For twenty long years, she sat in the same corner, in the same cage, in the same room, of the same house. For the past week now, from where books, movies, and magazines once were, boxes took their place. The objects in them secured and snug tight to keep from damage. She would sit and watch them pack everything in the boxes and haul them outside. She knew a big change is to happen, but what exactly, she was not sure of. It wasn't until the last of the items of the house have been brought to one of the awaiting vehicles, did two people stride over to Sera's cage and took opposite ends to lift it up.
Sera looked questioningly to one another and then back at the corner she has spent all her life in until the cage was turned at a corner to lead outside. The outside... a place Sera was not familiar with.
She gasped as for the first time she was touched by the sun's warm rays and at first curled in a ball in one of the corners of her only sanctuary and hid her head beneath her belly. Sera didn't look again until the heat left and was replaced by the coldness of the shade. Peeking one eye over her long body, she saw that her surroundings were far different from inside the building.
When the humans she has lived and known all her life entered inside the strange environment without so much as hesitation and filled the area with laughter, Sera uncurled herself and moved towards the three kids until she reached the glass. She smirked at their happiness; if they felt no threat or danger, then she, too, felt no threat or danger.
The vehicle started, and at first made Sera jump, but she soon learned to cope with the strange sounds, sights, smells, and feel. She even began to enjoy the strange light from the orb in the sky. She fixed her nest of shredded newspaper in the direct morning sunlight and slithered in a circle until she was in her usual comfortable position, extended her jaws in a large yawn, and closed her brilliant blue eyes to drift off in a deep sleep.
Not knowing how long she was out, Sera awoke to the youngest child taping their finger on the glass window of her cage. She lazily looked at the child and the corners of her mouth slightly curved upward and she unwrapped her tail to tap the tip of her rattler on the glass, mimicking the four year old. Then the child placed his hand on the glass and Sera poked at the middle of the child's hand before she allowed her tail to fall and she slowly began to doze off.
The vehicle started slowing and Sera paid no heed to it. She heard two doors open and close almost at once. A shadow suddenly blocked her sunlight and feeling the coldness, she jolted her head up just as the back of the jeep opened and four hands reached and dragged out the cage.
Looking around the area, nothing could be seen. No houses no other humans, no civilization. Only miles upon miles of sand and rock. The golden landscape seemed dead with very few vegetation but no other signs of wildlife, and yet, further and further the two kept walking with her out into the desert.
She began circling her cage in an inch away from panic.
They won't leave her here... will they?
They can't- they won't!
Her life depends on them and they know it!
Sera's heart sunk as they stooped down to place the cage upon the ground and slowly, they began to tip it and Sera allowed herself to give into gravity. The humans slightly opened the cage door and soon began jogging back towards the jeep.
"No..." Sera pushed against the door, but when it barley moved, she lunged at it with all her might and it gave way and crashed in the dirt. Sera quickly slithered from her cage and looked towards her humans just as they began to close their doors.
"No, no, no!" Sera bolted off towards the vehicle that now began to slowly increase in its speed as it waited for other vehicles to pass before it finally sped forward.
"Wait!" Sera called and she put all the speed she had into her muscles. She lifted her head inches above the ground to look past the dust and the rocks she slithered over and around.
"Don't leave me!"
Never had she slithered so fast in her life, and yet it was so overwhelming. Already her heart was beginning to race and her breath quickened. She finally slowed, and with her head hung, she looked on at the retreating jeep, now only a black speck in the distance.
"Don't go..." was all her lungs could allow her to say.
Giving a deep sigh, she turned and began retracing her marks back to her only home she had left. Every time she heard an unfamiliar sound, she would freeze and wait for any kind of danger to appear. When nothing would happen in the few minutes she would spend at a time waiting, she would continue her way. Of course, it was sundown by the time she found her cage.
Sera gathered the scattered newspaper in a bed in a corner and curled in a tight ball. The strange sounds of the night troubled her and she found it hard to get to sleep without the comfort of being inside a house, surrounded by safe and secure walls. She dug her head into one of her coils and tightly closed her eyes. Despite the howls of the coyotes in the distance, sleep was able to help her escape the nightmare she was living.