Forward

This story was originally a dream that I had, in which I took
the place of Josh.  The story changed a
great deal before I was assigned the English paper that became this story and
for the assignment had to be changed a great deal more. Furthermore, the actual
typing of this story occurred in three hours starting at about 11pm (I am quite
the procrastinator) so please forgive any errors that may be in the paper. Enjoy.

                                                                                    Justin
Prowant

“Mom, I
still don’t want to go to some ancient lady’s house and watch her cats for 9
hours.”

“Josh,
don’t exaggerate to me like that!  You
know that I hate it when you do that. 
Plus, I can’t really do anything about it now, whether you or I or
anybody wants me too now can I?”

“Ya mom, I
know, I just want to hang out with Paul, not watch cats.  I mean its Friday.”

“I’m sorry,
but I can’t do anything about that, I have my meeting to go to and I promised
Mrs. Kleist that I would watch her cats for a few hours.”

While this
conversation had been going on, the car and both of its passengers had been
sitting in the driveway of an old, slightly worn down, small, single story,
plain brick house; the house of a Mrs. Kleist. 
This house defiantly belonged to a cat person. There where traces of
cats everywhere.  Small cat beds in the
side yard, torn curtains could be seen through the only visible window, and if
you looked very closely a cat could even be seen in the kitchen.

“And I’ll
call when I’m coming to pick you up after my meeting ends, so leave the cell
phone on, and don’t be on it too much; we don’t have many minutes left.”

“Ya, ok
mom, I’ll see you later.”

Josh then
went into the house and after looking around and seeing a rather tech-savvy
house for an old woman, decided that watching cats wouldn’t be that bad.  The next thing he noticed after a large
plasma screen TV and a computer at a desk in the next room was a piece of paper
on an ornate coffee table just in front of him. 
He picked it up and read.

                By the time you get here, the cats
should be in the places and the game is set. 
Your job is to rescue the three cats that have gotten themselves in
trouble.  The cat that you will find is
at your feet now will lead you to where you can hear the first cat; from there
you must find it.  Once you have rescued
the first cat, it will lead to the second and it to the third.  Don’t break anything or injure my cats or you
will lose the game. 

                           Good luck

                                  Mrs. Kleist

“Well this
is officially extremely weird”

“MEOOW”

“Oh! Take
me where I’m supposed to go cat”

The brown
tabby cat then led Josh into what was clearly Mrs. Kleist’s bedroom. Although,
if it weren’t for the large bed against one wall, you would assume this room
had no purpose at all for the walls were simple cream color, and aside from the
bed and a small dresser and nightstand on either side of it, there was no
furniture in the room.

The cat led
Josh into the room and there waited for him then, as soon as he had entered,
the cat proceeded to leave the room and head in the direction of the
kitchen.  As soon at the tabby cat left,
as if on cue, there came a very small meow from the bed.  After looking at the sheets for just a second
and not seeing any strange lumps but instead a perfectly made bed, Josh knew
the cat must be under the bed.

When He
looked under the bad, as he had assumed, there was a small cat.  He had not expected though, the cat was
clearly tightly wedged underneath the bed and could not get out.  So after attempting to gently pull the cat
out and getting rather thoroughly scratched for it, he figured he would just
leave the cat and started to leave the room to go turn on the TV, only to be
met at the door by the brown tabby that had led him into the room, hissing
loudly. 

This rather
abrupt warning showed Josh that he had to play the game, whether he wanted to
or not. 

This made
Josh start thinking.  “Most people have
garages right? Maybe Mr. Kleist, assuming there is a Mr. Kleist, has a jack
that I could use to lift up the bed. 
Will this cat let me out of this room to go and look though?  Maybe I can trick it into letting me out to
get to the garage.”

After a
short search around the room, Josh realized there was nothing in this room that
was going to get him past the cat standing in the doorway. He didn’t notice
until after he had finished looking that he no longer needed anything; the cat
was not in the doorway anymore.  So he
ran for it.

The mad
dash across the living room was a little unnecessary as the cat only wanted to
keep josh playing the game, not locked in its mothers bedroom, but Josh didn’t
know that, so he ran, and he made across the living room in a matter of just a
few seconds and found the door that he assumed led out to the garage.

It didn’t
take very long for him to find a car jack that would be more than strong enough
to lift the bed in the extremely clean and organized, yet obviously not
recently used garage.  Once he found the
jack though, he realized that he had a new problem.  This jack probably weighed 30 pounds and he
wasn’t going to be able to run like he had coming out while he was carrying
it.  He could try to pull it behind him,
but that might leave marks and stains on the carpet that he wouldn’t be able to
remove.  The final decision was that he’d
carry the jack and walk as fast as he could and hope the cat didn’t notice.

Then the
rush began again. It was still not necessary, and the tabby was nowhere to be
seen, but he rushed anyway.  Then when he
got back into the bedroom he set the jack down and started to lift the
bed.  As soon as the bed came off the
ground the cat wiggled its way out into the room.  It was a small, cute, black kitten that
looked like it would sooner sleep in your lap than scratch you the way it had
scratched Josh’s arms.

Almost as
soon as the cat was out from under the bed it was standing in the doorway of
the bedroom and waiting for Josh to follow it. 
The cat quickly led Josh to the couch where he gladly took a seat and
wished he wouldn’t have to get up for a few minutes.  At first it looked like he would get his wish
because when he sat down the cat went into the kitchen and didn’t appear to
wait for him to follow.  Then he heard a meow
that sounded like it should have louder than it was but was quite muffled.  He looked up at where he thought the meow had
come from, and couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.  Crammed inside a cabinet with a window in the
door nailed to the wall above the TV was another cat.  This one was pure white and absolutely
spotless. 

The first
reaction to this was just to try to open the cabinet and get the cabinet, but
as he grabbed the handle he knew it couldn’t be that easy, and when he pulled
on it he knew he was right. Locked.  He
knew there had to be a key somewhere, anything that locks has a key, but
something else you need to lock something was missing too, there was no
keyhole. 

He started
looking. After about ten minutes, he for the second time decided he would just
leave the cat there until Mrs. Kleist got home and then tell her where it
was.  But this time, instead of being
threatened by a cat, one came and meowed at him.

“You want
me to follow you now?”

“Meow.”

“Good
enough for me.”

The cat
then took about ten steps and stopped and looked up at the cabinet opposite of
the one with the cat inside of it.  And
inside this cabinet hanging on a hook in the center was a key.  Again the reaction was to simply attempt to
open the door, and again, it was locked.

“Great, I
have the key, but how do I get to it? 
And what do I do with it once is have it?”

It took some
time for Josh to realize that he wasn’t going to get anywhere until he at least
got the key, so he decided to try to break the galls window in the door of the
cabinet.  He got a big breath and got up
all his strength and elbowed the window. 
It didn’t break, but it bent and almost cracked, so he got ready for
another hit.  The time it cracked, but
still didn’t quite break.  He figured
this would be the final time he’d have to hit it, but his elbow already hurt a
lot and he knew there would be a big bruise. 
He just got ready for the last hit and went for it, it hurt like crazy
for a second then the glass broke, which hurt worse because now he was up to
his shoulder in glass shards and got many guts all over his arm.

As soon as
the glass broke Josh remembered something important that he has forgotten in
his urgency to get the keys.  The letter
had specifically said not to break anything. And he had just broken this glass
cabinet window.  Then he heard the
doorknob move.

 His mom hadn’t called him yet so he knew that
somehow it had to be one of the Kleist and he would have no way to explain
this. And he was right, the door opened and their stood Mrs. Kleist, a small
older woman who had a deal of dignity in her appearance.  Simply the way should stood showed pride in
herself and her belongings.

“You broke
the rules Josh.”

“Uh… What?”

“You broke
the rules. I clearly stated that where not to break anything and yet my cabinet
is broken.  You even got a clue from the
cats, and you have still failed before you even got the final level.”

“Mrs.
Kleist I’m so sorry about your cabinet. 
I will ask my mom to pay to get that fixed, or I can work for you, or
whatever you need to do.”

“I’m glad
to hear that you are at least accepting of your mistake, however, you have
failed and I must leave you here, I am sorry. But you have lost the game.”

With this,
Mrs. Kleist left.  Just walked out and
closed the door behind her.

“I must
leave you here? What does she mean leave me; mom didn’t ask her to take me home
did she?”

Josh took out
his phone and saw that he had no service inside the house, so he started to go
outside. But the door that Mrs. Kleist had just left from was locked, and also
had no keyhole. It was the same with the other doors, and the only window in
the house, the one that could be seen from the driveway.  He could have tried to break it, but his
elbow still hurt too much from the cabinet. 
Which he had failed to notice in his worry, had fixed itself.

When he sat
down on the couch after he had gotten too tired to freak out any more, he
finally looked back at the cabinet he had broken and saw that it was
fixed.  Then he looked at the other
cabinet and saw that there was no cat inside of it.  Then realizing that he hadn’t seen any cats
for a while he went back into Mrs. Kleist’s room and saw that the jack that he
had left holding the bed up was gone and the bed was perfectly redone
again.  The only difference was that when
he looked under the bed there was no little kitten to be found. 

Finally
after searching the rest of the house, he decided that somehow the cats had all
left the same time Mrs. Kleist did and figured he would watch TV until his mom
came and got him.  3 hours later, his mom
still hadn’t come and he couldn’t get any calls without any service so he
didn’t know if she was coming or not.

The next
day, after he had made a small dinner with the food in the fridge, and sleeping
on the couch, Josh spent the entire day watching TV and playing on the
computer, although it wouldn’t let him go on any of his social networks or chat
with anyone.

After 5
days stuck in the house, he had given up on hoping his mom would come get him,
and the food was running out, fast.  So
he turned to trying to get out, but nothing worked.

A week and
a half after being left in the house, josh didn’t know what to do, he was
starving.  He had eaten every bite of
food in the house, and there was no way out of the house.

That is the
last thing that we know about Josh, but we would like to tell you about why his
mom never came.  You see time flies when
you’re playing games.  The week and a
half that we have recorded of Josh after he got left in the house was the
equivalent of only about half an hour in time outside of the house.  So Joshes mom was still in her meeting, not
knowing anything was wrong, and she would go get Josh, but he would be long
dead by then, probably starved, and being inside the house of the cat game can
do strange things to you. Especially if you lose.