Call of the Wild

*Everyone scornfully supposed that* Storm hated being a kittypet*.*
She hated every part of it. She hated being waken up far before dawn at the start of every gloomy day; she despised being rarely fed tasteless, crunchy pellets that looked like rabbit droppings; she hated her cruel *Twoleg* owners laughing as they snatched her only meal of the week away before she even was able to finish a bit more than a morsel.

As she heard her female Twoleg owner's voice spitting and hissing at her from across the room while she slept on the doorstep of the garden, Storm blinked sleepily and tilted her muzzle towards the Twoleg. *Another start to a miserable day,* the skinny black she-cat noted, observing the furious look on the female Twoleg's face, although as Storm thought back to the last day, she hadn't done anything wrong. Had she?

Being a kittypet was hard. Storm, in the middle of the night, often sat close to the high barbed fence of her Twoleg owners, listening wistfully to the quiet warbling of songbirds in the distant forest. She *wanted* to escape her life, maybe only temporarily, but she wanted a chance to see what it was like not to be a kittypet that every day had no chance but to slouch around hissing at her owners, ducking slaps to her ribs. Storm didn't call her Twolegs 'housefolk' like most house cats chose to, instead using the forest term: Twoleg. She had once dug underneath the wire fencing and met a young kitten on a border marking and learned all about four groups of cats that lived in the forest known as the Clans. When her Twolegs figured what she had been doing in the forest - staring at a fluffy brown cat - they were outraged. The male Twoleg dragged her back into the house and locked her inside a cold, stinking crate that smelled of rotten squirrel for a week without food.

Her female Twoleg yapped out again, its voice tinged with fury. Storm couldn't speak Twoleg, but she imagined that the Twoleg was yowling, *Come here this instant or I'll kick you over the fence!*

*That would be great,* Storm, in her mind, responded. Sighing, she rose to her paws and squeezed through a crack in the glass panel door. Instead of marching up to her like usual, the female Twoleg stormed past the black she-cat and slammed the glass panel door shut with such force that the whole room trembled.

The female Twoleg stomped over to her after the glass panel door had slid shut. Without warning, she lunged and grabbed Storm by the scruff, nearly choking her. The female Twoleg abusively ignored her spluttering croaks and strode through the doorway, into another room. Storm's heart sank as she sniffed the air and detected the scent of the cold, stinking crate. Instinctively, Storm wondered if she were being locked in there again. Her stomach rumbled with hunger as she wriggled in the female Twoleg's choking grip. The last time she had eaten had been in three or four days, and that time, she had gotten barely a pawful.

The female Twoleg was about to hurl Storm inside the crate with a rattling *thunk*, but as quickly as she could, Storm kicked out, catching the Twoleg in the chin. The Twoleg was so surprised that she whirled around and dropped Storm with a screech of fury. She lashed out with one of her huge paws to kick Storm in the ribs. She succeeded, and Storm went sprawling across the room, her tail lashing.

This time, the female Twoleg advanced more cautiously. While she was struggling with Storm's desperate thrashing, she yowled something that Storm couldn't understand, but a moment later, the male Twoleg appeared in the doorway and bounded towards them. "Perfect timing," Storm spat. She tried to fight back, but she stood no chance against two aged Twolegs. Soon, the male Twoleg threw something sharp at Storm that raked a bloody line above her eye. If he had aimed it only a bit lower, Storm would have gone blind in her left eye, which fueled her disappointment and anger.

Eventually, the female Twoleg lunged and grabbed her by a paw, yanking her into the air. For a moment, Storm dangled precariously, trying her best not to fall. She tried to dig her claw into the female Twoleg's skin, but to no avail. Soon, the male Twoleg was there, stumbling forwards and gripping Storm's tail. They dragged her towards the crate, and together, forced her in. The male Twoleg sneered triumphantly - it sounded like a sneer, but Storm couldn't tell - and locked the door of the webbed crate shut.

For a moment, both abusive Twolegs stood by casually, occasionally flashing Storm mocking grins that showed taunting words were passing between them.

Storm had spent all her life being jabbed at and taunted, spent all her lifetime trying to ignore the sneers and whispers that flew at her from nearly every direction. The worse thought, though, was being stuck in a crate after a long, hard fight and being sneered at by her Twoleg owners.

Storm snarled at them, trying to place as much bitterness and resentment into her mew. "This isn't over. One day, I will be free, and you'll have no chance to kick me around any longer." She realized that she wasn't only speaking to the Twolegs, who of course couldn't understand her growling, she was making a vow to herself. She knew how dangerous most oaths were. But she wasn't letting a simple promise of freedom get in her way to a wild cat. One that knew the wilderness, that knew *everything* about hunting prey, and medicine of the wild...

And Storm wasn't going to break her promise, because she had felt it in every dream, and occasional nightmare, that she sometimes had. The call of the wild was reaching towards her, pulling her closer, and closer, and closer...she just hoped that it wouldn't sum up to trouble, like usual.