Ding Dong! Ding Dong!

“Ughhhh,” Lisa groaned as she stirred in her bed.

She knew it was early for someone to be at her door. It was way too early in fact because she could tell the sun hadn’t come up yet since the soft beams of yellow light didn’t peak through her curtains and dance around on her walls. What crazy person decides to show up at someone’s door at- she glanced over to her alarm clock to get a better sense of just how early it was. “4:45!” She cried out. You have got to be kidding me. 

Lisa tried to go over a mental list in her mind of all the possible people who could be up that early and decide if it was really worth it to get out of her bed. Could it be those Youth Christian Advocates handing out their Jesus pamphlets? Or maybe its that scary neighbor from across the street coming to tell me that the raccoons got into my garbage again and put trash in her yard. Was it a wizard from Hogwarts coming to tell me that I’d been accepted? Whoever it was, Lisa had come to the conclusion that she was absolutely not getting out of her bed. Maybe if I just ignore them they’ll go away. She began to doze off again, with the comfort of her warm bed slowly dragging her back into a deep sleep. 

Until… Ding Dong! 

“That’s it!” She exclaimed.

Lisa yanked the covers off of her, stuck her feet in her fuzzy bunny slippers, and marched out of her bed in great annoyance. Thump! Thump! Thump! She stomped down the stairs and flung the front door open, ready to give whoever was interrupting her sleep a piece of her mind. 

“I don’t know who you are, or why you are here but-” 

She realized that couldn’t give whoever was at her door a piece of her mind because there was no one there. Well, except for the scary neighbor that lives across the street who was trimming her shrubs on her front lawn at an unusual hour in the morning. The neighbor shot her a disapproving look for causing such a ruckus in the silent neighborhood but all Lisa could do was just awkwardly wave. She quickly turned around to go back inside out of pure embarrassment but then she heard it. 

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. 

“Huh?” She mumbled. She looked down at her doorstep and found a box sitting there. She bent down and put her ear closer to it and heard the scratching continue. What in the world is this? She poked the box, pushing it slightly, and whatever was in it went absolutely feral. “AAAA!” She screamed. Lisa jumped away from the box, leaped back in her house, and slammed the door shut. Her back was pressed flush against the door as she tried to catch her breath that was unexpectedly stolen from her out of fear. After about ten minutes of peaking out the window; trying to get a glimpse of this mysterious-- seemingly dangerous package, Lisa decided that she had to grab a stick. 

She obviously couldn’t leave that thing out on her doorstep all day but she also came to the conclusion that if she wanted to stay alive, she would have to keep some distance between her and the box by opening it with a stick. So, she went out into her backyard to search for long tree branch of some sort. She definitely could’ve saved herself some time and went out to her front lawn to grab a branch from there, but she wouldn’t dare go back out where the box was without any kind of protection. Thankfully the windy morning had knocked down many branches and provided her with many options to choose from. She of course chose the longest branch. With her makeshift weapon in her possession, Lisa creeped back to her front door, worried as if the thing would be able to sense her presence from behind the door. 

She cracked the door slightly open and stared at it through the little gap. The box was not moving. Perfect. She inhaled a few deep breaths before she had the courage to open the door all the way and stand right in front of the box. Lisa made sure to carefully examine the box before coming in contact with it-- or before her tree branch came in contact with it. No labels? That’s strange. Just a plain brown, boring box. But the thing was that it was not boring. It was alive. She raised her tree branch, and instead of poking it again, she had the better idea of using it to open the flaps. Or maybe it wasn’t a better idea, who knows. Once the flaps were open she was prepared to be met with something pouncing out of it and being attacked. But there was silence. No. Not silence. The sound was so quiet that one could think it was silence but Lisa listened closely. It was a purring sound, she realized. 

Becoming even more curious, she leaned over to look instead the dreadful box and came to find a-- kitten? The fluff of black and white fur stared at her from inside the box with piercing yellow eyes and Lisa couldn’t help but chuckle to herself. “Well, you are not as nearly as terrifying as I thought you would be,” she said quietly.