongue did its work. She was pressed into both cheeks one after another before he pulled her back to the centre of his mouth and began to slowly shift her back in what was becoming a downwards direction as he tilted his head back ready to swallow.
         ‘No no no NO!’ She screamed as his tongue bucked and forced her headfirst into the pooling liquid at the back of his throat. She held her breath as she was plunged into the slick wet depth before the cat swallowed, sending her and the surrounding pool of saliva down into his gullet with a muffled scream. Her slick fur and limbs offered no resistance to the muscle driven waves that propelled her downwards through the tight fleshy tube.
         Her limbs were pressed tight to her sides the whole way down before she could suddenly move again. The intense pressure lifted steadily running the length of her body before she fell headfirst into a shallow pool of liquid. Flipping herself upright with frantic urgency, she took her first deep breath since the cat had put her in his maw and immediately burst into a fit of coughing and hacking. The stomach was surprisingly tight, she was unable to take more than two steps in any direction before she bumped into more of the pulsating fleshy wall that surrounded her. Everything liquid in this place brought a tingle to her skin, and her feet had been feeling it constantly since she had arrived.
         The stomach clenched suddenly, becoming even smaller for a moment and making a disgusting wet sound like liquid being squeezed from a sponge. Ari lost her footing as it did so and fell backwards. She landed half in his digestive juices and half on the equally disgusting stomach lining. Both liquids clung to her fur, weighing her down and making standing back up almost impossible. Each breath was slow and torturous. All of a sudden she wretched, unable to vomit with her own stomach being empty.
          The tingling sensation on her feet had begun to grow more painful. She tried to crawl out of the pool beneath her but the slick walls and undulating movements made it near impossible. She timed her movements carefully, making arduous progress up the steep slope and pulling herself out of his digestive acids. Another clench of his stomach undid all of her slow painful work and dropped her back in, submerging her almost completely.
         ‘Nnngh!’ She moaned in pain, her already tender feet now in agony and the rest of her now exposed skin beginning to follow suit. Her fur made the situation all the worse, acting as a soaking agent and keeping the deadly juices clinging tight to her body. The pain caused her body to spasm and twitch, bringing her to short and sharp breaths. She struggled to climb out again, mistiming a frantic paw and slipping even deeper. Her fall caused her to inhale half a mouthful of his juices, making her flail and roll onto her back. Her mouth hung open in agony as her insides now began to burn as much as her outside.
         ‘I’m coming…home.’ The words were carried by her last breath as her mind shut down, hiding from the cruel reality of her fate behind a wall of her children’s memories. And then she was gone.

         ** ** **

         Lila had been dropped back into the plastic tank along with the rest of the mice. Most of them made no effort to try and console her, it was clear that no words could make her feel better after the string of failures that had defined the last few days of her life. Her plan had started with such a simple concept. Sneak into the lockers, steal the key and free her fellow mice from their cages.
         Instead it had become her most monumental failure. The cat didn’t know this, but he had made what to her was originally an unspecific goal into a personal struggle for each mouse’s life.
         Only Jay had been with her since the cat dropped her back here tonight. Jack sat nearby, but neither of them said a word. Lila was lying still in Jay’s lap, her tears matting his fur. He didn’t know what to say. Although he cared for her as a friend, much like the others he was beginning to lose hope that she would be able to save them. Only the first to be placed as stakes in the game had been able to escape and ever since then the cat had been destroying her confidence piece by piece.
          ‘J-Jay?’ She asked finally. ‘I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep failing.’
          ‘Don’t think like that.’ He replied. ‘You saved one. You can do it again, we know you can. You just need to… You just… don’t give up.’
         ‘But I’ve failed so many… Ari…’ Lila stammered, unable to finish her sentence.
         ‘I know, but that’s what he wants.’ Jay said. ‘He knew you could beat him at chess, that’s why he won’t play that anymore. You have a sharp mind, you can still outwit him.’
         Whatever Lila was about to say was cut short before she formed the words. Both of them noticed Jack standing to walk over before she sat down beside her and pulled her to sit upright. He held her close, leaning in next to her ear to whisper and make sure no others could hear.
         ‘Listen.’ He began, in a voice so low even Jay could barely hear. ‘Jay’s right. He’s doing this to break you before he eats you. The first loss was just a play to give you false confidence. Understand?’
         ‘But… They were all fair games.’ Lila protested.
         ‘I know.’ Jack shook his head. ‘But he owns these games and he’s clearly a great player at all of them. We’re mice, we scavenge. We can’t compete with them.’
         ‘What are you saying?’ Lila asked. This conversation couldn’t be heading in a positive direction.
         ‘I’m saying next chance you get.’ Jack told her, is voice now inaudible to all but her. ‘Next time he takes you out, puts you on that table. When he goes to get the game, or picks out the next one of us, as soon as his back is turned, you run.’
         ‘But Jack, I can’t.’
         ‘You run.’ He repeated, insisting with urgency. ‘Don’t worry about saving us, if you can save yourself you’ve done something good.’
         Lila couldn’t believe what she was being told. Since the games had started she had discounted the idea of escaping herself, reasoning that she would either save as many as she could, or give herself up to save at least one of them. Her shivering stopped as Jack held her.
         ‘Promise me you’ll save yourself.’ He whispered again. ‘You have a life to live, you have a colony to go back to. Go back and live, alright?’
         ‘What about you?’ She asked.
         ‘We were dead when we were caught.’ He said. ‘I love that you tried to help so many, but you shouldn’t have been caught, you should have stayed away.’
         ‘I wanted to help…’
         ‘You were an idiot.’ Jack said, almost laughing. ‘Brave girl, but it wasn’t a smart thing to do. You didn’t have any friends you were trying to save did you?’
         ‘No…’ She replied. ‘But I saw so many taken by cats… I just had to do something… I had to try and fight back somehow, to make things right for all of us who lost someone to them…’
         Jack cradled her close as she fell silent once more. A low grumble interrupted the silence, making her remember that she hadn’t eaten yet.
         ‘Here.’ Jay called, pulling over the last cherry. ‘I saved you one.’