My Life as a Pet Mouse

Chapter 2

"To be honest, I was worried I'd overdone it with the sleeping spell."

I didn't know how to react. This was the person that had captured and caged me. Now ze was talking to me like I was an old acquaintance of hir's. I did, however, react by backing up when ze sat down on hir knees to rest hir arms and head on the surface of the wooden table my cage sat on. There wasn't anywhere for me to go, obviously, and even with my back against the furthest wall away from the human, I could see those oddly tired looking eyes passed hir round, wire-framed glasses. With an equally tired looking expression, ze continued to talk.

"Don't trust me, huh? Can't say I blame you." With a hand-muffled yawn, the human stood up and made hir way over to a nearby desk. Ze opened one of its drawers and pulled something out that I couldn't see before returning to the cage. Ze slid a moving part in the roof open and dropped the thing ze took from the desk inside. "What do you say we make a deal?"

I hesitantly wandered over to examine the object ze dropped and found a pair of brown leather rings built into each other so that they crisscrossed into an "X". "I'll give shelter, food, drink, and I'll let you out of that cage. I'll even make sure that Lucy stops trying to eat you. In exchange, you'll have to wear that thing you're holding around your ankle." That sounded like an impossible generous offer. I glared up at the human that had returned to resting hir arms and head on the table to let hir know I wasn't convinced. I don't know if ze noticed it but ze continued on anyways. "That anklet is effectively a collar and leash. It's enchanted so that whatever magical creature wears it can't take it off and can't disobey the person that gave it to them." In other words, my options were to either be a prisoner or be a slave. Yeah, great options. "You don't have to choirs right now. Just keep in mind that I have no intentions of letting you out of there until you do." Ze yawned again and stood up. "In any case, I'm exhausted. I'll be going to sleep now. Try not to make too much noise in there, okay?"

I pouted and sat down with my arms crossed after throwing the anklet as far away from me as possible. I didn't have many options but I'd have rather cling on to the hope of eventually escaping than to throw away any chance of freedom. I'd survived that long on my own without selling myself to someone else's whims and I saw no reason to change that.

I turned my attention over to the human who was changing hir clothes into something more comfortable and turned off the lights. As ze climbed under hir covers, I began to consider my options. I didn't know how "generous" this human was but I figured it would be best if I did as ze asked and stayed quiet. With that in mind, I stared at my hands. The tips of my fingers ended in small, pointed claws that I often used for the sake of climbing and digging. I doubted I could find any purchase on the glass's smooth surface meaning climbing was out. Even if I could make it to the top, getting the lid open was another problem entirely.

That left digging. I knew that the glass was thick and sturdy enough to resist my attempts at breaking meaning that attempting to claw my way through would take a lot of time and effort to do. If the human noticed what I was trying to do, ze'd probably just pull me out and stick me in a thicker, sturdier container. I didn't know the integrity of the cage floor but even if it was weak enough to tunnel through, I 'd still have to get through it and the wooden table the cage stood on.

With a huff, I accepted that I was genuinely stuck. It infuriated me to no end that an enchanted blueberry and four walls of glass were all it took to imprison me. I threw myself on my back and closed my eyes. I might've been asleep for however much time I was unconscious by the physical and mental strain I had built up as a result of my struggles to get out were starting to catch up with me. Exhausted might be too strong a word to describe how I felt but I was tired enough to consider taking a nap. It's not like I had anything else to do, regardless.

I felt myself start to drift off when - GRUMBLE GROAN - my stomach decided once again that it had different plans. Sighing in exasperation, I sat up and walked over to the partially eaten blueberry. I looked at it, still not trusting it to not put me in a coma, but sat down and began eating it anyway. It was the only thing that I could eat that wasn't the straw that covered the floor and while I wasn't particularly picky about what I ate, the berry seemed much more appealing. Besides, I was tired and if it put me to sleep then I'd get what I wanted regardless. Maybe I'd even get lucky and the human wouldn't be able to wake me up and assume that I died.

I paused in my eating to shudder as I realized that human could just as easily feed me to hir beast as ze could throw me outside if ze thought was dead. Well, I've already swallowed some of the blueberry so there's no point in stopping now, I reasoned. Unfortunately, or maybe, fortunately, for me, it seemed as though the enchantment had either worn off or been dispelled. I was definitely still drowsy from my previous weariness but I couldn't feel the sudden exhaustion that came from the sleeping spell. Because of that, after I finished eating another third of the berry, I found myself being kept awake by my thoughts. I couldn't help but worry about being stuck in a glass box for the rest of my life. I'm not sure how long it took me to finally fall asleep, it could have been minutes or hours since I finished that berry, but I did eventually manage to close my eyes and lose myself to my dreams.

I woke up the next morning to the sound of the sliding door in the lid being opened. I cracked my eyes open and found the human dropping a couple of various fruits down. "I'm going to be heading out for a bit," Ze explained. "Don't know how long I'll be out. Figured I might as well leave these here in case you finish that blueberry and decide you're still hungry later." I didn't understand why ze insisted on talking to me. It's not like we were friends of any sort. Still, I was grateful that ze didn't intend to make me starve as a means of forcing me to put on that anklet.

I shivered and wrapped my body around itself. The house was usually much warmer than it was on that day and I had to wonder just how cold it was outside to make the inside that chilly on the inside. The human seemed to notice and gave me a curious look. Ze stood up, then, and wandered back over to hir drawers to pull something out of them. Ze came back and dropped a thick, green cloth large enough to be used as a blanket for me. "I used to have two of these but the other disappeared a while back." I knew what happened to it. I happened to it. "Wrap yourself up in this. My central heating unit has been acting up recently and I haven't been able to get someone to look at it." Ze closed the sliding door and stared at the object wrapped around hir wrist. "I should get going or else I won't be back until late. I'll be back as soon as I can." With that said, ze finally walked out of the room and shut the door behind hir.