Chakik froze with panic as the 4 large squirrels began to scoop piles of dirt onto him and into the hole he had dug. They strongly kicked at the pile and showered him carelessly with the loose debris. The hole quickly filled up, trapping the little squirrel neck deep in the storage room. He could breathe, just barely, but his entire body was encased in the ground, a living tomb. The leader squirrel smiled for the first time since Chakik had met him, and it was a horrible sideways grin, his oversized teeth slightly yellowed with age.
“Good. Good.” he said to the guards and then turning to Chakik, “Now your punishment can begin.”
No sooner had the words escaped his horrible mouth than one of the guards grabbed Chakik’s head and roughly pried his mouth open. A stream of squirrels began to march into the storage room, each carrying an armful of the acorns that Chakik had taken from their tree.
His eyes grew as the full realization of what his punishment would be: he was to serve as a living storage bin for the rock squirrels!
The volume of nuts that Chakik had taken from their tree would not fit in the storage room he was now buried in, but they would fit in his cheeks. Each squirrel placed their cargo of food into the little squirrel’s cheeks. Chakik was helpless, buried neck deep, as his cheeks magically expanded. He had not realized how many acorns he had picked until now, as squirrel after squirrel entered the storage room, each with an armful. There was no fear left in him though as he knew that his cheeks would be able to hold all of the stolen food once more.
The line of squirrels finally ceased, and Chakik’s cheeks were at capacity. The leader strode toward him ominously, the eerie grin still on his face. “Maybe I should thank you, you and your cheeks have expanded our storage capacity greatly. And you saved us the trouble of gathering this month.” The pleasure of seeing Chakik buried in the dirt was clearly evident in the leader’s dark eyes. “We may let you out in the spring.” and with that the leader swiftly turned and walked out of the storage room, leaving Chakik alone in the near dark, a single firefly pulsed slowly in the doorway.
“What have I become?” Chakik thought to himself. His wish had only been to be more helpful to his family and now he may never see them again. His mind wandered back to the Black Dragon and his thoughtless desire. It seemed ages ago that he was standing on the Black Dragon, he recalled the grinding sound of it’s voice. He tried to distract himself from the horror of his situation with thoughts of his family, “Well at least they won’t be able to call me ‘little cheeks’ anymore.” The thought of being teased by his sisters made him realize he missed them terribly and he began to cry, his tears pooling quickly onto the ground next to his head. He could only sob lightly as the dirt packed around his buried body kept him from taking any deep breaths. The tears ran in a steady stream down his cheeks as his head filled with images and memories of his family, racing his brothers up tree trunks, sunning himself on a branch, and all the things he would never do again. He cried and cried, buried in the hole he had dug in the dark and empty storage room, the sound of his weak breathing was the only sound he could hear.