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Ice and snow? Fine. Hail? Slightly less fine. Large, icicle-like shards of ice falling from the sky? Horrifying. For no apparent reason, Destiny City is plagued with another strange phenomenon, only this one can strike at any time. The icicles plummet from the sky with no warning, regardless of a clear or cloudy sky. The spikes range in size from a few inches up to two feet. Sometimes only one might fall, or sometimes a torrent of them, but they never fall far longer than a minute at a time. So far, injuries and damage have been reported across the city. How are you faring?
Word Count: 1064
Miss Prissy was working, which wasn’t unusual, but it meant that Theodore had to find something to occupy his time while she was away. The Black manor was boring, ultimately, and he didn’t care to deal with idiotic Silk who needed an attitude adjustment like woah nor did he care about the terribly mundane cat that sometimes surfaced from his mistress’s sometimes useful but definitely stupid-haired boyfriend’s room.
The older lady with the short blonde bob wasn’t around to give him praise and attention either which meant he was bored and that meant he was also restless.
Theodore busied himself with playing with one of the myriad of toys Miss Prissy had purchased for him in her bedroom. He’d even killed some time by scratching at the shared cat tree in the sitting room.
(It reeked of other cats but that wasn’t the point.)
He had grown tired of it quickly and attempted a small cat nap atop his mistress’s bed only to fail to get comfortable enough to rest. It was maddening how deary and gray his day seemed to be without his cotton-candy haired lady.
In the end he sought a favor from the master of the house, though he loathed asking that barbarian who was certainly unworthy of his mistress’s affection, and found transport into the city as he often did on the days that his lady was working her day away in that sweets shop the mean blonde haired man wouldn’t let his perfectly groomed self into.
How anyone could resist his adorable self, with his top hat and candy striped bowtie, was beyond him. (He suspected this Mister Danny was heartless, it was the only explanation!)
Theodore was, however, prepared to sit at the entrance of the shop and meow at every single person that entered until one of them snuck him in, or until he drew enough attention that his mistress would come to investigate and be surprised to find her favorite boy waiting outside for her.
It was a beautiful imagined thing, right up until the sky that was once bright and clear turned dark and stormy.
The icicles fell without so much as a drip of rain in warning. No snowflakes landed on the tip of his nose. No droplets of hail alerted him to the terror that was about to strike on the poor, unsuspecting cat who merely wished to visit his all time favorite person because he missed her.
No, the dastardly things struck without warning with the first one nearly impaling the persian had he not had his wits about him. The first ice dagger crashed into the concrete beside him, shattering into at least a hundred different shards that splintered towards the poor chocolate furred cat.
To his dismay, Theodore let out a distressed and high pitched yowl as he skittered across pavement. His fur was standing on edge and his little heart was racing, head tipped back to peer up beneath the brim of his hat. There was nothing above him and it made the first shard that much more terrifying.
Where had it fallen from? Was he in danger of more??
Tentatively he stepped away from the safety of the lip that covered the door of the sweet’s shop. Nervously his tail twitched and---
From the sky rained not one, nor two, but a hoard of icicles rained from the sky and it was all poor Theodore could do to scramble and get out of the way. Paws hurried to carry him forward, instincts having him skittering this way and that.
One crashed and shattered right next to him and it sent him jumping into the air, specks of frost glass pricking his skin despite the thickness of his winter coat. He yelped, hissing as he hurried to find some sort of cover.
Alas, there was none to be found and he was force to weave in and out of human legs, the ones seeking to escape the sudden sharp hail, as well as dodging the deadly things at they fell from the sky.
An icicle nicked his tail, causing the tip to splinter and bleed, and he hissed, turning to bat uselessly at the next one that came down at him.
Then, suddenly, it all stopped.
Once again the sky was crystal clear above him and there were no signs that the ice had even fallen from the sky. It was a maddening, curious thing that had Theodore standing in the middle of a mostly empty parking lot. Pink eyes blinked several times as his nose lifted into the air and he searched be blue, cloudless sky for answers.
Strange things happened in Destiny City all the time but even this was strange by his definition. Had he just imagined it all?
The throbbing pain on his tail told him, no, no he was not and yet-- he couldn’t help but think that maybe he was hallucinating. Had he eaten something weird again, like the fruitcake the orange trash cat had brought but he couldn’t remember eating anything Miss Prissy hadn’t fed to him herself so what the heck was going on?
Theodore didn’t get much of a chance to think about it because as he attempted to trot back to his waiting space by the door, the icicle hail began to fall again. He had four seconds to respond before one nearly fell down on top of him. Flinging himself to the side he narrowly escaped being cut up further but it didn’t look like that was the end of it.
Scrambling to his feet pink eyes darted this way and that looking, desperately, for some sort of shelter. There was a car that he could maybe...but the dumpster was closer and who knew how these iciles would continue to fall. He needed to make a decision and quick!
Theodore let his instincts decide, hat falling off the top of his head as he skidded beneath something.
In the end he took refuge beneath the dumpster at the mall, surrounded by large shards of ice that had struck hard enough sick in the cracks of the pavement. Shivering, Theodore curled into himself, brim of his hat barely visible beside the dumpster. It wouldn’t fit, not without squishing it and--
The stupid icicles were probably going to ruin it anyway.
Why couldn’t he and his hat catch a break?
