William

    “There you go, William. Now goodnight!” Lily says, putting the newly-full water bottle in my cage with her short fingers. Then she reaches up to flick a switch, shutting off the lights. She closes the door, alienating me from the rest of the house. It’s so quiet. I can’t even hear the cat meowing at the door with an empty belly like usual.
    A dim glow is cast over the room from the window on the wall at the other side. In the grey dullness, I waddle up the wooden ladder to my yellow sleeping box. Lily. It’s the same every, single night. She walks in with her clumsy, jumpy, dance of a walk and says, ‘Goodnight!’ as if I’m stupid. I don’t like her. She always pets me too hard and squeezes me until I think I’m about to burst. And she always talks way too loud. She’s seven years old, which I guess is young for a human. Although exceedingly old for a hamster like myself.
    I crawl through the little circular opening of the sleeping box and bury myself in the pile of woodchips and shredded fabrics of sorts. I’m in a comfortable ball, but I don’t sleep. I’m nocturnal. I only hide in the box because I have food in here. I stuff my face with it. Seeds, nuts, pellets and colourful eatables made of a strange substance of which I am unfamiliar. So wonderful. So satisfying. Food is the only entertaining part of my life, it seems. I’m trapped in my cage, never to see the utopia of outside. Never to feel the wind in my grey fur, never to smell the rich grass all around me, and never to explore the endlessness of the open fields right beyond the glass windowpane. So many missed opportunities. Drat. It eats away at me. I want to go outside. To be free.
    I unroll myself and trot back to the crusty, woodchip floor and to the very front of my cage. These white-painted metal bars restrain me from my true identity: a wild hamster. I may’ve been born in a pet shop crammed in with twenty other rodents the same as me, but my destiny was to be out there. In a world of unknown and adventure. But how was I to get out? When a closed door blocked me from getting to the rest of the house and a glass barrier to immediate freedom? I might be able to fit through the tiny space between the door and the hardwood, but even then, how to pass the bars of this prison?  
    I twitch ear in hopelessness. No escape? Everything can be escaped. Hamsters can get out of anything. Except The Ball. Every hamster fears The Ball.
    I look at the cold, hardwood floor. It seems a million miles below. My cage is on the top of a bookshelf. The only time I have any access to the floor is when Lily puts me into The Ball or when she changes my food and water and opens the door to do so. I think of opening the door, but I would never, ever be strong enough to. My head is churning with ways to get out. I remember Lily once took off the entire top part of my cage when I refused to come out so she could reach me better. Then there was only the yellow plastic bottom filled with woodchips and my food bowl left on the shelf. Maybe I could knock the cage off the bookshelf. The force of hitting the floor would make the top come off for sure. What could possibly go wrong?
    Suddenly I am so amazingly happy. The moon is glittering on my black eyes through  the window. Once I get out of the cage, I can go under the door and from there it’s just a straight plunge to a new life. I can hardly wait. I push to the back of the cage and get ready to charge at the bars. Then I go; I run as fast as I can and hit the front with the side of my face. It stings more than I expected and a sharp ringing sound echoes in my ears for a few seconds. Everything in the cage shakes and the water drips a bit, wetting the woodchips underneath it. But the cage didn’t drop from the shelf. I’ll try again.
    I throw myself towards the bars again. And again. My body is bruised. But I try once more. The cage doesn’t even budge. Now I’m disappointed that it’s not working. Maybe there’s too much weight at the back of the cage. Yes, That’s it! I’ll move my food bowl an the woodchips to the front and I’ll try to push my chew toy there too if I can.
    Now everything is in place. I ready myself on the bare plastic of the back of he cage that is now empty, and though the floor is cold and slippery, I run and smash against the metal one more time. I fall to the woodchips aching. My stomach feels woozy now. Something’s not right.
    I get up and look through the bars. The sound of the bang is still running through the cage, but I don’t think it’s moving. Now the rest of the room is tilting upward. Wait, no. My stomach lurches. The cage is tipping off the side of the bookshelf. The floor suddenly looks farther than it ever has. I realize it’s too late.
    Everything is in slow motion, it seems. The cage turns on its side, everything falling to the front. I hit the bars on my left shoulder, but I‘m too surprised to know the pain I feel. Woodchips cover me and get in my eyes. My food launches from its bowl. The floor comes in an instant. CRASH!! Now everything’s quiet again.
  
    I think I’m injured. I’m still. I hurt everywhere, and my ears are ringing. My fur is tangled and my bones sore. I open my eyes and see what looks like the aftermath of a nuclear war; bedding and woodchips mixed with seeds cover the floor, and water from my bottle has spilled all over. The plastic bottom of the cage is upside-down beside me and the metal top is across the room, laying on its side. I’m mixed in with a pile of assorted things that used to be orderly and clean in my cage. Now I wonder if I made a mistake.
    I get to my feet after a few minutes of recovery. It hurts to stand, but I don’t think I broke anything. I’m surprised I’m so lucky. The floor is unbearably cold, however, and I feel anxious being in the open like this. I’m in the middle of the room. I want to hide. The ceiling is too high up, with so much open space above and around me. I’ve never been able to roam around the room before. I want to explore, but I can do that once I get outside. I cannot waste any time here. When the sun rises again, so will Lily and her parents, and they will be angry at me for making a mess. And they’ll put me right back.
    I scurry to the door. My paws make a pitter-patter sound when I run like this, disturbing the silence of the sleeping house. I get to the base of the giant door. Its knob is glinting in the rays of the moon, but shadows are cast all around it. It’s closed. Just as I planned, I suck in my belly and squirm under it, entering a hallway.
    The hallway is long, probably twice that of the previous room, and more doors are evenly spaced along the sides. One is the bathroom, I know. The others are bedrooms. I have been forced into all of them by Lily, all the while her holding me in her fist. I know there are people sleeping behind some of the doors, so I be as quiet as I can.
    The air is chilled with a nightly draft and my breathing is quick. At the end of the hall is a doorway who’s door has been removed. I scurry through it. Now I’m in the living room, its walls painted beige. There’s a big, leather sofa and a table with some empty cans on it. And there’s a flat-screen T.V. on the wall above the fireplace. It’s surface, usually flashing with coloured lights, is now black. There’s a window with dark green curtains closed over it on the right side of the room, too, and I can see the green fields through the slit in between them. The grass goes on forever. I faintly see a patch of blooming clover. The pink flowers look nice in the darkness of outside.
    I waddle onto the carpet that covers the whole floor in the living room. There’s a large opening in the left wall that opens into the kitchen, and the front door of the house is through there. There’s so much suspense in the air. I’m getting closer to freedom! Oh, it feels so good!
    The kitchen has many cupboards under the counter and on the walls. There is a table in the center of the room, its legs towering above me. Everything is so big. The ceramic tiles are freezing and my little claws click on them as I walk. The room has pasty yellow and white wallpaper with little, repetitive pictures of cats, sunflowers and baskets of fruit. The door is all the way on the other side of the room, and although my body aches, I run towards it. But then I see a lump on the floor.
    The lump is jet black in colour, laying on the floor under the table in front of me. It’s slowly moving up and down as it breathes. I stop moving, my ears sticking up. My eyes are wide and my little heart is going crazy. The lump moves oddly in the darkness, stretching, growing. It stands on four paws. A huge monster replaces the lump. I see glowing yellow eyes and pointed ears standing straight up.
    “Why do you come out of your cage, little mouse…?” the cat hisses like a demon. I’m too scared to move. I don’t know what to do. She slinks closer, brushing against a table leg for its own pleasure. Her silk coat shimmers in a beam of moonlight as she moves through it. I can’t talk. I’m frozen.
    “…You have made a wise choice… Now, both of us win.” She speaks with a clear yet painfully slow voice, all the while coming closer. “You want to escape…I want to eat…now we’ll both get what we want…”
    I want to escape, but I don’t want to die. She’s got it wrong. I want to live more than anything. I panic. I suddenly can do nothing but run.
    I flee as fast as my stubby legs will carry me towards the door, right passed the cat. She hisses with a frustrated surprise and leaps at me, but I dodge her giant claws. I’m panting; I can hardly breathe. The door is getting closer. I see the kitty door. It’s a little plastic flap at the bottom of the door. I’m almost there. To freedom. To all my greatest dreams. I can’t wait! What a life!
    With a final meow of anger, the cat pounces at me with all her might. She’s coming down on me, her claws reaching out and her fangs bared. Can I make it? I run faster! I’m at the door, and the cat has nearly grabbed me in her white jaws. The black slits in her eyes are like the Devil’s. I’m so close now! I can almost feel the outside air! Please, tell me I’m not going to be eaten this close to my new life! Oh, please!
    I slam myself against the cat door, opening it wide. I bolt out and rush along the cobblestones. Moss grows between them, soft on my paws. My heart is racing and I spin around to see the cat, but the miniature door swings back. It hits the cat square in the face as it was about to land on me. I hear a sudden quack of pain from the creature, and then silence. I think it got knocked out by that hit to the head. And then I realize I’m outside.
      I feel the cool breeze in between my ears and through my fur. It feels amazing. I have never felt real wind before in my entire life. In the distance, grass sways back and forth. Stars decorate the night sky. The air is refreshing and it lights up my eyes, feeling cold in my nose. Summer air. Wonderful air. There’s so much atmosphere…so much everything. The sky covers the whole roof of outside, instead of just a square on the wall that was the window. I see fields of beautiful green that stretch as far as I can see. I’ve never seen so much space to explore… I’m free! Finally free!
    Then I feel a churning in my stomach. It makes a rumbling sound. I blink, then look back to the house. My food is in there… I miss my bowl already. I lick my lips and hesitate a second before waddling back along the cobblestones to the kitty door. Who needs the big outside, anyway?