Lots of strangeness, but at least she got away! ^.^; This chapter is kind of gruesome, at least in Petalkit's view, so, beware! XD
Unfair Labor Chapter 14
I ran as fast as I could, although I worried about Rose. Surely they would have dumped her in my old cage before spreading out to look for me. I knew I had a good head start, as they had all waited until Rock gave them orders to run after me, but… the worry was still there.
My chest was tired, and my lungs were burning. My heart raced as I pushed myself onward still, trying to save every iota of strength I possibly could. However, I was losing energy fast.
Where does their territory end? Where does the Twolegplace begin? That's what I was looking for right now. I wanted to find the Twolegplace, because then I could vanish into another cat's garden, away from them, and hopefully all would be well! I would have to see when I could save the other cats, though.
That's five days away! How do you know they won't be guarding the camp extra well? They might, you know, seeing as you're not there, and what if they torture Rose to get the information out of her? the little voice in my head asked.
No time for questions! We'll figure it out when we get there! Maybe I can get the Clans to help me! I still pushed myself onward, feeling stronger now. Perhaps my endurance is just building up?
I knew that there was still a risk that, as I passed through Twolegplace, that if I was still weak, that I could be picked up by one of the evil cat groups in the Twolegplace. My fur fluffed out at that one, and my puffed tail flew out behind me as I ran. I knew that there were slave agencies in the Twolegplace that did things a lot worse than Rock's agency! His was still pretty bad, I thought, but, then again: I had never experienced anything else! I had heard of groups of cats who lived together and kept she-cats as mating slaves, mating with them every single day. I had also heard of toms who used their she-cats for a year until they were no longer useful, and then covered their fur with badger dung and other stuff to freeze their limbs up. They would be left outside overnight and then in the morning the caking would have hardened, rendering them not able to move. About fifty toms would mate with each she-cat during the day, and the only parts of them moving were their areas. Supposedly, toms liked them better if they squelched while mating. The she-cats would die the next day.
I shuddered. What if I get picked up by a group like that? I worried.
You won't. Don't worry. The voice in my head was confident. I imagined another cat standing—or, wait, running—beside me, fur clean, shoulders strong, thrown back, and chest puffed out, head held high, and chin up to face the world.
I wondered how I looked. Probably fairly pitiful! My fur was probably smeared with dirt, and I probably had scars all over the place! I shuddered, slowing down slightly, even as I ran.
I blinked. I had been running for a long time now, and as soon as I slowed down even slightly, that was it. I had only slowed down a little bit, yet, my legs just stopped working! I sighed, dragging myself over to the base of a tree and lying down on the patch of moss that was conveniently situated beside the tree. It was so lush, so thick! I purred at the feeling, which was something that I hadn't experienced for many months. It felt a bit like warm fur.
Oh, I had felt warm fur, all right, but it had always been accompanied by sharp claws that just wanted to make me bleed.
None of this comforting stuff…. And, yet, it just feels so good…. I snuggled down in the moss nest, wrapped my tail over my nose, and fell asleep.
When I woke up in the morning, I felt much better. The forest was still, at least on the ground. In the trees, birds chirped happily, and I got up and stretched. I sat back down to lick myself before I set off.
My tongue practically curdled at the taste of some of the dung on my fur, but I had to get it off! After a few attempts, however, that was proven impossible, so I decided to look around to see if there was a river anywhere nearby. As I walked, confident that this was no longer Rock's territory, as I had never been here before, I also noticed that there were no other scents of cats. I heard a rustling, moving sound through the trees that sounded like a river, and I emerged into the clearing with the small stream flowing through it undisturbed.
After cleaning up my wounds and scratches, and also dampening my fur just enough in the icy cold wetness to get the dirt off, I set off again.
A little while later, maybe around sun-high, I came across a few cats that didn't seem to want to harm me.
"Hi," I mewed cautiously. "Can you tell me where the residential area of Twolegplace is?"
The reddish-brown tabby tom with green eyes that lazed around on a shallow, sunny, flat, rock, looked up lazily and blinked slowly at me. "Travel straight onwards until you reach the start of downtown. Go through that, and then…." He listed off the rest of the directions, and I nodded gratefully when he was done.
"That'll help me. Thanks!" I let out a purr, also glancing at a huge white tom with leafy green eyes. The two toms started to fall back asleep as I set out again.
I had traveled for the entire day. I was just entering Twolegplace, the downtown part, when there was a commotion in the bushes behind me.
"Oh!" I was pleased to see that the reddish-brown tabby and the white tom that I had seen earlier melt out of the bushes beside me. "Have you come to travel with me?"
"Yes, we have," the white one purred. The tabby came on my left, and the white one walked on my right. We walked for a little while, and later took a detour down Twolegplace that the tabby hadn't told me about before. We walked along a deserted alleyway for a little while, and I thought I smelled their scents on the trail.
"Why are we going this way?" I asked.
"Oh, another cat passing through this afternoon told us that there was a detour. We figured that we'd come to help you through," the white cat meowed. Fair enough. I nodded, to show that I appreciated their gesture to me.
We walked along the rest of the way in silence, and suddenly we reached a dead end. They stopped, and I noticed the white cat moving back to block my way out. The tabby pounced on me and flattened me against the ground.
"What are you doing?" I gasped.
"Well, we heard you just escaped being a slave of Rock, and he offered a lot to bring you back, but we thought you'd be perfect for our desires, worthless mating slave she-cat," the reddish brown tabby hissed menacingly, a gleam in his eye, a claw at my throat.