My human has dug a den beneath the ground and filled it with more food than it could eat in nine lives, which for a human means one.
I approve of the instinct. A hidden room, dim and cool, stacked wall to wall with soft sacks and shelves at exactly the height I would leap to survey my kingdom. It smells of metal and dust and the faint promise of something that will eventually spoil. There is a cot down here, low and narrow, precisely my size, though the human seems to think it is for the human.
It comes down at night and touches the cans, counting them, its lips moving. It calls this "being ready." Ready for what, it will not say, only that one day the world above will end, and everything up there, the sun patches, the tall windows, the birds that mock me through the glass, will be gone, and we will live down here together in the dark. Just the two of us. Forever.
It said this like a comfort.
I have inspected the plan and found a flaw. The human has prepared for the end of everything except the possibility that I might not wish to attend.
There is a gap behind the lowest shelf where the wall does not quite meet the floor. I have known about it for some time. I have told no one.
For now I let the human count its cans and feel safe, because a frightened human keeps the warmest lap and the fullest bowl, and a bunker, whatever else it is, is simply a very large box.
I climbed into it. I sat. I decided it was mine, and then I left, because I could.