Verminous
I just have no idea where they came from.
One minute, I’m teaching my youngest cub of 4 to walk. Stepping over branches and broken stones. The air is peaceful and tranquil. No chaos, at least not for a newborn cub. I show him our pray, a pheasant or if we are around the area, sheep.
A moment later this giant, red force just rushes past us. Faster than any other animal I have come in contact with. I wish I could say that this was the only encounter that I have had with this monstrosity. But alas these things come past our homes by the dozen. Once my loyal and brave brother while venturing home one night came face to face with one of these beasts. I was there to witness as its white glaring eyes shawn on my brother.
They must have hypnotised him in a state of shock and awe. Paralyised to the ground the beast came and just trampled over him. As if it were a stampede in the jungle. I ran over as the beast moved on. To be by my brothers side as he let out his last breath through lungs that have been crushed so tight that even the slightest bit of air for him to breathe was impossible.
The beast had stopped. The beast has also got ravenous red eyes on the back of his head. It lurked towards us slowly and carefully. I was on my guard, though emotional if I was to die alongside my brother that night, I would defend our name in honor
The beast eventually stopped once it reached me and my brother. Then in the most bizarre of situations, its mouth opened up and it spat out a human. A normal, podgy innocent human. He looked down at the corpse of my brother. Though I am not a master of the language I’m pretty sure he said something in regret and shame along the lines of:
“Oh fuck!. Sorry mate”
He then headed back to the beast’s mouth, the beast digested the human and then ran away. In that circumstance at least i know my brother’s death wasn’t in cold blood. Unlike those bastards in red, mounting horses and chasing me and my family with beagles and weapons.
Apparently this there idea of fun. Fun. We have barely hunted humans in the first place. We don’t care for them. Yet we get hunted down by people who think we’re ruining there grounds. Those beagles are stupid bastards aswell. So uncivilised.
Unlike the friend I made in what the humans decided to call a patch of land a “Garden”. Left outside was a small cut chicken. This human who caught this bird must be a professional. She had plucked it perfectly and cut it with no tears or sharps in the flesh.
The human would often see us. It would walk at the same pace as the beast that killed my brother, but no trace of menace, rather an enthusiasm. The human carried the dead bird towards us on some sort of flat surface. Odd for a dead animal to be presented in that way for us.
We don’t come to this “garden” often. The human usually inhabits other humans. They aren’t so warm and welcoming. My difficulties understanding their language was made clear to me when I understood the red blooded human who looked at me in this “Garden” and screamed at me and my cubs that we are “Verminous!”.
No we’re not. As a matter of fact, I don’t come across verminous. I respect this patch of land and the human that inhabits it. I just happen to pass through here, like I always do. Before you and your other humans made this “Garden” and put up wooden walls around the bushes that was a path for me and my siblings.
This whole area of green and grass has now become infested with these humans. Digging up our grounds to plant large pieces of what looks like trees, hollowed out and covered in metal to allow water to pass underneath you. Despite the fact the water from the sky and the river is exactly the same as what you want underground.
Putting up giant fixtures that hold never ending candles that light up the ground for the humans at night. Even though they are missing the brightest light is already above them.
You simple minded vermin can’t direct yourself home with the help of the stars and the moon and you think we are the vermin?!
One of these days I and many others like me will mount the horses you ride to hunt us down for sport, and we will chase you out of our grounds, our lands. Then you will be trampled by the beasts that have trampled our brothers, that keep you alive in their mouths.
We aren’t verminous. We’re anything but. You just happen to be neighbours to us.
I shouldn’t lose my temper over you. You have the decency to look after our friends like cats and dogs. I won’t apologise for the sheep. They just happened to get the treatment that you give to everything else you think you can out smart.
Why do you think chickens and sheep are so easy to eat? Of course you already know that. You’re just as bad as us when it comes to them.
What I wouldn’t give to have some greenery again around me. All that seems to be around me now is concrete and plastic. I can’t escape it. The other day I caught my youngest cub resting in a cup that landed in our woods when the beast spat it out at us.
What did we ever do to get treated so disrespectfully? We keep ourselves to ourselves yet you hate us for that. Still have a name for you now.
Whenever my young cubs will ask what you humans are. I will look down to them and boldly state:
“Vermin. Be careful. They are not to be trusted.”