Categories > Original > Fantasy > Tradewinds 07 - "Away From Home"
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While his two human companions were out and about, Bandit lay curled up on Max’s bed.
Before they left, Max and the one called Shades had set up a bunch of newspapers in the corner of the bathroom. When he looked around earlier for a place, he was led over there and encouraged to use it. It seemed very important to them. As a last resort, they hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, resigning themselves to doing at least some of the cleaning themselves.
It had taken some reassurance to get him to stay there without Max. For all the hours Max and his new friend watched TV, he had been able to sleep peacefully, basking in the warmth of their presence. Since they left, however, sleep had become all but impossible.
All his life, Max had always been around somewhere; though he sometimes wandered all over the island at will, his friend was never far away. The last two days had changed all that. Having passed through a series of strange places, the only constant left had been Max. After the dead, disturbing atmosphere of Tranz-D, to the equally strange place where they met the man with the cookies, to this place, with its host of exotic, tantalizing smells, that for some reason reminded him of that devilfish Max killed years ago.
It was the undersmell of the place. The smell of wrongness, even compared to the place the humans called Tranz-D. Underneath everything, and it nearly raised his hackles.
In spite of both humans’ reassurances, without his old friend, Bandit couldn’t help feeling abandoned; not since he was a cub, before he ever met Max, had he felt anything like this.
Part of it was that it was no fun being cooped up when there was a whole new jungle out there to explore. And then there were people, an entirely new feature of his existence, and most of them came bearing food and attention. There was a general sense of missing out on something.
And that only made this end of the bargain seem even worse.
Exploring it with his strange human friends was actually fun, but when he was all alone, this place started to show its true nature. And he was discovering that this place could become rather frightening when you’re all alone in it. The very walls seemed to lean close and listen for your heartbeat, a constant unhealthy presence in the absence of distraction.
After turning back and forth, prowling the confined floorspace of the room, Bandit curled up like an overgrown kitten, trying to somehow get back to sleep.
Yet the minutes dragged on…
While his two human companions were out and about, Bandit lay curled up on Max’s bed.
Before they left, Max and the one called Shades had set up a bunch of newspapers in the corner of the bathroom. When he looked around earlier for a place, he was led over there and encouraged to use it. It seemed very important to them. As a last resort, they hung a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door, resigning themselves to doing at least some of the cleaning themselves.
It had taken some reassurance to get him to stay there without Max. For all the hours Max and his new friend watched TV, he had been able to sleep peacefully, basking in the warmth of their presence. Since they left, however, sleep had become all but impossible.
All his life, Max had always been around somewhere; though he sometimes wandered all over the island at will, his friend was never far away. The last two days had changed all that. Having passed through a series of strange places, the only constant left had been Max. After the dead, disturbing atmosphere of Tranz-D, to the equally strange place where they met the man with the cookies, to this place, with its host of exotic, tantalizing smells, that for some reason reminded him of that devilfish Max killed years ago.
It was the undersmell of the place. The smell of wrongness, even compared to the place the humans called Tranz-D. Underneath everything, and it nearly raised his hackles.
In spite of both humans’ reassurances, without his old friend, Bandit couldn’t help feeling abandoned; not since he was a cub, before he ever met Max, had he felt anything like this.
Part of it was that it was no fun being cooped up when there was a whole new jungle out there to explore. And then there were people, an entirely new feature of his existence, and most of them came bearing food and attention. There was a general sense of missing out on something.
And that only made this end of the bargain seem even worse.
Exploring it with his strange human friends was actually fun, but when he was all alone, this place started to show its true nature. And he was discovering that this place could become rather frightening when you’re all alone in it. The very walls seemed to lean close and listen for your heartbeat, a constant unhealthy presence in the absence of distraction.
After turning back and forth, prowling the confined floorspace of the room, Bandit curled up like an overgrown kitten, trying to somehow get back to sleep.
Yet the minutes dragged on…
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