Chapter 1:introduction (The Borrower)
Have you ever had something mysteriously disappear? Or maybe you noticed small noises in the walls. Or even seen a small form out of the corner of your eye? If so, then you probably have mice or rats and can forget about it. Just ignore any signs of suspicious things going missing. Don’t try and find out more, and do not under any circumstances set traps.
Clearly I jest, I obviously do not think it is mice, I do however, believe you should do the ladder options by ignoring it and not bothering with anything related to it. Because if you don’t, you will cause unnecessary fear and anguish to some poor being.
I shall elaborate. What I mean by all of this one sided banter is simply this: there are beings that live in our world that are not quite animal. These beings reside in the walls of our homes and take out things, freeloading off of what we are unintentionally providing. No, these are not mice, or rats, or whatever exocentric thing you can think of. For these beings are beyond our plebiscite ways of grasping the supernatural.
These beings are known as borrowers. They are sentient, humanoid creatures. And one of these creatures in particular is the protagonist of our story. It’s, or rather, his name was Oliver. He, like many other borrowers, grew up knowing and learning to fear the humans or, as they called them ‘hosts’. Oliver had just moved out from his parents house, being of age.
Oliver had been living at his hosts house for little over a month, and his host seemed to have no schedule at all. for one thing, they would stay up all night on their computer and still wake up early.
Oliver needed to know when the host would be distracted enough for Oliver to get food. so far it had been about a week since he had borrowed and 3 days since he had last eaten.
Oliver was already a scrawny boy so it didn’t help his composure at all. He was quite pale and skinnier then most borrowers, and being that, Oliver was desperate to get food, so he decided to go out borrowing when the human was preoccupied.
he set out to the kitchen with his hook and borrowing bag. Traipsing through the musky, dark, tunnels that he had constructed over his month of living in this new house he made his way to the kitchen. Oliver entered from a chipped tile which he had found upon arriving at his new home, and began heading towards the cereal cabinet.
Oliver propelled his hook at the cabinet door. The recycled fishing hook flew upwards with great speed, it made a slight *thwack* and Oliver cringed at the sound but kept going. he climbed up the thin rope, which was quite the task, the cabinet being over 30 feet to him. Oliver heaved himself up into the cabinet cautiously .
once he had grabbed enough food to last him a few days, Oliver began to descend the rope, quite thankful that he had his climbing gloves on. he was about 12 feet from the counter top when the knot holding onto the hook came undone.
Everything went in slow motion, Oliver began plummeting towards the ground the room spinning around him as he fell. The all at once Oliver landed awkwardly on his leg, causing him to yelp in pain. staggering upright, he looked up to spy his now detached hook, still planted firmly on the cabinets wood.
