Karl missed Berlin.
If you were in his situation, you probably would've agreed. Everything in Berlin seemed...better. The smells, the food, the atmosphere - it was just more appealing.
And here Karl was, stuck in some random town in a place called "Amer-Ika" or something like that. Ugh.
Now, the town itself wasn't all that bad. In fact, it seemed like any average town you'd find among the many others there are everywhere. It had paved roads, always busy with those big metal machines lumbering down them all the time. Those he didn't mind, as long as they stayed out of his way.
There was one thing that was definitely superb to anything Berlin had to offer.
The forest.
A massive one, at that.
Almost everything about the forest Karl enjoyed. The trees went high, and when the time came, the leaves went low. And the scents, they were incredible! So many new smells came to him! He could smell a sparkling river, a moist marshland moor, tall thick grass, skittering mice and soaring birds, it was almost overwhelming!
However, he occasionally smelled something familiar from that forest...The scent of...cats? At first he dismissed the idea completely. Why on earth would there be cats in a forest? Why would they be absent of their owners? He dismissed it as his mind playing simple tricks on him and moved on.
The yard in his house he enjoyed; it was pretty spacious. Spacious enough for both him and his owners.
Thinking about his owners made him chuckle to himself. He wasn't all familiar with human ways, to be honest. Some of the things they did was a bit ridiculous, if you thought about it. Putting a cloth over your pelt? What madness is that?
Besides his owners strange ways, he enjoyed their company and affection. One was a he-human, the other a she. They were both kind to him, as far as manners and treatment were concerned. But they spoke weirdly, very slow-like. While he didn't speak human, he did recognize some of the words, as they were his own:
"Mutter...bitte...ich...danke...du bist sehr suß...hilfe..."
He recognized these words because he, too, had used them before. "Bitte" and "Danke" were words he'd used all his life, thanks to his mother for raising him with manners.
Ah, his mother. She was such a wonderful cat...it was a shame how she had passed on. Disease had taken her from Karl many seasons ago. It felt like yesterday.
His mother was always there to comfort him when his owners would not. Since he was a kit, she has protected him from strays and wary cats.
He wouldn't be here without her.
He still remembered what she looked like. She was a tabby, a beige one with stunning blue eyes and protective smile. Her name was Anna.
Karl however, seemed to be completely different. He was a pure white short-haired cat with deep green eyes. And with a smile, but not with the same burning passion as his dearest mothers.
He always wondered why he looked so different from her.
"Du hast es von deinem Vater bekommen." ("You get it from your father.") she had told him. "Er war ein gute Katze. Du hättest ihn gemoch." ("He was a good cat. You would have liked him.")
"Wo ist er, Mutter?"("Where is he, mother?") he had asked. He still remembered to this day how she looked after that. "Er..." she started, tears forming in her Sky blue eyes. "Er ist nicht hier, nicht mehr." ("He is not here, anymore."
And so, that ended as soon as it started. Never had Karl met his father. He must have been a good cat, if he had loved Anna as much as her son did.
But something had been nagging at Karl for a while now.
His siblings.
He had met his siblings only once, and can recall what they looked like briefly.
They were both she-cats. He remembers faintly one of his siblings having a bright colour, like his mother, and one a darker colour of grey. Apparently his father had to leave to somewhere, far away from Karl and Anna, and took his sisters with him.
'Ich frage mich wo sie sind.' ('I wonder where they are.') Karl wondered. It would be nice to have a sibling or two.
"Karl!"
Karl snapped out of his daydreaming and peeked his head up off of the couch he had been lazily resting on. 'Ist das...?' he thought.
"Karl? Wo bist du? Kommen sie hier, wir haben essen für dich!"
Karl recognized that sound. Though he couldn't peace all of the words together due to the strange pitch, that mashup of sounds meant one thing: food.
Padding over to the kitchen, Karl sat neatly and waited for the she-human owner to scratch him behind the ears.
The she-human smiled and began using her paws to gently caress the sweet spot behind his left ear. Karl purred as he got an affectionate rub from his owner.
The she-human placed the silver bowl with his name on it in bright red letters, filled with his favorite dish inside: a food which he called "Vitakraft".
Karl wasted no more time in digging in, chewing as much of the flavoured pellets as he possibly could.
As he munched on the edibles, the thought of his sisters lay still in the back of his mind. Are they still alive? Where did they end up? Are they safe? So many questions spiralling in Karl's head at once. "Ich kann nicht einfach akzeptieren dass sie weg sind." ("I can't just accept that they are gone.") he said to himself after swallowing some chow. "Ich frage mich wo sie sind..." ("I wonder where they are...")
Before he knew it, Karl was deep in though about his past. Could his sisters even be alive? He had no way of knowing.
'Sie müssen hart sein.' ('They must be tough.') he thought. 'Ser wurden von der Vater erzogen.' ('They were raised by father.')
"Sie sind am Leben." ("They're alive.") he said to himself.
He leaned past the wall to his front to see outside through an open window, the wind blowing the cloth hanging by it. He suddenly caught a glimpse at just how...big...outside really was. What caught his eye most was the forest. He couldn't put his paw on it, but he felt as if there was something in that forest besides birds and mice. Maybe his suspicions were right after all?
He needed to explore to find out.
"Irgendwie..." ("Somehow...")
(Quick authors note, I am NOT fluent in German, so some - or most - of the German dialogue will come from Google Translate. So sorry if my German offends you somehow.)