Writing with the plot in reverse order was something I wanted to experiment with, since I really like writing mystery fics. I think it turned out alright. This one-shot can get pretty dark, so if I offend anyone, I will say right now that I did not mean it.

Bird of Paradise

3:27 pm, March 22th

Stan took Sandy's left paw in his own. She flinched, as if burned by a white-hot wire. Ignoring this, Stan held up the reluctant paw to examine it more closely. Defeated, Sandy ceased the struggle and looked away shamefully.

"There was really no need to avoid me the past few days. Pashmina told me." Stan gently loosened his grip on Sandy's paw to let her retract it at her own pace. "And you must've seen Bijou around."

"…"

They say that every end is a beginning. But how do you find solace in something so vague? The end is the beginning of what, exactly? There is no way to know what will happen after the new beginning. So what if it is the beginning of something worse?

"The weather is lovely, no?" He gestured to the grand blue sky and gallant greenery.

She followed his signals to find the barren void above her and the single-coloured dullness around her.

"You know, sometimes it's better to just focus on the present," Stan said. "And the present right now is quite nice."

Since all starts and all finishes are intertwined, it seems rather trivial for one to "start from the beginning". Maybe the beginning will not matter. It is gone and over, and forgotten… or one can hope.

"The past can be painful, and the future can be intimidating," he said. "But the present, it's just right."

"Are you saying that the past is meaningless?" she replied with a hair of anger in her tone.

"Things that you consider important now will eventually cease to matter." Sandy turned her head sharply at such a remark.

"Relive yourself as what you were one year ago, and look at the present," he said under her glare. "There will be things, many things that you've experienced or done that the one-year-younger version of you would never have imagined in the wildest dreams."

How long until the end of the end, the beginning of the beginning? How long until a new start that is hopefully better? No matter how unclear the new may seem, at least the old will be over and will remain in the past. The end, however conjoined with the beginning it may be, is still a period. What happens after that, it is completely up to you.

Stan continued, "Changes happen in life, you change, people change."

"What if I don't want to change?"

"You'd become a log lodged between the rocks above a waterfall, unable to flow back upstream, and unable to ever experience the feeling of soaring in the sky to find your new calling below."

A butterfly fluttered past the two hamsters. While absentmindedly following it with her eyes, Sandy asked, "And how does it become unstuck?"

"Well, with a little outside push, it'd be free…"

9:13 am, March 17th

"I still can't believe she would do that!" Pashmina cried, breaking the silence. "My best friend…" She added faintly. Beside him, Stan's whole face was tensed up, trying to hold in his emotions. Bijou was sitting by herself in a corner, crying dry tears with depleted tear ducts. Everyone else had listened intensely to the conversation between Pashmina and Stan, uninterrupting. Every now and then one would turn his head to look at them sympathetically.

Earlier this morning, Pashmina had burst through the door of the clubhouse, on the verge of hysterics, jabbering nonsense about Sandy, abruptly putting a halt to the ceremony. The Ham-Hams had swarmed her to calm her down, but Pashmina stated firmly that she would only talk to Stan and Bijou. When they arrived, Pashmina had settled down somewhat and revealed to them in hiccups what she had seen Sandy do the night before. Bijou erupted into an endless stream of tears half way through and ran off to wail by herself. Stan's eyes became glassy yet murky as the light that shone into his eyes would only find itself lost and diffracted into a foggy appearance. And Pashmina could only continue with her choked voice. When she had finished, the clubhouse fell silent short of Bijou's sniffling. A few of them turned their heads to look at the picture, wondering how all this could have happened.

"You'll talk to her right?" the voice came from Pashmina's mouth, of which she now had no control over. "I can't handle this."

"She's my twin sister," Stan's voice broke. "We're practically the same being. It hurts me when she's hurt. Of course I'll talk to her."

"She'll avoid you."

"All the more reason to talk to her. Though…maybe some time for her to think about what she'd done could help."

"But you don't…you don't think that she'll do it again?" Pashmina's face went pale with fear.

"NO, NO, NO!"

Everyone in the clubhouse swivelled their heads to find the earth-shattering outburst emanating from the tiny white puffball in the corner.

"No! I will not let her!" Bijou raised her head and a wild determination driven by pain was in her red eyes. "I will follow her no matter where she goes and watch her like a hawk. There's no way I'm letting this happen again!"

She marched to the exit of the clubhouse and turned back to look at Stan. "Help her, Stan," she said, and left.

Howdy sighed, "Now there's a girl who knows how to cut the crap—" All the faces in the clubhouse turned to glare at him. Pashmina even let out a gasp.

"Gyah!" Cold sweat broke out all over Howdy. "Really, really bad choice of word. I'm sorry."

"Why did she do this?" Pashmina started, her exasperation fuelled once again. "Does she think she's the only who's hurt? Doesn't she know this had been hard enough on all of us already?"

Stan put a paw on her shoulder. "Pashmina, just… you've done enough. Forget about this—no, of course you can't—what I mean is, go home. Have some sleep. God knows how you must've been wide awake last night. I'll sort it out with Sandy."

Pashmina closed her eyes and nodded. She stomped her way to the door and, like Bijou, stopped momentarily. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but closed it again, and instead, slammed the door shut on her way out.

The air current created by the slamming door brought about the scent of lilies and chrysanthemums to everyone in the clubhouse.

11:02 pm, March 16th

In a dark room filled with the peaceful sound of subtle human snoring, the air is still, as if frozen in time. The once bright moonlight, dampened by a double layer of steadfast clouds and unyielding window drapes, was greatly diminished that it gave the surfaces it touched greyish appearances. The wisps of light gradually spread around the room, much like a gas-like substance would. It hung low, imitating lifeless atmosphere around it, and wiped off the dust particles of the darkness with its fingers to light up pictures Hillary hung up on the wall, pictures of the past. Eerily, it made a rotation all around the room, and settled onto the back of a hamster in her cage. She studied her reflection, darkened by her own shadow. She saw herself, yet not herself. The hamster she held in her paws echoed the happy-go-lucky Sandy in appearance, but fell silent in the portrayal of her heart. In its own small confined space, the hamster looked almost as if it was grinning, or is it just because she could not see all the stress lines and tear streaks in the dark?

"I know you." She stated. "I...knew you."

The hamster stayed silent. She blinked once, and the hamster in the reflection blinked with her. She raised her arm, and the hamster in the reflection raised her arm with her. For an instant, there was a feeling of primal delight in her mind. She raised her arm again, and saw the hamster do the same.

"Ha...I've got you in complete control. Haha…hahahaha…" She grinned and began to giggle gleefully as the euphoric sensation rushed into her head. She fell back onto the straw bed, still madly giggling. For the first time, she felt freed from the hold of her mind.

"There's nothing you can do," she laughed. The sensation was short-lived, however, as other thoughts rushed into her mind, mentally crushing her once again. What if it was actually herself being controlled by the hamster in the reflection?

"No!" She snarled at the hamster, feeling it secretly sneering at her. "I'll show you!" She had to show it to the hamster in front of her, to herself, and to the world, that she can control what happens to her. She had to, she must, for if she could not, then...

She caressed the glass surface, feeling the sharp edges. He had hated her going into dangerous alleyways, but after what happened, she felt that whatever he held a strong sentiment to, good or bad, there was an attachment to him. What could a few cats possibly do? She was, after all, in control of everything. And with this piece of glass she garnered, she will prove it.

With an impenetrable expression on her face, she drew the glass down into her elevated left arm, penetrating the skin. Feeling the numbing sting spreading all out toward her body, and seeing the viscous liquid trickling down from her wrist, soaking into the white underfur, she knew she had won. She was in control.

"SANDY!"

Sandy woke up from her daze with a jolt and immediately applied pressure to her bleeding arm. She turned around to see a silhouette standing by the window.

2:36 pm, March 14th

He said we'd do something fun, Sandy thought while she sat on the dusty wooden board, sulking. She averted her attention from the people trudging about five feet below her to the brown hamster lying on top on a book with the thickness of a fully upright hamster, fully absorbed in its passages. Twice she had tried getting him to do something with her, but both times he had started chatting excitedly about the material he was reading when she approached him.

Sandy sighed and held up a book that she had pulled out of the shelf. It appeared to her to be an in-dept text about tropical birds. On the front cover was a beautifully drawn bird in flight. Its scarlet silky tail flailed freely in the air, pushing it higher toward the destination that its powerful wings long to take it. Sandy was captivated as soon as she saw the vibrant plumage of amber and emerald and finding its whole being speaking of nobleness. Unfortunately, she could not understand a single word in it. She opened the book once again, staring aimlessly at the gibberish writing, becoming more and more irritated, until she snapped it shut for the last time.

Sitting up, she edged toward Maxwell to make her third attempt at starting a conversation while mentally telling herself to remind him of the conversation they had.

"But Maxweeell, that's boriiing."

"You say that every time Sandy, but you always end up having fun," Maxwell said. "Remember the time we played tag on the book shelves?"

"Oh I remember! You couldn't catch me because I kept running around this huge encyple—" Sandy fumbled around with the word, stammering.

"Encyclopedia." Maxwell grinned.

Sandy snuggled closer and put her head on Maxwell's shoulders. "You're so cute when you spew out big words."

"Haha, really?"

"Well, no, but I like this anyway."

Maxwell wrapped his arm around Sandy. "Me too."

"So, what do you say? Shall we head to the library?"

Sandy watched the Ham-Hams busy themselves in the clubhouse kitchen. They had gotten the notion from Maxwell that they had to bake lots of pies because today was Pi Day. Sandy, being the athletic type, was not really interested in such unhealthy food. "Sure, let's go," She replied.

She started, "Hey Maxwell…?" At that moment, two primary school students ran down the aisle, laughing and screeching, causing people's disapproving glares and drowning out Sandy's words.

Maxwell turned his head, "Hm? Did you say something, Sandy?"

She twiddled her thumb. "Just wanted to, like, talk to you maybe about—" More childish screaming was heard as the two kids ran back. One of them looked back to check how far behind his pal was, and ran straight into the book shelf Sandy and Maxwell were on. The shelf tilted dangerously towards the kid, and he frantically pushed it back on its bottom. Maxwell, who was on the top, however, was not as lucky. The momentum had been set in place, and the book he was on top of slid off the edge with a cloud of dust. He screamed as he plummeted towards the ground.

"Maxwell!" Sandy cried in horror as she saw the giant book slammed onto the floor, crushing the feeble hamster underneath. "Maxwell!"

9:03 am, March 14th

A sudden gust of wind blew into Sandy's face, making her drop her ribbon in midst of her routine.

"Cats." From the tree branch she was on, she watched her ribbon drift into the river and flowed downstream until it was but a mere speck.

Yay for open ended/started-ness (lol). Tell me if you like it~