Pip lived a very happy life, a simple one, but then she was a mouse, for a species so low on the food chain it was a privilege to just to live without the fear of being constantly hunted. She and her entire clan lived in the wild miles away from civilization and the many dangers that it brought. Of course there were other wild animals around and while some of them were carnivores and occasionally some poor soul would be snatched by a feral raccoon or carried off by an owl but when a predator was in the area the news spread quickly and everyone would stay on the alert only leaving the safety of their hole in the ground when absolutely necessary. For the most part all the other animals that lived nearby were fellow prey species and most of Pip's life was spent without a care in the world.
That all changed very quickly one day when a team of trappers moved into the area. Unlike the wild beasts of the forest these were professional hunters who used nets and cages, things that no one from the forest had ever seen before. Each time someone left their burrow it became a gamble of long odd if they would ever return. Pip was unlucky enough to get snagged by one of the traps one day when she went out foraging for berries. When the hunters came to check their traps and found the little mouse doe tangled in the net she thought they would kill her but was surprised when instead they brought her back to where they were camped. There she was put in a cage alongside all the other mice that had been captured where she found food and water and even recognized a few of the mice from her own clan that had gone missing days ago and whom everyone assumed had been killed. For the next few days the hunters continued to collect more and more of the forest creatures forcing them to live in the cages which slowly grew more and more crowded. Some mice only cried, not sure what the hunters were planning for them but certain it would not be good, some to escape by prying the bars loose or picking the locks but it was no good, the cage was too well made and the lock was too complex, some accepted their fate or were even rather cheery about their situation, after all they had food to eat and it was obvious that the hunters didn't want to harm them, maybe this was a good thing. One day the cages were loaded in the back of a truck (something else Pip had never heard of before) and they were taken to the city. Pip had heard stories of the city before, a place crawling with predators where a mouse wouldn't be able to last a day without being caught and gobbled up. She did not want to be here. The truck finally stopped behind a small building where the cages were all taken inside and several predators began to sort out the various species that had been captured into new cages. Pip felt very uncomfortable being picked up by the wolf that sorted her but he placed her into one of the larger cages along with several other mice. Once the cage was full they were taken through a door and placed on a shelf along with many other cages containing hundreds of mice, some small cages held only one mouse while the biggest on held more than a hundred. There were 30 mice in Pip's cage including herself and across the room she could see cages of rabbits lining the shelves on the other wall, another part of the room was dedicated to squirrels, another for voles, still another for shrews while a lynx stood behind a counter at the back of the room
After a while a bell above the front door jingled as a female bear entered. She took a moment to scan the different cages before selecting one with three very chittery squirrels inside bringing the cage to the lynx behind the counter they exchanged words which Pip couldn't hear from the high shelf where her cage had been placed but she watched as the bear gave the lynx a few coins then took the squirrels and exited. Pip still wasn't quite certain what exactly what this place was or what was going to happen the squirrels who had just been sold although she suspected something terrible. She hoped that it was some sort of museum or zoo but knew that that couldn't be true. She soon found out the terrible truth as another customer entered, a hungry looking weasel who grabbed one of the cages containing a rabbit and quickly presented it to the lynx. No sooner had the cashier accepted his money than the hungry customer popped the top off of the cage and grabbed the unfortunate prey inside before quickly shoving him face first into his mouth and swallowed. Pip squeaked in horror as she watched the bunny's legs kick the air helplessly as they were sucked into the weasel's maw. A lump traveled down the weasel's throat towards his belly and he exited the shop licking his lips. It was then that Pip realized that she was in a food store and she was on the menu.
The next few days were spent watching cage after cage of helpless prey being purchased by the carnivores who patroned the shop. Each time a the doorbell jingled announcing the arrival of a new customer each Pip wondered if this would be the one who would pick her cage as did every other prey imprisoned there. The bell was like the cry of the banshee, its jingle signaling that someone, or as it more often than not happened more than one someone, would soon be joining a predator for lunch. Each time a cage was lifted from its place on the shelf and brought before the cashier the creatures inside would shout and cry and beg to all the others to help them but of course there was nothing that any of them could do and their cries would go unanswered as they were carried away.
One day the inevitable happened. The bell jingled as a velvety furred vixen entered and began to peruse the various cages and the yummy treats inside and after a moment her gaze settled on the cages full of mice and she smiled. Pip gave a start as her cage was lifted from its place on the shelf and brought before the cashier then out the door as she had seen happen to so many other prey before her. She felt her heart rise in her chest. Looking around some of the other mice were crying, some tried to comfort each other, but all of them wore grim expressions as they knew what came next. Pip wondered what being eaten would be like, if she would die quickly and painlessly or if it would hurt. Soon the vixen turned and walked up to a house that must have been hers, this was confirmed when she produced a set of keys and unlocked the door. When she entered she set the cage down on the kitchen table and leaned over to watch the mice speaking in fright and scurrying to the opposite side of their prison as they tried to put as much distance between them and the predator as possible. She licked her lips and opened the latch on the cage reaching inside for her first morsel.
Pip scrambled away from the paw as it reach out and made a grab at the crown of mice. There was a squeal and one of the mice was plucked from the cage, the vixen barely regarded him before stuffing him in her mouth and gulping him down. Pip was mildly relieved when she realized that the mouse who had been eaten was not anybody that she knew particularly well but that thought was cut short as the vixen's paw returned seeking another snack. This time the victim it snagged someone Pip recognized, one of her old clanmates that had been put in the same cage with her. Back in the forest he had been one of their warriors, a strong man who Pip had once looked up to a source of protection and immovable strength, now he dangled helplessly in the fox's grasp before being passed over her lips and swallowed up much like the first mouse.
Pip wondered if she would ever see anything more frightening than watching her clanmate being devoured like that. That question was soon answered for her as the vixen reached once more into the cage and this time closed around Pip's own tail. She tried to hold on to something but the ground fell away from her as she was jerked up into the air and she was held over the vixen's maw which opened to a hot, pink chasm dripping with drool. Terrified she let out a shriek in her little mousey voice. "Please don't eat me, I don't want to die." Pip expected to be dropped into the Maw and swallowed, she expected to feel teeth close around her and bite her in half, but what happened next was something that she did not expect.
The fox's mouth closed and Pip felt herself being lowered down from the precarious height until she was at eye level with the predator. "Why shouldn't I eat you mousey?" she asked, "You're a tasty little snack after all and I'm hungry."
"Well...uh...," Pip had to take a moment to compose her thoughts. She had been caught off guard by the fox's actions not to mention she was still quivering in fear from her near scrape with death. She took a deep breath and tried to articulate her words. "well because I don't want to die, I'm a living thing just like you."
The fox gave a little chuckle "Oh, you're a smart little mousey huh. I'll tell you what, I want to play a little game" she began as she set Pip down on the table next to the cage, "if you can give me one good reason that I shouldn't eat you right now then you win and I'll let you go, I'll let all of you go, then you can run off and get caught and eaten by someone else." Pip perked up at this. The fox's words weren't exactly encouraging but freedom, even freedom in the city, seemed better than being eaten by this fox. "...but," The fox continued, "each time you're wrong about something or you give me a reason that isn't good enough to convince me let you go I'll eat one of your little friends. I win when all of you are squirming in my gut." the mice in the cage cowered in the far corner of their enclosure as she gave them a hungry grin.
Pip suddenly realized that the fox had placed her outside the cage and that she might have a chance to scamper to safety. Of course she might not make it very far though, the fox was after all much larger than her and much faster and would more than likely catcher her before she made it to the edge of the table, and even if she did get away she would be abandoning the 27 other mice left in the cage to the mercy of the vixen and looking at the pleading faces of the mice in the cage who were all looking to her as their savior she knew that was something she couldn't do. If Pip agreed to the fox's sick game she wondered for a moment whether she would keep her word and let them go if she won. Weighing the odds Pip decided it was her best chance.
"Alright." she began "You shouldn't eat us because we're living things just like you, we don't want to die and if you eat us we'll be dead." she said this forcefully as if to an obstinate child, she felt it was obvious and couldn't believe that the fox didn't already know this. "There, that's a good reason why you shouldn't eat us, now let us go."
The fox gave a wide grin as she said this, "Wrong already." she taunted, "This will be easier than I thought." she eagerly reached for the cage and plucked a mouse out.
Pip cried up to her in protest hoping she might spare the mouse "But you said that if I gave you a good reason you would let us..."
"You were wrong because you thought I'd let you go without debating your point, it was a valid point and we'll certainly discuss it in a moment but first," the fox turned her attention to the mouse squirming in her hand, "I'm going to enjoy my prize." the mouse was lifted directly above the vixen's head as she opened her mouth and let go. He hung in the air for a split second before tumbling head over tail onto the wet, sticky fox's tongue with a plop his squeals of fear were muffled as the vixen's teeth clacked shut around him. Pip shuddered in horror as the vixen lets out a groan of contentment as she savored the flavor of the unfortunate mouse, "Mmm, ooh, oh yeah, so tasty." all the while the muffled screams of the mouse could be heard as he was tossed around the inside of the fox's muzzle before she tilted her head back and swallowed. Pip watched the bulge travel down the fox's neck and felt responsible for his death, she had thought she would be able to save him, to save all of them but it turned out that this fox wouldn't let them go without a fight. As she finished her snack the vixen opened her eyes and refocused on Pip. "Now about this 'mice are living thins too thing.' you may not die if I let you go but I have to eat too, if I don't I'll starve to death and then I'll be the dead one."
Pip hated to admit it but that did make sense. She felt like she was beginning to understand how this sick game was played, she would have to be more careful though and not make any more assumptions. "Okay, I can see your point but mice lives have value too don't they."
"Sure they do," the fox remarked, "they have plenty of value... As food."
The way the vixen condemned her entire species in a single sentence made Pip shudder again. "But there's thirty of us and only one of you."
"So?"
"So what makes your life any more valuable than even one of ours, if you were a prey and got caught by a predator you wouldn't think your life was any less valuable than theirs would you." Pip tried to appeal to the predator's sympathy by putting her in her prey's shoes
The vixen gave a sigh, "I suppose I wouldn't like that very much would I, but then if I were caught by a predator I would be food for them just like you're food for me now. Maybe your lives were worth something more when you were living in the wild but once you were caught you were as good as food. And I bought you which makes you my food to do with as I please so I guess you were wrong." the fox grinned.
Pip tensed up, "Wrong about what?"
"Your lives aren't as valuable as mine, in fact do you want to know how much your live are worth?" Pip looked at her with curiosity not understanding what she meant. "Seventeen ninety-nine." the vixen said as she pulled a small tag off of the side of the cage and showed it to the mouse. Pip ha seen the tag before but never been able to work out what it meant. The symbols embroidered on the tag read $17.99 but Pip had no concept of currency having grown up in a clan that relied completely on a bartering system. She looked up at the fox in confusion. "It's how much I paid for you in the store." she explained as she held another squeaking mouse up to her lips and slurped him in. Pip still didn't understand what exactly the value of these numbers were but she got the idea that it wasn't very much and hung her head in shame.
Looking up at the cage she saw that there were still 25 other mice inside who she could still save if she won this argument. Turning back to the vixen she made her next point. "Why don't you find someone else to eat then. You have to eat someone but it doesn't need to be us, just leave us alone and find someone else."
The fox leaning in a little closer, "But if I did that then wouldn't whoever I find make the same argument. They wouldn't want to be eaten either so I would have to find someone else, and then someone else. No one ever wants to die, but everybody dies sometime, and why should I go looking for another meal when I have a perfectly good one right here. That isn't a very good reason why I should let you go which if you remember the rules of our little game is another point for me."
Pip couldn't watch this time, she turned her head away but still heard in excellent detail as another mouse squeaked out in fright then was cut off by a click of teeth and punctuated by a swallow. She took a moment to pull herself together and began again "Then I'm sure you can find a way to eat without killing prey, maybe you can find something else to eat, something that isn't alive."
"There's no way to eat without killing something to eat it." the vixen explained. "We have to kill prey to eat them just like you mice kill grass and berries and thing to eat too."
"But plants aren't alive." Pip protested.
The moment the words left her mouth she knew she had made a mistake. "Wrong again," the fox said as she snatched Pip from the table smiling down at her victoriously "you think that just because plants don't scream when you eat them that they're any less alive. You've been eating living things all your life little mouse just like I get to eat one of your little friends now." another mouse from the cage was inside the vixen's mouth as soon as she finished speaking and he was swallowed down the second after that.
She was running out of ideas fast, her next idea was a long shot but worth a try.
"If you eat too many of us it'll make you fat"
"Nope, I'll just spend a day down at the gym and work you off"
*Squeak*
*Gulp*
Pip chastised herself for making such a stupid point and loosing yet another mouse but she didn't give up, she was certain that there was something she could say, some magical combination of words that she could use that would convince the fox to let them all go, she just had to find the right words and she steeled herself not to say anything else that might cost more lives until she found them. She put her paws to her temples and grimaced as she tried to find the words. She thought, and thought, and thought, and the fox waited, and waited, and waited.
Ten minutes went by in dead silence as Pip concentrated. After a while the fox's stomach growled with impatience. The vixen rolled her eyes and Pip's indecisiveness and reached a paw towards the cage. "No!" Pip cried out, "You have to wait for me to make a point first, that's how the game works."
"You're taking to long and I'm hungry now. The game's over." the fox said coldly as she grabbed not one but three mice from the cage and tossed them in her mouth then reached for more.
"NO! NO! NO! STOP IT! STOP IT!" Pip cried out desperately as another two mice disappeared into the hungry mouth. She cried and pleaded and pounded her little fists against the fox's strong fingers that held her tightly in their grasp but she couldn't do anything to stop the predator as she continued eating more and more of the helpless mice. If only the stupid fox wasn't so hungry Pip thought to herself, if only there were some way to... Wait, the fox was hungry, that was it. "WAIT! I know why you shouldn't eat us." she yelled. The fox froze and turned her head to look at Pip, a tail and two kicking legs were protruding from her mouth and she had two more terrified mice clutched in her paw who also looked her way with hopeful expressions, begging her to save them. Pip pointed an accusatory finger at the fox, "You're hungry," she said as confidently as she could. The fox cocked her head, clearly not understanding how this helped the mice's case. "and if you eat us then you won't be hungry anymore," Pip continued, "but then in a few hours you'll be hungry again and you'll have to get more mice. But if you don't eat us now you could wait and fatten us up a little, that way we would make a more filling meal when you do eat us." It wasn't a perfect plan, it only bought them a little bit of time but it was precious time that could be used to escape or to think of something more to convince the fox to release them or... Or something.
The fox seemed surprised. This was the first thing that the mouse had said that actually made some kind of sense, not only was her suggestion logical and well put but it also served to benefit both the mice and the fox herself. She looked a Pip then to the two mice in her paw then at the few remaining mice huddled together in fear in the cage. She could still feel the mouse trapped between her lips struggling for his life either unaware or uncaring that the fox was deciding his fate, as he struggled he spread his flavor around the vixen's mouth and she suddenly remembered why she liked eating mice so much. Pip knew what the fox's decision was as soon as the mouse between her lips disappeared, slurped in by the vixen's hungry tongue and gulped down to oblivion. "Maybe you would be more filling later," the fox gave her final rebuttal, "but I'm hungry now and you mice taste too delicious to wait on." the two mice in her paw screamed as they were lifted above her head and dropped into the predators maw which closed around them as they were swallowed.
What happened next was truly terrifying for Pip to watch. Rather than grabbing just a few mice the predator lifted the entire cage from the table, put her muzzle to the opening and tilted the cage backwards so that the remaining mice slid down the incline and right into the waiting mouth which hungrily gobbled them up as they squeaked for mercy. Pip watched all of this in stunned silence, she couldn't have done anything to save them even if she had tried. She had failed her friends, despite her best effort their only hope at escape had been lost and she could do nothing but quietly sob as they were devoured one after the other. A few mice clung desperately to the sides of the cage but as the fox gave rattled their prison slightly most of them came dislodged and fell into the mouth below them, only one mouse remained gripping the metal bars for his life. The fox seeing him simply reached her paw into the cage one final time and plucked gripped his small body, even then he tried to hold on but the much stronger arm of the fox pried him away and a simple flick of the vixen's wrist sent him flying into her mouth. The cage that had been Pip's and 29 other mice's home for the past few days was now empty and the fox let it clatter to the floor. "Mmm, your friends were really tasty," she said giving her stomach a pat as muffled squeals of fear and pain emanated from inside, "and they squirm so well." Pip didn't respond, she couldn't do anything except cry horrified by the massacre she had just witnessed. "I guess it's time for you to join them now huh?" asked the fox, trying to get some kind of response from the mouse that had pushed so hard for her freedom only moments ago, but no response came. The vixen simply shrugged her shoulders and lifted Pip high above her head in the same way she had done when she had tried to eat the little mouse the first time. This time no response came even as the vixen's mouth opened and she was dropped inside. When the tongue licked over her body tasting her flavor she didn't struggle, when she was pushed to the back of the mouth and into the long tube at the back that led to the foxes stomach she didn't cry out, she simply let it happen, the fox had broken her spirit so completely that she was simply resigned to be food. The fox sighed as she swallowed the once belligerent mouse and let out a low, mousey burp. "Mmm, mice are delicious."