The darkness was palpable.
A small mouse scurried as fast as he could behind the desk, but he was followed by the grasping hands of some pudgy beast. Never before had he felt such fear, such despair. Already, he had seen his brothers and sisters succumb to the horrid crushers, disguised as the rare rations they all strove so hard to store.
It was hard enough to survive on the few remains they could find, but with the constant aggression of these humans, their race had almost died out.
Pushing with his nose, the mouse rolled the glowing marble towards his youngest son, Rrish, as he felt grubby fingers grip his tail. "My son" was all he could say before being torn away from the child.
Rrish cried for hours, staring at the gap from which his father had been tugged away, almost certainly to his death. When the tears ran dry, he laid his little paws on the orb of power before him, and made his wish.
"Reverse this verse, switch the itch;
"Killer be prey, and killer be me!"
With a thunderous roar, powerful arcs of raw magic shot forth from the orb and consumed the mouse in fiery colours. It was too much for his frail body, and he succumbed to its grasp, his body burning into nothing, but his soul fusing with the orb.
A great spirit rose from the ashes, and it looked upon the villagers as they gathered from their homes in hatred. With a flick of his hand, all shrank to a tenth their size, grew claws from the mitts and ears from their skull. Fur burst from their skin, and their teeth sharpened. "When the cat's out of the house, the mouse dances," uttered the great spirit. "But the cat is in—and here come the wolves."
The small feline villagers, just now huddling together as they came to grips with their new forms, shuddered as they heard dozens of howls emanating from the woods.
The Night of the Mouse had begun.