by Ricky Halloran

Created on: January 24, 2010

"What's your name, kid? Marcus?"

Marcus nodded dumbly, his mouth a gaping hole for sound to enter but not exit. He stared at the man fixedly, as at a marvel or an anomaly, wide unblinking eyes ready to glaze over in a faint.

"Well Marcus, have you ever wondered what it would be like, to die?"

The serial killer, his easily recognizable face having been plastered across the city in vain hopes that the populace could somehow anticipate and put a stop to the mind and doings of a madman, chuckled harshly at his own wit and began to squeeze the trigger.

'I don't want to die here, not like this...' was Marcus' last thought...

...until he awoke seconds later, staring up at the starry sky. Crickets chirped, tree leaves shifted in an unfelt and unseen wind, some sort of bird shrieked and then fell silent. Marcus was a field mouse. He twitched his whiskers twice and bounded off in search of food.

The field mouse came to a building, some sort of human establishment erected in pointless defiance of the reality surrounding it. As part of that invasive reality, the field mouse was capable of slipping through a crack in one wall, where creeper vines had found a niche.

Once inside, a delightful smell filled the field mouse's nose. It was an alluring, tasteful smell, filled with warmth and wonder. It called to the field mouse, begging to be devoured... There. He could see it, just out of reach, down the hayloft ladder and across the dust-covered barn floor, a great white cube of nutrition, sustenance, and taste. The field mouse bounded down one side of the ladder, tore across the floor, took a single bite of cheese and heard a snap, the field mouse instantly felt...

...warm. Covered with feathers, a quilled pincushion; even the wind could not serve to break his temperature; the field mouse was a night owl.

The night owl desired to hunt, its instincts told it to. However, after an hour of simply sitting on the branch of an oak and searching with its eyes, it decided more effort would be required in order to find prey. The night owl dove from its perch gracefully, wings outstretched, caught an updraft and soared. If it could not have something larger, like a field mouse, then perhaps it could make due with some of the countless crickets making their incessant racket across the forest.

The night owl glided downward and, wings flapping, came to a stop in a patch of grass. It bent its head and snatched at the tiny insects before they could hop away, gulping them down as fast as it

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