Rat in a Hat

*Clitter clatter*

It sounded like someone was rummaging through the kitchen. She jolted up from her seat, cold sweat started to bubble up on her skin. No one else was living with her. In fact, she hated the idea of sharing a living space with someone else. She slowly and carefully tip toed to the kitchen door frame, swallowing the continuous lumps lodged in her throat.

It was the hour where everything should be silent, still. She questioned her sanity, perhaps it was just a hallucination from fatigue. Nonetheless, she should check just in case. She poked her head into the kitchen, her heart thumping louder, faster and harder when the contents of the room came into view.

Anticipation. Expectation. Those were the feelings that had been growing inside her but was not aware of.

The reveal- there was no one. Oddly enough, she felt not relieved but disappointed. Was her life so monotonous and empty that she was desperately looking for thrill in any way, shape or form? Just as she turned to leave, something caught her attention. There was a hat on the kitchen counter. It was no ordinary hat. It was a top hat commonly used by so-called magicians in their silly little shows. Magic tricks never impressed her and it never will. At this point in life, the emotions she once had had become void, she was slowly deflating like a punctured balloon.

She stared, and stared, and stared intently at this foreign object. It emanated a strange aura, one that kept pulling her in, as if her body was being tugged forward by a lasso. The more she stared, the smaller the distance between her and the hat.

*shuffle* *shuffle*

Her body was moving on it's own.

She was standing right in front of the hat now. She would be able to see what was inside the hat if she just reached out her hands. If she could just reach out her smooth, beautiful, human-like hands and pull the hat even closer. And so she did. She reached and pulled the hat closer.

Closer.

She pulled it closer and closer until her head was right above it. Blood was gushing back and forth in her veins, and her pupils vibrated with extreme excitement. She could finally see what was in the hat.

It was a rat.

The tiny rat stared at her with it's beady little eyes, it's whiskers twitching up, down, left and right. What was it doing in the hat? Where did this hat even come from? It squeaked gently, breaking her from her train of thoughts. The rat seemed rather sad and weak. Perhaps it was hungry? She decided to be nice that day and tried feeding the little rodent. However, it did not touch even one of the foods she placed in the hat. It looked at the rice, then the cheese, then the pieces of sunflower seeds. It's gaze then landed on her. She was starting to get frustrated. What is it that it wants?

The rat squeaked gently once more, as if it was trying to communicate with her. It had a gaze, a comforting, soothing, human-like gaze. It was telling her something or rather, telling her to do something.

She understood.

So she reached out her hands and this time into the hat, stretching deeper and deeper. It felt endless. It was like a black hole had opened inside the hat, sucking her in. Slowly, her head followed, then her torso and lastly the rest of her body.

*crunch*...*crunch*...

It swallowed her whole.

Into the abyss and never to be seen again.