Winter was coming. The frantic time of the last gather was here. If he was to survive the squirrel knew he had to beat feet to make it. To survive. It was the only life he knew. This was his second winter, so he recognized the stakes, and something in his bones made his gathering more frantic. Something was amiss, something was coming. It caused his hairs twitch with apprehension.

He had his hidey holes, his nut caches, deposited and nestled everywhere. Places he was certain he had forgotten but would recall when the white blanketed the land around him and brother bear slept. He was dragging away an exceptionally good haul from his favorite oak tree when he noticed a glint of movement near one of his favorite stashes. He raised to stand on his rear paws, whiskers twitching. Leaves rustled. He chattered letting his warning ring out.

He caught it again. A mangy gray squirrel. It stared back at him, mouth full of it’s prize. His nuts. It was scurrying over the old felled tree with his nuts! He watched him vault over out of sight and took chase. His stores were a matter of life and death. This intruder appeared to be near death already. He hopped over the old fallen tree, ready to confront and pounce.

Nothing. Just the rust-colored fall leaves littered the surrounding ground, no grey squirrel to be seen. He twitched his whiskers again and sniffed at the air. Wrong, rotten, something foul hung in the air. The fur on his little back stood on end. His tail fluffed. Then he heard the chatter of the intruder and his instinctual caution was trumped by the need to restore his coffers. The sound was ahead, low to the ground.

He inched forward, hunched low, ready to scamper to the nearest tree. He heard the chattering; it wasn’t a warning. It was kind, inviting, like a willing mate. Within the carpet of leaves that littered the ground, he noticed a dark crevasse. Fridged air wafted from the split in the earth, it carried the stench and the sound of the chattering that continued to pull him closer. Near the mouth of the fissure was one of his nuts, left by his new tormentor to be scurried away in a moment’s notice. He lunged for it.

His little padded feet bounded across the leaves, and they moved. Disappearing beneath his little body, he realized in horror that the leaves covering ground were nothing but a loose topping upon the rest of the earthen pit. He dropped. His decent brought him into the maw of fear and blackness.

Above him, the wind blew scattering the leaves over the small unassuming. The chatter and chirp of little creatures preparing for the world of snow rose again and filled the air, muffling the shrills of audible wet pain and fear from below.