MICHAEL

"I love you, sweetie." My mother whispers to me as she cups my face in her hands, leaning in and giving me a kiss on the top of my head in between my ears. Her warmth spreads through me and I smile. "Just stay in this area behind the trees, okay? I'll be back in a few hours." I nod at her, and watch as she puts on a beanie to cover her ears as she walks toward the edge of the woods. I get a bit nervous as she walks away. I hate being alone. I've only been alone a few times in my life-- when my mother has to go run some errands.

I sit down in the grass, completely concealed by the heavy bushes and tall trees. My hands play with the weeds, twirling the green stems around my finger. I hear the birds calling to each other above me, up in the treetops, and squirrels rustle the leaves behind a nearby plant. I sit for a while, playing with my tail and my ears before eventually getting quite bored and wondering if my mother has made it to her car yet. It always scares me that somebody will notice she's not entirely human. Like what happened to my dad.

With this in my mind, I decide to get up and walk slowly towards the edge of the woods to see if my mother has gotten to her car. My feet step over the leaves, careful not to crackle any to make noise. I stay in the shadows as I get to the edge of the woods, peering behind a thick tree trunk to spy on the life outside the world of trees.

It's quite busy. People are bustling around with shopping bags and talking loudly on their phones. Trash litters the street and I wrinkle my nose, unable to believe that people don't clean up after themselves. Through this all, I look around for my mother's car. It's gone, so I suppose that she's on her way. I breathe out a sigh of relief. She's safe.

Just then, I hear a loud honk from a car and then an ear-splitting noise, sounding like crashing metal, sounded through the air and all talk on the streets quieted. Heads whipped toward the roads, eyeing the catastrophe that happened right before their eyes. Before my eyes.

A silver car identical to my mother's is torn into shreds, a bloody figure sprawled across the front hood. A man inside a huge black car which crashed into the silver's opens his door and runs out, staring at the damage he's caused and screaming. Shouts begin to erupt from the sidewalk, people dialing on their phones and yelling to one another.

Realization hits me like a sack of bricks-- that's my mother. Hysterical screams rise from my throat, and all thoughts of being captured erase from my brain as I scream for my mother, shrieking her name. Nobody hears me over the sound of their own cries, but my throat is raw. Tears roll down my face with no sign of stopping, dribbling over my chin and staining my shirt. I hear sirens in the distance and I panic. They'll see her ears. They'll take her away and not even try to save her.

Before I can run out and drag her away from sight, a police car and ambulance screech to a stop in front of the scene. Three paramedics carefully slide her body from the hood of the car to a stretcher, carrying her to the ambulance and putting her inside. The police officer begins to talk to the man, who is crying as well. His hands are pushed up into his hair in a panic as the police officer tries to calm him down. The ambulance turns and squeals out its siren again, veering onto the road to take off to the hospital. I know, with horrible finality, that I will never see her again. Just like my father.

My legs collapse beneath me, and I fall in a heap on the ground behind a tall bush. Sobs rack my body, my ears quivering and my tail wrapping around my torso. No. No. She can't be gone too, that's impossible.

The chaos outside dies down as the police officer makes everyone leave the scene. The emptiness grows in my chest until it engulfs me whole, swallowing me like a snake. I walk slowly back to my home, a small clearing in the woods. It looks even emptier without my mother. I walk over to my blue blanket and cuddle up on it, curling myself into a tight ball so that nobody, not even the squirrels, can see the tears staining my cheeks.

I've never been without my mother before, not over a couple of hours anyway. What am I supposed to do? I can take care of myself, or I have the ability to do so. I'm 18 years old, much too old to have been still living with my mum, but she wanted only support for me since I lost my father, and honestly, we needed each other. Now that she's gone, I have no idea how to take care of myself.

This world just got a lot bigger, and a lot lonelier.

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a/n little kitten mikey is so adorable that I just had to write this story.

clearly i suck at first chapters but just stick with me okay

please vote and comment! i love you!