Chapter 2: Escape
Day after day Phoenix had tried to get outside and explore, and day after day she was stuck inside. For an entire moon, she was trapped inside the twolegs' nest with nothing to do and no one to play with. For all her life, it had been warm Greenleaf, and the twoleg kits had stayed inside and played with her or each other. But now, they got up early every day, and were chased out of the house at a much earlier hour. The grown twolegs were always gone early.
The days turned to a lull of bright sunlight and naps in warm patches of sunlight, and Phoenix started to have odd dreams. She scarcely ever remembered them, but they smelled of the wild outdoors, and made her longing to escape even more powerful. Her boredom and pent up energy made Phoenix feel like she was going to explode, so when she woke up on that murky, windy day, she decided that today she would get outside.
The twoleg female was packing up her odd-looking things into a sack, and Phoenix watched her innocently from a perch on the windowsill. She had had one of those dreams again, and though she had forgotten most of it, she could remember stars, many, many cats, and a bright green eyes. When she had seen those eyes, Phoenix had awoken shaking and whimpering in fear and grief, though she had no idea why. Unable to fall back to sleep, Phoenix had come up with a plan to escape.
The twoleg had already sent her kits off to ride away in their big yellow monster, and now she would leave in her smaller blue one. Phoenix knew the story. She was ready.
The twoleg female bent to pick up her sack, and phoenix leapt. She landed on the hard shiny surface where the twolegs kept a whole lot of stuff, and kicked a cylindrical thing off the surface. It landed with a satisfying clatter on the floor, and the twoleg made an annoyed sound. Phoenix mewed innocently, and then shot towards her sack. She buried herself beneath all the weird objects and, being so small, managed to hide.
The twoleg picked up her sack, grumbling, and started walking. The smell of twoleg and the sack and what seemed to be food confused Phoenix, but the door clicked open, and then clicked shut, and there was no mistaking that clear, wild smell.
Phoenix was outside.
The twoleg female set down her bag and started to look for something in her odd, blue pelt. Phoenix was unprepared for what would happen out here, having never seen it, and streaked out the opening in the top of the sack, hoping that her bright fur would not bring unwanted attention to her escape.
Phoenix shot into an evergreen bush, squeezing her eyes shut against the needles, and waited until she heard the monster roar out onto the thunderpath, poked uncomfortably by the bush's branches. As soon as the sound of her twoleg's monster faded, she sucked in her stomach and pulled herself out of the bush, and into the light. Shaking the needles and twigs out of her fur, she arched her back in a stretch and turned to look around the yard.