Grover's End

He rubbed her legs viciously while purring as if there were to be no tomorrow. Each time she tried to take another step he would cut in front causing her to stumble. When she finally reached the cupboard, he gained his prize. It seemed as though he would never manage to have higher spirits. They played this game each morning and night. Perhaps you could call it “her attempt to get to the cupboard before falling, and to relieve him of hunger”.

Grover was the opposite of patient, and he certainly adored food. He had been living there for nearly twelve years, and he was very much accustomed to the fact that he, indeed, would eventually be fed. Still, this never stopped him from begging like crazy. He was very grateful to have such a good owner. Her name was Dora, and she felt the same way towards Grover. She had received him as a gift from her parents for her second birthday. He had grown to be more than just a household pet; he became her best friend. She shared secrets with him she dared not even write in her diary.

Their relationship was flawless up until February of the year 2004. Grover began to develop a slight problem; urinating on couches and carpets. He lost his ability to migrate to the litter box when he felt like he had to go. Not only did he lose control of his bladder, but he also started to puke a lot more often. Dora realised that something was wrong, and when her mother decided to bring him to the vet, she became anxious. She really wanted him to get better; he meant the whole world to her. However, she didn’t want to risk the fact that he might be seriously ill.

A few days passed, and Grover wasn’t even improving in the slightest possible way. Dora’s mother then hurriedly brought him to the vet. As the poor cat got stuffed into a duffle bag, which was nearly half his size, he was able to see the horrified look on Dora’s face. Her cheeks were soaked, and her eyes were dripping more than a leaky faucet. Grover, thinking that he would just be going to the vet to get some medication and return home soon after, thought she was being overly dramatic. Little did he know, that this was the very last glimpse he would ever have his home, and of his best friend, Dora.

* * *

Grover, still in the bag, had to wait an agonizing ten minutes before being seen by the vet; although to him it felt like eternity. He was starting feel impatient; he desperately wanted to get the problem solved and return to his normal life. Finally, his bag lifted and he was gently put down on what felt like a higher level. A few seconds later, he felt as if his gravitational force had given away, but in reality it was just two cold hands lifting him from the bag, and onto another hard surface.

The vet checked him out, and spoke quite a long speech to Dora’s mother. Grover wondered what the humans were saying, and it was especially agonizing, for he knew they were talking about him. All of the sudden, the room became silent. Dora’s mother slowly approached him, and gently stroked his head one last time, then retreated out of the room. The feline cautiously watched the vet as he faced the wall, and fidgeted with something he had taken out of a cabinet. When the strange man turned around, he was grasping a long pointed object. He now had no way out; it was just him and the vet… the opposition… the enemy.

As the vet approached with his narrow razor-sharp needle, Grover’s sense of fearlessness quickly diminished. He had never been more afraid. He had no clue what was to come of him. The man in the lab coat and sterile gloves slowly walked behind him, and a few seconds later the object penetrated the cat’s outer layer. He felt the long object enter his skin and leisurely seep into his veins. His whole body slowly began to freeze. As he began to realize that he was losing consciousness and that this, indeed, may be the end, he became limp and he fell to his side. The vet then boxed him up, and handed him over to his secretary. She sent the boxed feline to a little pet cemetery, where he was buried within the same few hours.

* * *

Nearly a month had passed since the murder of her beloved cat, and occasionally painfully frightful images would come to her at night. Images of Grover scratching at the lid of his box, crying hysterically for help. It became a ritual that she would wake up in the middle of the night crying and sweating, and with a horrified expression on her face. She would always have the same nightmare; that of Grover being buried alive. Each time she notified her parents, they would just tell her that she’s crazy, and just subconsciously very depressed that her cat, not to mention best friend, was gone.

After many hours of crying to her father, Dora finally persuaded him into bringing her to Grover’s grave, and unburying him. After the twenty-minute drive to Granby, they finally reached the small pet cemetery where her beloved feline friend had been sent to rest for the remainder of eternity. Dora hurriedly removed the dirt from atop the three-foot long box, and when she opened it, what she saw would haunt her thoughts for the rest of her life…

Nails bent back. Scratch marks all over the inside of the box. The most utterly terrified expression spread across the animal’s face. Large yellow eyes; dry nose; open mouth as if he had been crying aloud for hours. There, lying at the bottom of the wooden box, lay a charcoal-black cat. A cat who had no chance of survival, for he had been murdered by the veterinarian. He had been buried alive, on account of a malfunction of the injection, and therefore suffered a very painful death. As Dora looked him in the eye, one last time, it was almost as if she saw what had really happened… the truth of Grover’s end.

Preceding a few hours after he had been buried, Grover slowly woke to find himself in a darkened secluded area. The drowsiness had not yet worn off, and as he attempted to stand up, he not only fell over because the lack of strength in his system, but also because the box was only about a foot in height. He began to panic, as he realised what had happened. The inoculation he had been given several hours earlier was not the right one. He had been put under anesthetics, as oppose to the drug that would have destroyed his brain cells; and therefore had not actually been killed. As he vigorously searched the outskirts of the box for a way out, he noticed traces of dirt. That’s when reality hit him: he had been buried alive! At that precise moment, he began to scratch at the lid of his coffin, and cry out for help. He did this for a straight hour or two; until he used up all the oxygen within the box, thus dying of suffocation.

* * *

Grover had died a very painful, slow, and agonizing death. All that knew him thought he was a very nice creature to have lived, and he shall forever stay in the broken heart of his former caretaker, Dora Willis.

As for Dora, before this incident, she had always wished to become a veterinarian. Her desire has changed immensely, for she now thinks of them as murderers. She would never be able to “put down” any animals, even if it were to help them. She just thinks herself to be mentally unstable; especially after what she had proven that day. The truth about her cat’s death…