It was dark in the hole and smelled heavily of the earth. Kim was curled up in a corner of it, waiting for the sun's rays to disappear from around the entrance to the surface. Not that it made much of a difference whether the sun was out or not. He couldn't leave the hole. He might not have minded too much had there been things to do down here. But it was just a hole in the earth. A hole he had stumbled upon as the sun rose and he felt his senses being over-powered by the brightness crawling towards him. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time. There had been no one around to know he was there.
As the sun retreated further along the tunnel towards the entrance he couldn't see from his corner, Kim stirred more to life, stretching his stiff limbs. He'd been laying there for hours, watching the light roaming around just out of reach of his orange body. He really wished he could stretch his legs properly with a run. He'd even settle for a fast walk. This hole, likely the temp den of a wolf or fox to have a litter in, was far too cramped. But he couldn't leave.
There was the sound of shuffling outside the entrance and Kim went closer to it, listening intently. After a while, something round rolled down and struck him in the chest. He recoiled in pain, the smell of raw meat hitting his nostrils. He was quite hungry, despite not having moved much in hours, probably for the entire day, but he ignored the parcel for now.
"Can't you please just let me go?" he begged at the entrance of the hole. "I promise I'm not as bad as the other Nightmares."
"Oh, I don't think so!" came the answer, full of anger. "Not so you can terrorize the neighborhood more."
"But that wasn't me!" Kim waited for an answer, waited for a long time, but none came. Sometimes the other Kitsu never answered him, just walked away without a single sound back to wherever she went when she wasn't refusing to listen to a single word he said. She never even wanted to discuss it, to give him a chance to tell his side of the story. Which was nothing. This was his first time being in the area.
He'd been aimlessly wandering around for a while, now, having left his Nightmare of a family to seek better company. Kim had never been born to showcase the stereotypical behavior of Nightmares that his family didn't bother to try and prove otherwise. Often he thought he must have been obviously adopted. Or, more likely, stolen from maybe Tenku parents, for he wasn't a bad guy at all. Even while he was traveling, he'd never killed anything even to eat. He'd always managed to trade for what little food he could get off less judgmental Kitsu or scavenged some leftover kill a predator had left behind.
That was how he'd come to be in this situation. The female, for she'd never given him a name, had set up a trap to catch a Nightmare that had been, as far as he could figure by her attitude, terrorizing the area. If it even was a Nightmare. Maybe it was a Trick. A Normal. A mischievous other breed. It didn't necessarily have to be a Nightmare all the time. But the female was convinced that's what it was.
Not that Kim was this gullible, to save himself some dignity. The sun had been minutes from rising when he'd found the hole that was the trap. Having no choice, and not seeing the hidden door that would lock him inside, he'd hidden deep within it, settling down to sleep when the sound of a door closing and locking had woken him up. That's when he'd realized he'd fallen into a trap. And now he couldn't get out. The dirt was too hard to dig. The door was locked out of his reach. And the female behind it far too stubborn. Maybe whoever was really behind it would keep up with whatever it was they were doing.
Oh, what was he thinking. She'd probably just accuse him of being an accomplice. That would explain why she was keeping him alive instead of just letting him starve down here. He could never hear any other sounds but the forest when he was alone. He would forever be stuck down here.
At the least she could do was give me some entertainment, was his last thoughts before he settled down to his now slightly dirty meal. He wouldn't even be that mad if she'd just let him go.
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