7. The Last Pika

All hope for sunshine and food seemed lost when humans hurriedly launched all their rockets. Pika was glad they were leaving. Currently, however, she would die before enjoying a world without humans.

Typical, she thought. Even when humans do something good, they do it in the most annoying way.

The further she traveled with Pinpin, the more she longed for that front yard with grass, for sitting safely inside with enough to eat. As her hunger and thirst grew, the wind warden’s cottage transformed in her mind from nightmare to dream. Dizzy and delirious, she saw little else in her world.

Pinpin held up better, but even he could only shuffle along. In the beginning they still ran, cheering each other on, cracking jokes. Now Pika felt in her bones that they silently walked towards their death.

She would have cried, if she still could. I’m so sorry, Prince, she told herself. We should have stayed together. Now you’re stuck in one of those rockets. You have your bright future, and I have …

Her legs gave out. Lying flat on the hard dark ground, she had no intention of moving again.

“Come on, Pika. We’ll find food somewhere.” Pinpin had eaten even less than her, yet still—

The grass was poisonous, she was certain of it now. Thought it tasted strange. Humans spray poison everywhere.

“Where?” she whispered. “Where is the food?”

“If only I knew.” Pinpin wrapped his wing around her. “Let’s head back to that cottage, okay? At least we have a chance there.”

The storm raged at full force. The wind blew at their backs; walking against it would be twice as hard. Pika shook her head and scraped her whiskers through the dirt.

“Go on without me. I can’t do it anymore. I won’t die in a human’s arms, but, but, but as a free animal in nature.”

Pinpin stayed silent. “And then what? You’ve let one human know you’re angry and proud? Does that mean you’ve … won?”

His wing curled under her belly and lifted her up a bit. “I get it. When the humans came in their boats and took all our fish in one swoop, scattering my family, I refused to cooperate. Researchers came onto the ice. As they set up equipment and weighed us, they also provided care and food. I refused to eat it. I refused to be touched by a human. It felt like I was showing how strong and powerful I was!”

He pulled Pika until she had no choice but to stand on her hind legs again. “And now look at me. My family gets food every day, and I’m nearly dying in the dark. I’ve won my imaginary war against humans … while losing everything else. If you go, I’ll be completely alone.”

They watched another rocket launch skyward. None had exploded so far. The only loud bangs came from collisions with other debris aloft.

In the distance, like the tiniest star you only saw if you looked for it, was a red dot. Kran’s weapons were coming, and coming fast, whether you believed the humans or not.

Pinpin stood tall and pulled Pika along. “I think I’d rather die in someone’s arms, human or not.”

He’s right, Pika thought. She didn’t want to think it. She wanted to squash the thought and stick it out until the end. She wanted to lie here and wait for Prince to return with food and cuddles.

When Pinpin walked away, however, she found herself back on her feet.

“Prince! I’m coming!” she yelled.

The wind whipped her fur straight back. She didn’t dare leap anymore, for once airborne she would blow away, so she crawled and slid forward. Pinpin stood before her like a windbreak, but the longer they went, the more he hunkered down.

The cottage lights were a new star. They blurred into a hazy smear amidst the leaves and dust swirling through the gusts.

They gave a direction. They gave a goal.

And so they crept on, centimeter by centimeter, from tear to tear, and with each painful step Pika tried to think of Prince.

They would be let into the cottage. They would convince that man to board a rocket. There they would find Prince–and everything would be okay.

Everything will be okay, she repeated in her mind, each time the wind pushed her back, each time her front paw gave out again.

With the fence posts in sight, they squeezed out one last sprint. At the final moment, the wind redoubled its efforts against them.

Pinpin grabbed the wood. Pika bit his tail.

Like a flag they, flapped in the wind, horizontal and ungrounded. It took all his strength just to hold the fence. They weren’t getting closer, but letting go meant they’d blow away, into the sky, lost forever.

Pika stretched her neck and arched her back, as if squeezed by human hands, and whistled: eeeeeeep.

It was a short sound. Barely audible over the howling wind.

She eeped again. And again. Louder and louder, until her jaws were too tired to open anymore.

There must be more whistling hares, she told herself. There must be. Life finds a way to survive. And they will come. And we’ll be together. And a human wouldn’t attack fifty whistling hares, right? That’s too many, right?

Her courage drained from her paws. But … why would they help me, when I never want to help anyone else?

Maybe it was hope, maybe it was luck, but they held on long enough for the storm to die down slightly.

They fell to the ground and slid along the fence, through the grass, towards the now-closed window.

Aliber sat on the couch, facing away from the window, towards a screen. He seemed relaxed and perhaps even sleeping, while his rifle lay next to him. Pinpin tapped the glass with his wing. It sounded like a sponge hitting the wall, but Aliber startled and looked over.

He shuffled to the window and bent down, his eyes level with Pika’s, his face terrifyingly huge.

Pinpin tried to smile. Pika tried not to fall over dead.

Aliber shrugged and walked back to the couch. But he kept going and opened a white cabinet in which a light suddenly turned on. When he returned, he opened the window a crack and slid some food through the opening: nuts for Pika and fish for Pinpin.

The wind rattled the window. Aliber felt the breeze with his hand and walked to his screen.

“Still perfect weather predicted. And I see those weapons from Kran nowhere.” He turned and waved his hands. Yes yes, the gesture that animals should please go away, thought Pika.

A gust swung the window fully open. The animals tumbled over the sill and landed inside.

“I’ll give you a little more food, but after that you go. Okay? Deal?”

The last morsels were greedily snatched from the floor. Pika immediately crawled under the table. Pinpin tried to follow but was too big, so he flopped down and slipped under a cabinet.

“What are you doing?”

His ears perked up. Pika didn’t know humans could still do that. And Aliber apparently didn’t either, because he put his hands over them as if he had a disease and his ears no longer worked.

“Animals only hide under things when …” Aliber tapped his fingers on all his screens. “But all my devices and meters say nothing is wrong. So nothing is wrong. Nothing—is—wrong, calm down.”

Dozens of whistling hares raced through the window, like a hundred squealing tires braking on a highway,

“Aaah!”

Aliber instinctively grabbed for his rifle, but Pinpin had already dragged it under the cabinet. With his hands in his greasy hair, he watched the whistling hares hide throughout his house, a lucky few even in his fridge.

“What’s happening? What is this—”

A whistling hare hopped inside holding something his mouth. A metal rod. Wires coiled around it, throwing off sparks, and tufts of feathers stuck to the sharp edges.

“My monitoring equipment! You destroyed it!”

Aliber ran to the window and stuck his head outside. His beard blew over his head, like a hat, finally free of flies. He ducked back in and closed the window before a thick branch burst through.

Pika was surrounded by dozens of whistling hares nuzzling against her. A few spat out the food from their mouths before her. She showed her gratitude by nuzzling back, warmly. I accidentally helped them, she thought. By opening a window and whistling for them to come here.

I can help this human too. And now I know how to send the message, she thought.

She crawled out from under the table and jumped on the many screens. Aliber swung his broom at her, but she caught it in her teeth. He shrieked and let go.

She spun the broom around until it looked like a rocket, mimicked the sound of fire as best she could, and slowly lifted the broom handle upwards. Other whistling hares helped by making the same sound and bracing the broom with their heads. They had to repeat it three times before Aliber understood.

He looked outside and saw, through the whirlwinds, the array of rocket launches.

“Everyone’s leaving,” he mumbled. “Kran’s weapons are real after all. And I wasted a whole day watching TV.”

Pika dropped the broom. It was now or never. She pushed herself under his hand and looked up as sweetly as she could.

“You wanted to warn me,” he whispered. His fingers stroked her fur. It wasn’t Prince, not by a long stretch, but it was better than nothing. His fridge had been raided and Pinpin discovered how to turn on the faucet.

Wrinkles and a smile formed on Aliber’s face. “Do you think … they’ll allow it if I say I have thirty pets?”