Chapter 1: The car crash

This story begins in St Louis. Missouri like so. It was currently late October in the year 1927.

One quiet evening night on an isolated long dirt road outside the outskirts of St. Louis, a dark blue 4-door Model-T automobile was driving along at 40 MPH heading towards the brightly lit city. The bright headlamps illuminated the dark road ahead of the car. The occupants inside the old vehicle was a small family of three Cats. A mother and father, and their young son. They were currently driving on their way home back into St. Louis after coming back from a long exciting three day road trip of exploring other cities and scenery outside the state.

The father who was driving the automobile was a middle-aged tuxedo cat named Harold Flakes who worked as a successful car salesman. Next to Harold in the passenger seat was his beautiful wife named Cora. Cora was a sweet and caring russian blue cat who has been married to Harold for 7 years and she worked part-time as a hostess for a fancy restaurant. Finally in the backseat behind Harold and Cora was their young 4-and-a-half year old Son named Theo who was also a tuxedo cat with ocean blue eyes.

(Theo is also the main character for this story btw)

Theo was happily licking on a colorful lollipop stick in the backseat when his mom turned to look back at him.

"Did you enjoy our big trip sweetie?" Cora smiled

"I really did Mommy! I loved seeing all the different cool places outside our home!" Theo answered

"That's wonderful to hear. Your father and I planned this trip specially because of you dear." Cora said

"Thank you so much!" Theo smiled making his mother giggle in response

"Hey Honey you know something?" Harold said getting his wife's attention

"What's that darling?" Cora asked

"I think he's gonna fall asleep the second we arrive at our house." Harold said as he smoked on a pipe with his left hand while keeping his right hand on the steering wheel

"*giggles* You're absolutely right. He seems to do that everytime we make it home at the end of every trip." Cora smiled

"Either he really falls asleep or he pretends to be asleep so we can carry him inside the house." Harold grinned

"Well who knows. If our boy is pretending to be asleep than that means he's developing a clever mind." Cora said jokingly

"Yeah yeah. Anyways we still got ways to go before we make it home." Harold said as he focused on driving

Right now they were approaching towards the Mississippi River intending to cross a bridge to get into town. The car drove smoothly along the road at a slight rapid speed when suddenly out of nowhere...

*BUMP* "OH!"

The car runs over a deep dirt pothole causing a hard bouncing jolt in everything. The violent jolt causes Harold to accidently drop his lit tobacco pipe as it fell in between his legs on the seat and started burning his thigh through his pants.

"AH! OH! OUCH! OUCH! EEK!" Harold shrieked as he tried grabbing the pipe out of his legs

"Woah careful Honey!" Cora exclaimed as she tried to help

"Are you okay Daddy?" Theo asked in concern

Unfortunately Harold was too distracted on dealing with the burning pipe in his legs that he wasn't watching the road in front of him. When Cora looked back up, she saw their car was veering to the left and they were about to run right off the road at high speed into a deep swamp ditch.

"EEK! HAROLD WATCH OUT!" Cora shrieked

Harold looks back up and his heart jumps as he grabs the steering wheel and violently steers away from the shoulder only for the car to start agressively losing control in response.

*SKRRRRRRT! SCREEEECH!*

The automobile loses traction on the dirt road as it slides and drifts around.

"HONEY PLEASE GET US BACK UNDER CONTROL!" Cora exclaimed in panic

"I'M TRYING! HOLD ON!" Harold said

"Woah! What's Happening!?" Theo exclaimed as he was being tossed left and right in the backseat

(Early automobiles did not have seatbelts)

Harold wrestled with the steering wheel trying hard to save the car but it was no use. Before everyone knew it, the car went tumbling into the deep ditch off the side of the road.

*CRASH! TUMBLE! CLANG! BAM! CRASH! SHATTER! BREAK! SPLASH!*

The car went rolling downhill shaking everyone up inside before plunging nose first into a shallow wet grassy swamp with steam leaking out of the radiator and the headlights flickering off. The car was now in a dead mangled mess like it went through a blender. Almost every window was shattered and most of the metal chassi was badly bent.

"Owwww! It hurts! Mommy, Daddy What happened!? Ouchy Ouch! My whole body hurts!" Theo exclaimed in pain

Theo crawled out from under the backseat after being thrown around during the crash. He recieved several blow strikes all over his soar body but thankfully he didn't have any injuries. Only slight bruises here and there under his fur.

"Mommy, Daddy are you okay!?" Theo called out before managing to get himself together

Theo stood up on the floor of the backseat to face his parents. But right at the moment Theo looked at his parents, his heart stopped for a brief moment. Harold and Cora were both sitting in ther seats motionless, injured, and unresponsive with their eyes closed.

"*Gasp!* Mommy! Daddy! Are you okay!? Can you guys hear me!? Are you hurt!?" Theo exclaimed as he shook both of his unresponsive parents

Theos parents both got severely beat up hard by the crash as Harold had cuts on his face from shards of window glass while Cora had blood dripping out of her head indicating she recieved a hard strike during the downhill rollover. And the worst part was their legs were broken and trapped by the mangled metal dashboard in front.

"No! *sniff* Mommy Daddy Please wake up! I wanna go home!" Theo cried in sheer worry as he kept on shaking his lifeless parents

Suddenly Theo started to pick up a strong scent of gasoline leaking somewhere out of the car.

"*Sniff Sniff...Sniff Sniff Sniff*...Uh-Oh." Theo said as he knew what the smell meant

That's when things started getting even more worse. Harold's lit tobacco pipe from earlier ignited the leaking gas on the floor causing a big flame to roar up in the back seat.

*FOOM!*

"*GASP!* OH NO! MOMMY DADDY WAKE UP! WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE! PLEASE WAKE UP!" Theo shouted loudly at his motionless parents only get no response out of them

*FOOM! ROAR!*

The fiery gas flames started to grow larger fast and get more closer to Theo as it quickly engulfed the entire backseat. Theo tried fanning the hot flames with his hat to try to put it out but it only made it larger and more threatening. At this point, Theo had to face the fact that his parents were both dead from the crash and he had no other choice but to escape out of the hot burning car while he still could. He wanted to stay in the car with his parents badly but he also didn't want to get burned alive.

"*Sniffle Sniff* Mommy...Daddy*Sniffle*...I...I love you both! I'm sorry!"

Theo tearfully sobbed as he kissed Harold and Cora on their cheeks before climbing out through one of the open door windows just before the flames started engulfing the front seat area next. Once outside, Theo starts making his way back up the ditch hill to get back up to the dirt road.

Theo makes it safely back up the road panting from exhaustion when suddenly...

*BAAM!*

A very loud explosion causes Theo to turn back around to see that the car exploded up into a large bonfire from the gas tank exploding. Now the whole entire car was getting burned up...along with Theo's parents.

"*Sniff* M-Mommy...Daddy." Theo tearfully said

The poor Tuxedo kitten was now grief stricken as he fell to his knees and started crying his eyes out as the car burned up in front of him. Theo was now officially an orphan.

"WAAAAHAHAHAAAA! WAAAAAAAAAAH! MOMMYYYYYY! *Sniff* DADDY NOOOO! WAAAAAAAAH!" Theo cried out in sheer sadness

Theo stayed down on his knees mourning for 30 minutes as the evening sky above him turned into full dark with the bright full moon being up.

End of chapter 1