28 - A Small Hiding Place

"Say to us master: What should we do?" Alex asked, reverencing Ana with his hands.

Ana gave a singing laugh. "Give me your files; I want to take another look," she said, pulling the book to her.

Each one handed a sheet with some things written and even drawn. Ana raised each one to read, allowing the cat to observe next to her. Each page had a different name than the ones that were gathered at the site. It showed the level of each character's wisdom, intelligence, strength, dexterity and some more skills of the characters.

"Wait! Pietro, you know that if your character is only strong, he will be a door, right?" Ana said, looking at him with mockery.

Ataz looked confused. "So these files would be to describe each one to show how they would be in the game? Interesting..." he thought, settling down.

"What do you mean? I want to be super strong," Pietro confidently said what he had been thinking.

"No bro, you don't understand. Your character will kill anyone just by touching it, but you will have the same intelligence as a door." Thomas interrupted the boy who was showing a confident posture. "Put down at least a little bit of intelligence," he added while patting the boy on the back.

Ana continued to read the sheets and asked the other players to roll the dice on the board. After each player's move, Ana made notes on each player's record, adding extra numbers to decide the total life or mana each would have.

The girl then broke up and started to explain how it would work. She opened the book in front of her and read a short summary of the story. "In distant kingdoms, enemy warriors must put aside their differences to come together to fight a great prophecy that will come true this year. They must be careful..." Ana kept reading the page, but Ataz soon got bored with the story and wanted to explore more of the place that was around him.

He got up without anyone noticing and walked around the room. Next to them there was a bookcase where there was a TV in the center with various objects and ornaments, and strange devices sitting on a nearby table. He climbed on the table, walking among the objects. As he was a cat, Ataz had enormous delicacy when passing objects, without even swinging them a little with the movement of his body.

It was possible to see that there were some dolls on the table, some girls with very thin colored hair in strange and vulgar positions, and some extremely strong men demonstrating greatness in their poses. Ataz instinctively approached with his nose, smelling the objects, trying to identify something. He could feel that those pieces of plastic had been cleaned a little while ago because they didn't smell like dust but had a strange smell of mint.

Ataz thought that that cat's ability, with a little bit of the influence of magic, could bring better results. For example, being able to identify great journeys that that object may have gone through or even people that it may have encountered along the way.

As he went farther away from the objects, the cat could not stop smelling those cheese biscuits that made him so sick. In this life, the cat realized that he was not attached to food with a more 'hot' and creamy aroma. He preferred cooler and sweeter tastes, like that little ball he had found in his backpack. It had had an unforgettable smell of something cold and a blue freshness. It was difficult for Ataz to explain tastes or feelings, as he did not know how to express them very well.

That bad smell of something cheesy grew the closer the cat walked toward the strange dolls on the table. Near the end, he found a bag of cheese biscuits on the shelf. Ataz put his nose close, trying to identify where the object had passed, but he could only smell the strong and sickening smell of it.

"Hey man, get down!" Thomas said, pointing to the cat next to the dolls. "You're going to break my Action Figures!" he said angrily, getting up while putting some of those pills in his mouth that Ana had delivered.

Ana got up at the same time, going towards the cat before Thomas. "He won't break anything, relax!" she said. Ana put her hand on the cat's back, pushing his back slightly to the side, indicating that he should get down.

Ataz soon descended from the bookcase to that dark wooden floor while Ana walked back over to the board table where everyone was gathered. The cat stared at her walking until she sat down and shifted her focus to the group, and then he could continue to explore the room.

He then walked over to the direction of the stairs they had descended before. He went up to the end, hoping that he would be able to open the door just by turning the knob, but it was locked, preventing the cat from passing. Frustrated, Ataz turned to go down the stairs, but he eventually realized that the steps were open in the middle and this created an extra passage for him to explore.

The cat then decided to enter through one of these passages and climb on top of the thrown boxes that were under the stairs. The cat squeezed his small body so that he could pass and threw himself forward, causing him to jump in a box that was not closed properly. Luckily, the box was not empty, but filled with some old blankets, making it even fun for Ataz.

He started walking through the boxes, looking for something, but he just smelled a strong smell of mold and dust in each of the boxes. As he crawled into the boxes, the cat heard a small noise that stood out from the boys talking on the board table. It was right in the corner, it looked like some animal was gnawing on a box.

Ataz, who was now in one of the boxes full of old clothes, raised his head with a sock stuck on top of his head, covering the eyes of the little cat. He put his paw under the sock, lifting a piece of it, allowing him to see what was in front of him again.

The cat placed its two front legs on the end of the box, arching forward, looking for the noise. A small, pinkish line began to move along the corner of the wall, near the box. Ataz followed it with his gaze and realized it was a small, miserable little mouse.

Ataz, with the sock still on his head, moved a little and caused the sock to fall from his head to the ground, scaring the little rodent. The cat felt his pupils grow and an uncontrollable urge to run after the little one. Then he jumped to the ground, moving his head quickly, following the small animal's movements.

The mouse ran faster and went through a hole in the wall that was covered with some old pieces of wood. Ataz took a small leap towards the animal, trying to catch it, and with the tip of his claw, grabbed the animal's tail, pulling it towards himself. The little animal screamed in pain as the cat dragged him by the tail, until suddenly, the cat looked into the hole that was covered with wooden boards and, with a start, he raised his small hand, releasing the tail of the animal who ran out of desperation into the hole.

Ataz originally thought that it was a simple little hole where some pipes should pass or it was only made by the age of the house, but when he looked inside, it was simply huge, as if it were another room. Ataz could not see very well what was inside the room because of the myopia that the cat had, however, the night vision, while still weak, helped him a little to locate enemies nearby.

------- Read the author's notes here! nhaa :3 ↓↓↓

Hello,

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