"Rikki! Rikki, oh, you've got to see this!"

I turned, irritated. "What is it, Chandra?" Little sisters can be so annoying.

"There's something in the distance, like, really far away! I can see it!" She grasped my arm. "C'mon, Rikki!"

I rolled my eyes. "All right, Chandra, I'll come look. But it better be good. I was about to get some exploring done!"
I wondered vaguely what this something was as my pain of a sister led me by the paw. Probably an extra tall blade of grass or something else Chandra could overreact to.

Her high, tinny voice cut through my thoughts. "I saw it here! See, you can still see it! Do you see it, Rikki?"

I looked, and I had to admit that I saw something. I couldn't quite tell what it was, but it was indeed there.

"Probably nothing." I told her.

But there was something else odd. I heard something too. It sounded like a distant rushing. I turned to tell Chandra, but she had bounded off into our burrow again.

As the day went on, Chandra's curiousity about the "thing" faded, but mine started to grow. I began pondering the choices as to what it could be. But, as always, my thoughts were interrupted.

"RIKKI! DINNER!!" came my mother's cry.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I responded, dashing over to my mother.

I found my family eating, my mother giving everyone some snake steak. Annoying Chandra was seated next to one of her even more annoying friends she had dragged over for dinner.

The house was full of the sound of laughter and chatter and of…rushing? That wasn't right. It had never sounded like rushing in the burrow before. Oh, well, I thought to myself, and continued to ignore it.

Before dinner ended, I excused myself early. I walked over to my room, but I was in for a surprise.

My room was knee-deep in water.

And filling up all the time, too, I noticed. The water started to gush out of my room, and soon I heard cries of shock from where my family was having dinner. I remained frozen, while the water level grew still higher.

"Rikki, where's Rikki?" I heard Chandra's voice cry as the water level grew some more.

That was the last thing I ever heard of my family. The water sent me flying out of the burrow, down through a ditch. I yelled for my family in the distance, and heard them yelling for me, but we both knew we couldn't reach each other. I continued yelling until I was hoarse, but still, no use. I needed something to cling to, to stop moving with the water.

And there it was, right on cue. Salvation in the form of a wisp of grass! I seized it, clutching it like it contained my life force, and in some ways, it did.

I grew tired, clinging there, and started thinking how nice it would be to just abandon myself, to let the unconsciousness take me like it wanted to. I shook myself out of it several times, but it came again and again, becoming so…hard…to resist…

I gave up. I shut my eyes and let go, letting the flood carry me away.