“He got in the floor,” Noriko explained, her disappointed voice muffled by the ceiling of wood over Oscar’s head. Some boards creaked under the humans’ weight.
“Lemme guess,” her boyfriend said, amusement in his tone. “Left him up on the table? You know they’re good climbers, Nori.”
There was a sound of a playful slap on a shoulder. “Just get him out, please?”
Oscar limped faster. The floor overhead creaked and groaned as the huge human man crossed the room. If he were to glance behind, he was sure he’d see the light from the knot in the wood winking out under a massive shadow.
Oscar was over halfway across the room from there. They’d never find him once he got into the walls on the other side. He was so close.
Or so he thought.
Up ahead was a sight that made the blood rush out of Oscar’s face. Cold fear washed over him.
Wedged in between the support boards was another block of wood, perpendicular to the rest. It blocked passage further in the room, and Oscar could tell from looking at it that it’d be too heavy to push even if he didn’t have an injured ankle.
There was a smiley face scratched into it with faded ink.
A trap. The floor was a trap.
Oscar stood frozen, favoring one leg. The humans moved around above him. They were ready for him to attempt an escape. Noriko never once worried about losing track of him. Humans were more powerful and that inked smiley face bore into him while heavy footsteps approached overhead. Tears stung in his eyes.
A wrenching sound tore through the air and light burst down on him. Oscar looked up in shock and tried to throw himself backwards, out of the light, as Noriko’s boyfriend pulled a floorboard right out of its base.
Oscar’s ankle protested, and he fell. Seconds later, a hand snatched in at him, and he was pinned. The dust dug into his cheek from the pressure on his back.
Then, the powerful fingers dragged him backwards. Oscar swept through the dust until fingertips the size of his head pinched the back of his shirt. With no further warning, they yanked him upwards.
Oscar tried to curl into himself as much as he could as he soared up out of the floor in a precarious grip. The room whirled around him and the floor waited below as the man held him up.
It didn’t take long for Noriko to snatch him in a fist and wrench him away. As her hand closed around him, Oscar finally yelped in pain.
“Oh, no, baby,” Noriko cooed, whisking Oscar up towards her face. She opened her fist to cradle Oscar in both hands, and all he could see through the jostling pain was her eyes and the straight black curtain of her hair.
“Did Thomas hurt you, little sweetie?” she prompted. Oscar shuddered and tried to curl into a ball on her palm. A single finger nudged at him and forced him to uncurl again. “Tell me where you’re hurt.” There was no room for defiance in her tone.
Oscar sniffled and realized there were tears spilling from his eyes and tracking through the dust on his face. He shook all over, fear thrumming in every nerve. He really was just a little pet doll to these people. They knew he’d go for an escape and had a trap for him in there. It was all so overwhelming and he sobbed quietly.
Noriko expected an answer, so he lifted a shaky hand to brush at his eyes. His tears were grainy with dust, and his cheek stung from dragging along the ground. He met her dramatically concerned gaze and then pointed to his sprained ankle without a word.
She gasped and held him even closer so she could observe the swelling. If he wanted, Oscar could reach up and touch her face from so close. Instead, he lay down in her hands and covered his face while more sobs shook his little shoulders.
“Ohhhh my gosh,” Noriko whispered, her voice almost breaking. “Thomas, you hurt him!”
Thomas grunted noncommittally. The floorboard clattered back into place. “He coulda got that any time after he scampered off. Lease now he won’t run off so easy.”
“Oh, you’re so awful,” Noriko scolded. Oscar hiccupped. Her voice was so loud and close.
A fingertip nudged at his side and rolled him over again. Noriko took advantage of Oscar’s surprised flail to unfold his fearful curl and pin him to her palm with a thumb. She walked out of the room, looking him over with pity. Oscar held back a whimper of pain and defeat while more quiet tears came.
“Oh, sweet pea,” Noriko said quietly. “Don’t worry. Mama’s gonna get you all cleaned up and then we can put some ice on it. Gotta help you heal up right for when it’s time to meet Mina.”
Oscar shivered as Noriko reached the sink in her cluttered kitchen. That name had come up again. Mina. Oscar didn’t know who she was. Just another human.
The water turned on with a metallic squeal of the faucet, and crashed into the chrome basin of the sink. Oscar pushed other thoughts away. His focus fixed on the water as Noriko, still cradling him in one hand, moved him inexorably towards the relentless stream.
Oscar stumbled, but he barely hit the floor before he scrambled back up and kept running. Everything in him focused forward, across the long expanse of hardwood flooring. He ignored the rumbling in the floor and the gaping space overhead, unfamiliar surroundings all looming in his periphery. He didn’t know this house, but he didn’t need to in order to recognize an avenue of escape.
It was the only chance he had.
They’d taken his bag. Tossed it out with the trash, no matter how much he wished they wouldn’t. It was only shabby cloth to them. Worthless.
To Noriko and her obedient boyfriend, Oscar was the one of value. A high priced little doll that needed to be fixed up and made perfect. They didn’t care how much he wept.
The first chance at escape came when Noriko left him out on her work table to go and fix herself a snack. She was so assured that he was trapped up there that she’d set him down on the middle of the surface without even a word to him after holding him up to her eyes, turning him this way and that.
From what Oscar understood, he and other smaller folk like him were a hobby to the dark-haired woman. She cooed over him and told him how precious he was, but she never treated him like a person. He had to escape.
Climbing down a table leg without the aid of his safety pin and string was difficult and risky, but Oscar hadn’t had a choice. Desperation had kept him safe for the haphazard slide all the way down to the floor, and he’d hit the ground running. He had to get himself out of sight before she came back.
He was a few feet away from a rolling stand raised off the ground a few inches by squeaky wheels when her footsteps returned to the room. “Oh, shit!” Noriko’s girly voice boomed overhead. Oscar flinched and it spurred him onward. Something clattered and more tremors stomped through the floor.
Oscar dove under the stand just in time for one of Noriko’s socked feet to land nearby. He pushed himself back to his feet and scurried to the back of the rolling cabinet near the wall, only turning to look at her when he reached the baseboard.
A curtain of black hair came into view before finally part of her face blocked everything else beyond the heavy stand. One eye bore into him and Oscar shuddered. Noriko had a way of smiling, appearing as cheerful as ever, while ice stabbed out of her expression. This was one of those times.
“Awww, who’s a little stinker?” she cooed. “You’re getting yourself all dusty, little baby. Why don’t you come out and we can rinse you off? I won’t even put you in time out if you come out right now.”
Oscar winced. ‘Time out,’ as she called it in that saccharine voice of hers, was an old pill bottle with holes cut in the lid. Oscar had yet to earn any time locked up in the cramped container, but it had been made clear to him what could earn him a stay.
An escape attempt meant at least half a day trapped in that bottle. Oscar would have no hope of getting out if he was stuck in there.
Still, he didn’t move to come out. This was his only chance to get away.
While Noriko kept her eye on him, Oscar glanced around for a new escape route. He knew she could move the cabinet if she wanted to get to him. He needed a better place to hide, somewhere out of reach. If she got a hand on him, it was over.
Just when he thought he wouldn’t find a way out of this mess, he spotted it. A hole in the old floorboard from a knot in the wood. It was barely more than an inch wide, but Oscar could tell that it bore all the way through.
The floorboards. If he could escape to the internals of the house, Noriko would never catch sight of him again.
“Don’t!” her voice ordered even as he dashed for the hole in the floor. Oscar shuddered but ignored her warning.
He almost tripped over his own feet to reach it. Right as he crouched by the opening to peer in, Noriko’s face disappeared from the gap at the front of Oscar’s current shelter. He had no time. He scooted forwards and slipped into the knog feet first. The wood floor groaned as the cabinet shifted ominously on its wheels.
Oscar was a skinny little guy. He didn’t need to make effort to fit, while the huge furniture overhead moved. He dropped out of sight before the human woman could get the stand out of the way with a loud rumbling of its wheels on the wooden boards.
Noriko swore loudly overhead, and Oscar fell a distance almost twice his own height. The dark under the floor welcomed him like an old friend. Relief welled up in him until he hit the ground.
Pain flared through his ankle, weak after years of fighting to get enough food. Oscar landed in a heap and stifled a squeal of pain. The wooden ceiling several inches above him rumbled with Noriko’s resentful stomps.
Oscar reached a shaky hand to brush over his ankle and foot. It stung when he touched it, and there was already swelling around the most painful spots, but his cloth wraps kept it steady through the pain.
Just a sprain. He groaned and pushed himself up to his feet while in the distance Noriko called for her boyfriend.
He wasn’t out yet. He couldn’t stop running until he was far from those two.
The first hobbled steps nearly knocked him over again. Oscar grimaced and stayed upright through sheer determination.
Under the floorboards was a thick layer of dust, rained down from above over the years. Thick support beams ran in rows, creating walls on either side of Oscar. He glanced behind and found more supports. The nearest wall was barred from him.
He’d have to trek across the long passageway under the room where Noriko did her work. She and her boyfriend would be right overhead the whole way, unseen giants looking for him. Angry at him.
Fear and a pounding heart drove him on, despite the slow progress on his hurt ankle. Pain pulsed up his leg with every step, preventing a full run no matter how much he tried to hurry himself along. No gaps showed in the support boards on either side, and Oscar needed to find one soon.
Brothers Apart 