December 22, 2013

Christmas day was fast approaching. With only three days left to go, Sehun managed to convince them to open their presents early, considering they would be busy on the twenty-fifth. Their schedule was already tight – they had half an hour of break left between their rehearsals, so they gathered around the tree and split the time they had between them to opening presents.

Some were small trinkets; watches or shoes or expensive food and sweets. There were packages the size of ring boxes, with custom-made plectrums resting inside a glass case, and clothes decorated with images of funny pictures and snapshots they'd taken throughout the year. There were copies of video games they had been eager to play and socks, and even a few small trinkets for Cookie – a collar with studs and a silver bell that tinkled when she pawed at it.

Cookie mewed at all the activity and the chatter and the sound of ripping paper that she heard. her whiskers, she bounded over to investigate, but no sooner than she planted one foot on the crumpling ground had the sky shed another soft, thin layer.

She scampered across the paper and sniffed at all the strange new scents, but she couldn't tell what any of them were. Everything was new and odd and both curious and frightening at the same time. They had smelled like this before – she recognised it – but the humans were pulling the pelts from the objects and then pulling the rest apart, or holding it up in the air and brushing against each other, clapping great spidery paws.

The human she'd come to know as Xiumin let out a yowl and threw himself at Sehun, who made that strange laughing noise he did when happy.

“Was that worth you walking around with me?” Sehun grinned.

“Definitely.”

Cookie disentangled herself from the shed sky layer and clawed her way up Kris's trouser leg. Fluffing her tail up importantly, she looked up at him and knew she had to warn him, lest more of it drop on top of them. “The sky is falling!”

“Cookie wants to play with the wrapping paper,” Kris said to the others, dangling a piece in front of her face.

Cookie swatted at it to try and get it out of the way. The human could touch the sky! Maybe he could save them. He had to. If he didn't, there was a chance the rest of it would come down on top of them.

This is another chance for me to shine, Cookie thought. Cookie versus the sky!

Oh god.