Alright, look. I’m aware of what people are going to say: ‘If you weren’t looking for trouble, then you shouldn’t have broken into that guys house.’ Let me just address this right off the bat with a simple ‘Fuck you.’

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You don’t know the kind of life I’ve lived and you don’t know the circumstances that led me here! I’m not gonna fucking tell you either. Firstly, I don’t have to fucking justify myself to you, some asshole reading this on the internet! And secondly, because I don’t want anyone tracking my ass down and arresting me! Yeah. Sorry. You’re not getting my life story here. I’m not even gonna tell you my real name. You can just call me Joe, and all you need to know about me is that I need more money than I’m gonna get from just my 9-5 job, and I’ll do whatever I have to do, to get that money. If sometimes, that means robbing some rich asshole's house, then so be it.

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Now - I’m not gonna pretend I’m the world's most experienced burglar and I’m no criminal genius either. Every now and then, me and a guy I knew (let’s call him Tim). would run a job on a house that we thought might have some good shit in it. We’d scout the place out, plan the whole operation and when the time was right, we’d make our move.

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We weren’t really so reckless as to pull a smash and grab. The name of the game here was stealth. I’m not gonna give away all of our secrets here, but I will say that it’s a lot easier than you might think for someone to make a copy of your housekey. A lot easier. Saying too much might give me away, but you could probably figure out how to do it with a quick Google search.

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Anyways, once we had our copy of the key, we’d wait until the homeowners were away on vacation, or if we were really desperate wait until everyone seemed to be in bed. Then we’d just walk in through the front door. I had a truck I always parked out front, and we could just grab whatever was easy to take and be gone within the hour. The lighter and easier to carry something was, the more likely we were to take it. Laptops, phones, video game consoles, shit we could sell for some money. We didn’t usually take anything that big, like televisions or shit like that. Just small shit we could easily carry.

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We only ever went upstairs if we knew the house was empty, but the houses where we could do that usually netted us a bigger payday. Jewelry, cash, watches. A few times, we even found some of those fireproof safes, people tend to keep their valuables in. I always thought that it wasn’t very safe if I could just pick it up and walk off with it, but what the fuck did I know? It was hit and miss as to whether there was anything actually important in those safes or not. Usually it was just crap like passports, birth certificates, and shit like that. I actually did have a few buyers interested in those things, and I never asked too many questions about what they did with them, but they didn’t net me that much money.

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Anyways, I’m getting off topic… I’m not here to talk about my little side hustle. I’m here to talk about the recent job.

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See, I’ve been doing this for a few years now. I’ve had some jobs go bad. That’s normal. People wake up. Neighbors come to investigate. The police get called. I’ve had some close calls. But I’ve never had anything like this happen before.

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What happened the other night… That shit scared me. Not in the same way a close call does. This was something else. Something truly and deeply fucked up.

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And it all happened because Tim found a fucking hamster.

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We’d been watching this house for the better part of two weeks now. We knew the owner, some middle aged lady, was going on a vacation. We knew that we’d have a three day window to hit that house. We knew she had pets and we waited until someone came to feed them. Once they’d left, we made our move.

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I had a key to the house, so as per usual we just walked in through the front door. Now, the moment we walked in, I got a slight scare when I heard this voice saying:

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“Hello!” although that fear quickly went away when I noticed the gray parrot, caged in the living room. It just sorta bobbed and made some noises, occasionally saying: “Hello.” But that was it. I also noticed a couple of bowls of cat food in the kitchen but didn’t ever actually see the cat.

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After taking a moment to orient ourselves with the house, me and Tim set to clearing it out. On the main floor, we found a couple of laptops, a tablet computer, and some other goodies.

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Tim had eventually taken off to explore the office while I’d gone upstairs to check the bedroom. I’d been in the middle of clearing out this ladys jewelry, and checking her bedside table for any goodies when Tim interrupted me. It’s best to always check any drawer you see. Bedside tables especially. They can be a little… Well. That’s where people usually store their sex toys, and it’s always a little awkward finding one of those. One lady had $500 in cash stored in the same shoebox she kept her toys in. Not sure if she thought it would deter someone like me or not, but I took the money anyways. But the bedside table drawers of the lady who owned this house were fairly empty. She had some extra masks for a CPAP machine and that was about it.

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Anyways… Where was I? Right… Tim.

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He came in, with something in his hands and big, goo goo eyes that weren’t that out of place on him. One thing I’ve got to say about Tim is that he’s a big fucking softie… This is a guy who tries to pet the dogs who bark at us when we rob a place. He fucking loves animals. So I wasn’t that surprised to find him holding one.

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What he was carrying in his hands was a tiny, fluffy white hamster. Like, this thing was literally just a ball of fluff with a tiny hamster face on it, and Tim was cradling this thing like it was his own goddamn child.

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“Joe, take a look! Found this little one in the living room!” He’d said, “Looks like she got out!”

“Alright, and?” I asked, “You wanna take it with you?”

“Nah, I’m gonna put it back.” He said, “You see a cage anywhere?”

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I just sighed and rolled my eyes at him.

“Tim, I’m up-fucking stairs. You found the hamster on the main floor. What, did you think the hamster climbed down the goddamn stairs?”

“She might’ve.” Tim said, sounding all indignant, “Come on… You’re not gonna tell me you don’t find her a little bit cute?”

“It’s a giant mouse. No. It’s not cute. It’s probably full of disease or something.” I said.

“Joe… Come on. Look at its face.”

“Tim, I’m busy.”

“Look at its face, Joe.”

“For Christ's sake, Tim I-”

“Look at its face.”

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I sighed and looked over. Tim had been slowly bringing the hamster closer to me, and I looked into its black, beady little eyes as it regarded me with that one dopey expression all hamsters have.

“It’s very cute, Tim.” I said, “Now put it down.”

“In a minute… Gotta find its home. Make sure it can’t get back out.” He said, before turning to take it back downstairs. I was done with the bedroom, so I just sighed and followed him.

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Tim was holding the hamster close to his chest and petting it, cooing at it all the while as he took it back downstairs.

“Aww, you’re a sweetie, aren’t you? Yes you are! You’re such a friendly little hamster, yes you are!”

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He wandered off towards the kitchen, while I went in the other direction towards what looked to be the office.

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There was some docking equipment and shit that must’ve gone with one of the laptops we took, and a large wooden desk that looked like it was probably full of goodies. One wall was dominated with bookshelves, and the other one was dominated by something that sort of resembled a large glass terrarium. It rested on the floor, but stood about 4 feet high. It was mostly filled with what looked like paper bedding, and had a fuckton of little logs to hide in and other shit. There was a hamster wheel against one side of it. The top was covered in hardware cloth, although looking at it closely, it looked like something had chewed through it.

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The whole thing also had something of a faint stink to it… And I got the feeling that this was where the hamster had lived up until recently.

“Hey Tim!” I called, “Found your hamsters house.”

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He came into the office, while I started poking through the desk drawers.

“Damn… That’s a big house.” He’d said, then cooed to the hamster:“Why would you ever wanna leave a place like this, huh?”

“Thought they just needed like, a little plastic dollhouse or something,” I said, as I picked through the drawers.

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“Nah. Those things are cruel. The bigger the cage, the better.” Tim said. I looked back and could see him looking at the spot where the hamster had chewed through the hardware cloth.

“Jesus… This little one’s got some chompers… Didn’t think rodents could chew through that…”

“Well, this one did.” I said, “You putting it back or what? I could use a hand here!”

“You gonna help me?” Tim asked, “My hands are kinda full here.”

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I looked over to see him cradling the fucking hamster like a baby, and he kicked at the lid of the cage. He was right. It looked like he’d need both hands to open it. I put raiding the desk on hold while I lifted up the lid of the hamster cage.

“Christ… This thing stinks…” I murmured, “Does this lady ever clean up after this fucking thing?”

“You’re supposed to clean it every few days.” Tim said.

“Yeah, well she didn’t.” I said, “Come on, just put the fucking thing back, and let’s get a move on!”

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“Yeah, yeah. I will.” He murmured, before holding up the hamster to his face, “I’m gonna say goodbye for now, little one. But you be good, alright? Gonna fix up your cage so you can’t get out again and get hurt! Yes I will! Do you want a little kissy? Yes you do! Yes you do!”

“Could you not kiss the stranger's hamster?” I sighed.

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Tim ignored me and went in to give the fucking hamster a kiss on the back… And this was where everything went horribly wrong.

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Up until then, the hamster had just sorta sat patiently in his hands. I’d noticed it trying to climb up his arm a few times, but he’d always moved it back to his hand. But the moment he brought it close to his lips, the goddamn thing lunged at him. It didn’t go for his mouth.

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It went for his throat… And the next thing I knew, Tim was screaming.

“JESUS FUCK!”

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I watched him stumble back a step, clawing at the hamster as it chewed at his throat. But he didn’t seem to be able to get it off of him.

“JOE, GET IT THE FUCK OFF! JOE!”

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Suddenly all the love he’d had for this oversized rat was gone. He was slapping at it hard enough that he should’ve killed the damn thing, but it just kept biting him. He collapsed to the ground as I ran to try and pull it off of him. The fucking hamster just squirmed out of my grasp, and the blood now gushing from Tim’s neck made it all the harder to grab it.

“Joe… Joe… Joe!”

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Tim sounded scared, genuinely fucking scared… And you wanna know something? I was fucking scared too! I watched as that hamster seemed to wiggle past the gushing blood that now flowed from his throat… I heard Tim choke and gasp as it seemed to…

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Christ…

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As it seemed to worm its way through the hole it had torn in his throat… And make its way deeper into his neck…

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Christ…

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If I hadn’t seen it with my own two eyes, I never would have thought it possible…

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Tim kept trying to grab at it. But by that point, all I saw was a little tuft of fur sticking out of his wound and even that was gone within a few moments. His throat bulged outwards, his body jerked and convulsed as his eyes bulged out of his skull. His mouth hung open in a silent scream as he twitched. I knew there was no saving him…

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I took a step back from my dying friend, trying to make sense of whatever the fuck I had just seen, and as I did my eyes shifted over to the terrarium. Tim had kicked it with his dying thrashes, and he’d kicked it hard enough to cause some of the bedding to shift. I could see what looked like black, rotting fingertips sticking out of the hamster bedding.

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Human fingertips, in case that wasn’t fucking clear…

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I stared at the terrarium, unsure just what the hell to say as it occurred to me for the first time that it was probably long enough, and deep enough to keep a human body in there… Tim twitched and rasped as he struggled to breathe. His throat still bulged outwards. His eyes were fixated on me, silently begging me for help.

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But he was past saving.

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I did the only thing I could do, and I fucking ran. I left Tim, I left the contents of the office. I just took what I already had and got the hell out of that house. I didn’t dare look back.

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I never heard anything about the break in or Tim’s death on the news. I’m not sure if I just missed it, or if they just didn’t report it…

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I haven’t slept much lately. Every time I try, I dream about Tim, writhing on the fucking floor as that ‘friendly little hamster’ eats its way into his throat. And I dream about seeing that terrarium again, and seeing Tim underneath all that bedding, rotting with holes in his body, where the hamster has made its nest…

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Jesus…

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Needless to say, I’m pretty sure that I’m done with burglary. I sold the shit I took from that house as quickly as I could, just to get rid of it. Sure, maybe I could’ve learned something about what the fuck had happened if I had the patience to get somebody to crack those laptops for me, but to be completely honest, I don’t think I want to know. I’m already paranoid enough about this fucking lady somehow tracking me down and finding me… I don’t need anything else to be afraid of.