'A long time ago, God decided to throw a big party for all the animals. He sent word out and he had asked the rat to let the cat know about it and so on. Well, the rat, who was very jealous of the cat, told him that the banquet was the day after.

The day of the banquet, the twelve animals raced up to god's palace, with the rat riding on the ox's back, playing the flute. God was very impressed with the rat and gave him first place, then he gave second to the ox and so on. But then he realized there was only eleven instead of twelve, so he sent out one of his angels to retrieve the cat. The angel set out for the cat but couldn't seem to find him. Instead, he found a farmer carrying a pig. He took the pig with him and the pig was awarded twelfth place by default.

The day after the banquet, the cat ran up to God's palace to find that the banquet had taken place the day before. He begged and pleaded with God to reconsider his decision of leaving the cat out, But god had told the cat it was too late.'

Akeela didn't understand how she remembered the story of the Zodiac when she couldn't even remember before five days ago, when she woke up in the hospital next to her sister, Naomi, Who had fallen asleep on the couch. She always felt sorry for the cat and wondered how he must feel. She would also tell Naomi that story. She's told it a lot in the past five days.

They just recently got out of the hospital, though not by a doctor approved discharge. When Akeela had woken up, there was a doctor there that kept asking her questions. Akeela and Naomi both didn't know how to answer. All they would do was ask her where home was and what the names of her parents were. And when Akeela couldn't give a straight answer, they'd start asking her little sister. Naomi doesn't know many words to begin with so how could they possibly think that she could answer questions that a teenager couldn't?

"What do we have miss Hashimoto?" Akeela overheard the doctor ask the nurse.

"well," replied the nurse, "we have an unidentified 16 year old and her equally unknown 2 year old sister. No record of where they live, who they live with, or anything of that manner. If we don't find out soon, they'll have to go to an orphanage, sir."

"poor girls," the doctor added as he read the medical report, "They are probably going to be separated from each other, too."

That was enough for Akeela to hear. So that night, she grabbed her sister after lights out and climbed out the fire escape that she had found earlier that morning outside the window at the end of the hallway.

Since neither of the two girls knew where home was, or if they even had a home to begin with, they have been staying in alleyways and, just recently, in a forest with a path that they had been walking along.

"Sissy?" Naomi said as she waddled beside her sister, holding her hand, "I'm hungry."

"I know sweetie," Akeela replied. Truth be told, She was starting to feel weak for the lack of food in her stomach. But that all had to change and they had to find some way to survive in their current condition.

She wondered how exactly she was going to do it when her sister suddenly let go of her hand and started to waddle away.

"Naomi! Where are you going?"

" berries" she replied, and she flopped down to collect the fruit. Akeela giggled and sat in the grass, pulling her long, blonde hair into a ponytail. She looked around to make sure no animals attacked. And yet she should have looked more closely at her sister, as she soon realized when she heard Naomi cry out in pain.

Akeela ran to her side to find her with two punctures on her left leg. Naomi was crying a river pretty much and Akeela went to scoop her up when the snake had slithered out of its hiding spot once again to clench its fangs into Akeela's right arm. She had gotten the infernal thing off with her other hand and it had slithered off. She just sat there for a few seconds, breathing heavily, then scooped up her weak and helpless sister, and walked down the path, hoping to find someone to help.

About fifteen minutes later, the energy was quickly starting to stray away from Akeela's body. She didn't know whether the snake had been poisonous or not,but since Naomi had stopped crying and seemed pretty still, she was worried that it might have been. She had went to take another step and stared to feel dizzy, falling down a hill. Yet at that time, the only thing she thought about was making sure her little sister was safe.