English: Dilute Tortoise Shell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I can hear him snoring. Or sort of. It sounds funny. Not the usual labored snore, but something light and soft and continuous. Maybe he is feeling better tonight. I’m envious. I’m feeling bad. For starters I can’t sleep. I would like to slip out of bed but when I try to move my body would not follow me. I’m paralyzed!.

No, wait. This is impossible. Let’s try again: Eyes, open! – nothing. Arms, move! – nothing. I’m trying with all my strength but they are like blocks of lead. I want to cry to wake up Bill and ask him for help but I can’t emit a sound. I’m afraid I’m dying. I’m focusing in keeping breathing, but my lungs are working too slow. Nothing is obeying me, I cannot move, but I can feel and hear everything.

With a lot of effort I open my eyes. It’s worst than before. I feel dizzy. I see a furry mass at one side and the other side of the room at the same time in the twilight of the full moon entering thru the open window. The furry mass is breathing and is not snoring, is purring like a big cat!

I’m definitely scared. I began to fight and the only thing I get is some sort of rocking of my whole body like traveling in a boat. I’m trapped in something hard and curve that only leaves free my hands, my feet and my head. I’m trying to think.

Suddenly the purring stops and I feel and see movement at my right, mixed with the quiet of the night in the room at my left. Oh my God, the cat is alert. My rocking must have to annoy him. Now I only can hear the soft sound of the sheets at the cautious steps of the feline. One of my eyes register the pass of the dark grey fur close to my head, then I feel the humid nose sniffing my face. How disgusting!

I am thinking fast. And then the light. If Bill is a cat I am a tortoise upside down!. My body is in a hard shell, that only leaves my hands my feet and my head free and only rocks when I try to move! So I’ll act as a tortoise and hide myself inside the shell. I’m trying to bend my neck and fold my arms and legs as fast as possible to be safe.

But then I am in total darkness. And the cat seems not impressed. Is too curious, jumping  around me pushing my shell and playing with me. Inside, I’m more and more dizzy with the unexpected rock and roll at night in the dark.

Eventually the cat pushes so hard that makes me turn and I’m not longer upside down. But what can I do? a tortoise can’t escape running from a cat. No matter what, only for the sake to do something I emerge my head my hands and my feet and begin to crawl slowly. The cat is immediately with me pounding with his paws on my shell

– Jenny, wake up!

The moonlight is gone

– You were having a nightmare

– You’ll bet

– You want to tell me about it? – he always curious as a cat.

– Would be too long – I always slow and lazy as a tortoise.

Creative Writing Challenge: Metamorphosis.