Chapter 24- Surviving the Forest 3

"Huh! Who are you?" A small rodent said.

"What?" Wilson was stumped that a rodent could actually talk.

"I said, who are you?" The small rodent repeated.

Wilson was too shocked to say a word. His mouth was hanging ajar.

"You do understand what I am saying, don't you?" The little rodent asked him.

"What are you?" Wilson finally managed to ask.

"I am Young! The smartest living rodent in all the world. Nice to meet you!" It extended a paw for a handshake. Wilson looked at paw in awe.

"You know it is rude to not receive a paw shake. And you should also tell me your name and title. It is rude to ask for other's names without giving yours back. Did your mother not teach you that when you were young?" Young shook it's head in pity and dropped its paw.

"Anyway, you are in the way of our home and my family will soon be here. It won't be nice to see you in our home and unlike me, they are very hostile with strangers so..." It was unable to finish its warning when a loud shriek was heard. Sounded more like a squeak. A bigger rodent pounced on Young from behind, grabbed it and jumped back to its former position. All these, it did at an incredible speed.

"Young. How many times have I told you to avoid strangers, especially those you find uninvited at our homes. They could be hostile." The big rodent said.

"But mom, he doesn't seem hostile!" Young countered. Apparently, the new arriver was the young rodent's mother.

"You can never tell with the apes. Especially strong-looking ones like this!" Another rodent spoke up. It had appeared from Wilson's right, startling him where he sat.

"What is he exactly? Looks like all those annoying monkeys, but is not quite like that! Looks like their even more annoying cousins, the baboons, but also doesn't look too much like them!" Young asked.

"I don't know! Maybe we should ask Grandpa when he gets here!" This voice was deeper. He seemed to have dropped from the skies but actually just dropped from a tree branch way up high.

"Ask me what?" A huge cane rat with white fur and walking on its hind legs while holding a walking stick (custom-made from bamboo and shrunk into a suitable size) spoke as it slowly walked into the clearing hidden by the shrub.

"Grandpa, do you know what species of ape this animal is?" Mother rodent asked.

"Oh! Did an app finally mutate? It is about time. I really don't understand why they reproduce so quickly and yet evolve so slowly. That does not make much sense if you ask m....." Grandpa rodent looked at Wilson just once and it was unable to finish its sentence. The cane it was using as a walking aid dropped from its hands. Its mouth hung open in shock. Its facial expression quickly changed from shocked to suspicion to fear and then to anger.

"Quick! Everyone back off!" Grandpa Rodent began to bark out orders which the others obeyed without question. It did not matter if they understood why or not, they followed the orders to the letter like veteran soldiers. Seemingly out of nowhere, two dozen other rodents, mostly hybrids and mutated rats surrounded Wilson and bared their teeth.

Wilson looked around him at his attackers and noticed about a dozen of them being over three feet tall. The rest ranged between one and a half and three feet tall and they were all standing in their hind legs while gripping various well-sharpened melee weapons made from wood.

"Wait a minute! I think there is a misunderstanding here! I am not trying to attack you guys. If anything, your um.....child here approached me first." Wilson sprang to his feet and tried to make them reason with him.

"You hear that, he was already trying to steal our home when Young arrived!" Grandpa Rodent said. All the rodent warriors growled at Wilson and drew nearer.

"What? No, no, no! Of course not!"

"Don't you dare lie to me!"

"I am not even trying to lie here!"

"Yes, you are! That's what your kind always does!" The old rodent insisted.

"My kind?"

"Yes, you humans. Whenever you humans show up, you always destroy the balance in nature. All you ever do is ruin things and others' homes. And then you kill all the animals you can find and build unethical machines and buildings making the air unhealthy for those of us who managed to survive. You are never contented with what you already have. Always wanting more! Then, as if that is not enough, you capture our offsprings and put them through such painful torture, not caring how many of them die in the process, as long as you get the results you want. That's why there are so few of my kind left.

All you humans ever do is steal, kill and destroy. Even mother nature couldn't take it anymore, that is why she gave us these powers and extra intelligence to be able to combat humans in our own way and have better chances to survive." Grandpa Rodent spoke fast. Wilson had a look of pity when he heard their history.

"Such a sad story!" He said with a sad look on his face. Unfortunately, the old rodent misunderstood.

"How dare you mock us! Warriors, attack!" As soon as Grandpa gave his orders, the warrior rodents attacked him all at the same time.

****************

'This is awkward! Never in my life would I have thought that I would be captured so easily. And by a group of rats, guinea pigs and squirrels at that.' He thought, ashamed of himself.

He was currently blindfolded, tied up and was hanging upside down.

"Hey! Anyone?" He called out.

He was expecting to hear that Grandpa Rodent's burly voice again but all he heard was excited chattering sounds. He could immediately guess what had happened while he was out cold.

"Oh No!" He grumbled under his breath. He smelled a whiff of fragrance and he was out cold again.