Zebbler's Dreams and Realities

I didn't know I was going to get into this paranoia.  But surprises tend to spring up on you once in a while, you know?  In the words of the great Kurt Vonnegut, so it goes... I got adopted by nice American family - a cute girl with a loving father.  Had a bedroom of my own and a lovely loyal pet dog.  Things seemed as normal as can be - great family dinners, slight flirtations, good jokes and vast family home to explore with all sorts of hidden surprises.  Then I got a phone call from my already paranoid brother that flipped that whole thing upside down. I will take a moment to explain the backstory, so that you, my wonderful reader, are not totally lost [snap to reality].  You see, I got political asylum in the U.S. in 1996, since I feared political and ethnic persecution upon returning to my home country of Belarus.  Since then I had repeated mysterious tragedies in my family.  My father was found in a puddle of blood in his apartment,...

I wake up on a wet slab of granite from something scurrying over me. Yet another mouse is acting crazy. It seems that more and more the animals in this dungeon are losing their fear of humans. They've been running over me and nibbling my skin for a few days by now. And here's another one! And another! This is starting to hurt. One bite I can deal with, but what we have here is nearly a dozen mice, all trying to sink their teeth into me. I scream out and flail, shaking the creatures off. "What now?" - mutters a tall gray figure in the corner. My guard usually has very little to say, so I jump on this opportunity. "The mice are acting really weird," I explain, "It's almost as if they set out to, ow!, set out to drive us out of here or something... This is not normal." The guard would normally care less for my comforts, but by now the mice are starting to get to him as well, so he returns my worried look of concern back to me. They seem to b...