Ugly

I screamed.

And then I backpedaled into the side of my bed, kicked over the cage, scrambled up into my bed, and thrashed under the covers. I heard my mom burst through the door. "Sophie? Oh, you poor little thing!"

And instead of coming to me, I heard her pick up the rat cage.

I flung the covers off me and stuttered, "It-the rat-the-the rat-" Tears sprung to my eyes.

"You knocked the cage over!" my mom scolded. She began to coo the startled rodent. "Oh, you poor little guy..."

"Mo-om." My voice cracked.

At that moment my mom realized how distraught I was and turned to me. Her expression softened. "Did he bite you or something?" she asked softly.

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. It didn't go away. I didn't know what to tell her.

"Y-yeah, it did." I quavered.

"Oh, baby, I'm sorry." Mom came over and wrapped me up in a hug. "I'll go take him out of your room."

---

I really never believed in God, but I found myself praying to Him to expel the demon out or whatever else was in that rat. I curled up in bed, squeezing my Hello Kitty plushie, and prayed for about a half an hour before I decided to get up again.

I went to go see the rat.

"Hello, you're back," the rat said.

I resisted the urge to scream again and run out of there. My brain still halfway expected the rat to be just a rat, but it needed confirmation, that's why I returned to it. Well, it's still some demon-possessed being, so there you go, brain.

"What the heck are you?" I asked sharply.

"My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare-"

"Oh my God, really?" I collapsed on the bean-bag near me. I wasn't sure to be scared or just burst out laughing. What ended up bubbling out of my mouth were noises that sounded like strangled giggles.

"But in all actuality, my name is Niko Marcell," the rat said.

"What... what..." I babbled.

"I understand that this is a little crazy to you, but it's even crazier to me," the rat named Niko said quietly.

I sat up abruptly, which made Niko flinch, and I blurted, "You're just a hallucination!"

Niko groomed himself.

"Yes, you're just a hallucination. I was just imagining you talk to me. You're just a little rat. An ugly little rat."

Niko stopped. Then he hung his head and whispered, "Yeah, I probably should be called "Ugly", huh?"

That's when my brain finally started to believe this. It switched off from denying the situation to dealing with it in a second. I demanded, "How can you talk?"

Niko looked away.

"Look, I'm sorry about calling you ugly. I just don't like rats, okay?"

"Nobody does. And it's alright. I'm used to it." Niko sighed and stayed silent for a while. Then he looked back at me. "I can talk because I have a human brain capable of understanding language. And weirdly enough, even though a rat's mouth certainly wouldn't be able to produce words like this, I can speak like any other human. A perk of magic, I guess."

"Were you, like a prince or something? And you got turned into a rat and not a frog?" I asked.

"That's hilarious." Niko said grimly. "I'm pretty much as far from a prince as possible. And I don't think a kiss would turn me back."

"Then what were you?"

Niko was silent.

Eventually, he said-

"I was a terrible, terrible person."