4
Life Without
The day was one of those days that seemed to move at the pace of an elderly sea slug, and by the end of it Laurel was curiously drained. Her thoughts rested on her interrupted night previous, and she could only concentrate on her classes with tremendous effort. Stopping home for a minute, she headed to the Laundromat, throwing the afghan in with her socks and sweaters. She flipped through a dog-eared copy of The Watchmen, musing on The Tick's superior storyline, occasionally watching the tall, onyx black haired man racking up a stupendous score on the ancient Castlevania game in the corner, provided by the owners as another way to put your change to use. He played with curious fervour, making it to the Grim Reaper final boss on only a few coins. The timer on her dryer buzzed fuzzily and she shrugged, turning down the corner of her current page, and scooping her clothes, and the now clean blanket into a garbage bag that she slung over her shoulder, The man looked up, watching her retreating outline in the glass door, his pixelized hero abandoned for less than a minute, beheaded noisily by his grim and gloating opponent.
The night went curiously well, Laurel finished her assigned reading quickly, and she somehow managed to enjoy a supper of cold rice and lukewarm tea. She fed and watered Samson, patting his soft little belly, stroking his prickles in just the right way, making his back legs wiggle. She smiled wanly in bed that night, falling to sleep and barely dreaming. In the night darkened room, things moved. But she did not hear them.
Upon waking, the room was curiously silent. Laurel did not hear Samson's morning snuffling nor the whisper of his feet on pine shavings. She cracked her eyes open, still heavy with sleep, and looked over to his cage in the corner. It was empty, and the grated door hung unsteadily on one hinge. She rose up on her elbows, looking around for her little escape artist and saw something hanging from the light fixture near the door.
It is hard to describe seeing the corpse of a beloved friend and companion. Does it fill one with cold creeping desolation, almost physical pain, or horrific, gaping emptiness? It's hard to say. But Laurel could say if she was asked and felt like answering.
Before her eyes, she saw a common garden hedgehog hanging by its tiny neck from the bare bulb in her aged white ceiling. He was slit from throat to tail, his minute intestines shining in the morning light, a puddle of warm blood on the linoleum floor below. Laurel could not speak. Her eyes bulged wide, and her head fell into her arms, blocking out what she could not accept.
Behind the gently swinging corpse scrawled in its blood on the door was a message.
CONTINUE WITH THE TURTLES AND YOU WILL BE NEXT.
It may be cliché but when one receives such a warning, cliché ceases to be an important matter.