With no place to go and no shelter from the freezing rain, Jennefer Brisby wandered into the dense forest. She could not stay in the field because of the plow and the mud that had devoured her house. Looking for a place to stay, she found a small opening in a tree stump. Without hesitation, Jennefer bounded into the hole and made herself as comfortable as possible. It was a little too small, but she had managed to move into a comfortable position.

Jennefer is a field mouse who's past and present haunt her. A day after she was born, a rabid bat had attacked her and her family, killing her parents and leaving her right eye blinded and scared. Her eye became gray due to the attack, instead of her natural eye color, green. Fortunately, a pack a traveling mice had found her and raised her in with them.

It was years later, she had finally gotten married to the one mouse she grew fond of, Algernon. Together, they left the pack and started a family of their own. They moved into a hollow brick near the edge of the forest. Three kids at this time were born, Katrina, Andrew, and Angelica. One day while Algernon was going to get food, he was captured by humans, and stolen from Jennefer and her family. The couples last child was soon born, Benjamin. Jennefer had never seen him since and has claimed him to be dead.

Early this morning, Jennefer decided it was time to move to her to the great oak, where the pack of mice that had raised her go during the summer. Not even half way there, Benjamin had become ill and they had to turn back. Seeking help, Jennefer went to find the great owl but came up empty handed. Upon her return, she saw that the heavy rain had caused her house to sink. The thought of her children still inside frightened her and she tried to pull the brick back out of the mud, but failed. To her surprise though, there were foots prints of the children's, leading to the forest. She had now just entered the forest and found shelter from the rain.

As she lay there watching the rain steadily increase, she began to think about my children who had escaped the brick before it had sank. Jennefer thought about where they might be right now in this cold, hard rain and how they were going to survive through the night in the hazardous forest. Thinking about her children only made the night worse for Jennefer as her thoughts raced through her head.

"Katrina, my oldest daughter," Jennefer thought, "had never liked rain because she thought it was a sign something bad was going to happen, and now it seem she was right."

"My oldest son Andrew always said that he was never afraid of anything, but I knew that he was just trying to look big. Andrew was afraid of everything that moved. Now, he's alone with his sisters and ill brother in a dark and deadly forest, how scared he must be right now."

"Angelica, the youngest of my daughters, is as fragile as an old, dried-out leaf, but she's always wandered into trouble. No matter what, she would always go outside and explore every inch of every grass before she came back inside the brick. Now I fear she may get hurt exploring the forest."

"Oh, my poor Benjamin, never was he so ill! He has a very high fever and has the chills. He says that it becomes hard to breath at times and he has grown very weak. I can't imagine the pain he's going through right now!!!"

With tears streaming down her face, Jennefer crawled out of the hole in the tree and began traveling deeper into the dreaded forest. With the thoughts of her children close in mind, she ran through the rain, rarely stopping to catch a breath.

Finally, after running for hours on end, Jennefer had collapsed on to the soaking, cold ground. She tried to move, but didn't have the energy to. As she gasped for air in the mud, the thoughts of her children got the better of her. Jennefer had started to cry out for help, but nobody was there.

Completely helpless, tired, and hungry, she had summoned the last of her energy to pull herself under a tree. Now propped up against the tree, she began to see how hopeless her situation was, and she cried for Algernon, her deceased husband.

"Algernon, I wish you were hear right now. Why, why did they have to take you? I... I just, I want to see you again."

Just as her cries before had failed, the cries for Algernon only brought depression closer to her heart. Now drenched in not only rain, but her own tears, Jennefer cried desperately for her children.

"Katrina? Andrew? Angelica? Oh, please dear god, Ben? Anybody? Oh, please help me, please. Alg...Alger...oh Algernon, please anybody!"

"The only thing heard in return of her cry, was the deceptive reply of a hollow eco."

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"Katrina, when will we get home?" asked Angelica as Andrew carried Benjamin close behind. "I don't think Ben can hold out much longer, the raspy sound when he breathes has gotten worse." Andrew stated with a worried expression on his face.

Worried, Katrina found a resting place under a fallen tree and began approaching it slowly, in case anything harmful was already there. As she examined the area, she discovered a bright light was a little ways further from this tree, so she told Andrew and Angelica to take care of Ben and hide under the tree just for a few seconds. With her brothers and sister softly hidden, she scouted ahead to see what was making the bright light.

Working her way through the forest, Katrina had to fight her way through very dense vegetation. But when she managed to squeeze herself through the thickest of the weeds, she discovered something she had never seen before.

It was a small town. The light she had seen was coming from a street light. Drawn to the town like a fly to a light bulb, she wondered into the streets. Overwhelmed at the site, she did not notice the car on the road. She noticed a light was getting brighter to her side, when she turned to look, she was almost hit by whatever just passed her. In panic, she ran off the street and back into the hedge she was hidden in.

That's when she discovered a hole in the street. As she approached it, she had a thought. She and her family could safely stay in the hole until the rain stopped. Katrina headed back to the fallen tree to tell Andrew and Angelica of her findings, but when she got there, something was wrong.

"Ben, he stopped breathing!!!!" Andrew yelled while violently shaking out of fear. "What do we do?, Katrina, what do we do?"

Katrina did not know what to do, so she went to Ben to check for a pulse and when she found his pulse to be irregular, Ben had coughed horribly and began to breath again. Seeing that her brother was still shook up, she tried to calm Andrew down.

"Where's Angelica?" she asked trying to change the subject.

"She's behind the first branch on the left." Andrew managed to say without crying. "When are we going to find mom Katrina?"

"I don't know Andrew." She responded with a sad tone.

With Andrew now calmed down, Katrina ushered her brothers and sister to move to the hole she had found in the town. She first helped Andrew and Ben down the hole, then followed Angelica down into the hole. It was warm and dark in the hole, and there seemed to be nothing to eat in the hole either. With no moon light to see where everybody was, the children huddled up close together and tried to get some sleep.

All the kids were asleep except Katrina. She was trying to be the look out. That wasn't the only reason why she was up. She had developed a terrible cough and she began to start wheezing. It became much harder for her to breath in that dark, stuffy hole, and she started to desperately gasp for air. Unable to get a sufficient supply of oxygen in her, she had passed out, unaware of the rat watching from above.

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As the rain stopped, Jennefer tried to get to her feet to find her children. She found out she was much weaker than she had expected, and fell to her knees over and over.

Making little progress, Jennefer decided to rest at the next tree she came to, that's when she heard it. A black crow was flying through the trees, and Jennefer was out in the open completely defenseless.

If she didn't move quick, she would end up dead. With little luck, she tried to move to safety, but the crow had spotted her! In almost a blink of the eye the crow swept down to the ground where Jennefer was at!

With nothing in her left, she had tired to run. On her feet, running for dear life, she looked back to see the crow. The crow was gone. Then as she turned her attention ahead of her, a quick shadow landed in front of her. Not able to stop, Jennefer had ran full speed into the crow.

As she fell to the ground, thoughts of her children tried to urge her legs to move, but her legs didn't budge. These thoughts tried to tell her to open her eyes, but her eyes wouldn't. The thoughts of Algernon had told her to move, but she could only twitch and spasm, paralyzed.

As Jennefer looked up at the crow losing consciousness, she asked for mercy. Shortly after, Jennefer felt herself in the grasp of the crow. Finally, the last bit of whatever was her me had left, and Jennefer had passed out.

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"Katrina, wake up." Andrew said. "Please, wake up!"

Katrina awoke wrapped in a blanket next to a fireplace. Realizing that she was not in the sewer hole they stayed in, she began to panic. Andrew, saw she didn't know what was going on, and told her its ok.

"Where are we, Andrew where are we? Where's Ben, is Ben ok? Oh no, where is Angelica? She is ok right?" Andrew released a sigh of relief.

"Yes, everyone is ok. Are you ok? You don't remember, do you?"

Confused, Katrina reply with hesitance. "Re.. remember what?"

"While we were sleeping, a nice rat had seen us lying together in the sewer hole. He said that you were coughing pretty bad. So he went down to see if we were ok, and he said you were mumbling help under your breath. He realized that you weren't conscious and that we were in danger, so he took us here to stay for awhile." Katrina remembered gasping for breath and passing out, that's when she started to feel like her lungs were getting heavy again, so she laid back down.

"Where is the rat that helped us?" "He's helping Ben, you know, getting water, checking his temp, that stuff."

"Tomorrow."

"What, Katrina what's tomorrow?"

"We leave tomorrow."

"Why? We could stay here until mom finds us." Without giving a reason why, Katrina had rolled over and said, "We have got to leave tomorrow."

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With only few hours to sunrise, I found myself in a house. "Are you ok Mrs. Mouse?" Jennefer looked to see who said that, and saw it was the crow from last night. In panic, she screamed and tucked the blankets tight over her head.

"Oh, Mrs. Mouse, you almost gave me a heart attack!" Not knowing why, the crow had saved Jennefer, she tries to respond,

"Why.. W.. why did you help me?"

"I'm Jeremy, are you ok? I've never seen a mouse act like this."

"I'm s...sor...sorry Jeremy, Bu...But I don't know...you."

Jeremy, with a concerned look on his face replied,"Is that why you are shivering?!? You were almost shivering wore than Timmy."

"Who's Timmy?" A little shocked she didn't know who Timothy was, Jeremy responds,

"You don't know who Timmy is do you? Your not from around here are you?"

"No, im not."

"Yimothy, Mrs. Jonathan Brisby's son?"

"I don't know Mrs. Jonathan Brisby, I never met her..."

In the room next to the one she in, Jennefer can here footsteps approaching, and the sound of kids playing. Jennefer was starting to panic, she was in someone else house (no, in their bed), and there were children, that meant a protective parent was near by!

"I've really got to go, now!!! Jeremy, I'm not.."

That's when a dark figure appeared at the door. "Who are you!"

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As the sun peeked over the horizon of the black road, Angelica, Andrew, and Ben, snuck quietly across the street following Katrina.

"Why do we have to leave Katrina?" Andrew said. He had not seen any point in leaving the shelter of the kind rat they had ran into.

Now entering the town, Katrina told Andrew to keep quiet. She quickly spotted an area that was safe for them to stay for a sec and urged them to move quickly.

The area was like a giant box with a glass door to enter. As they snuck in, the children were almost instantly overwhelmed with the smell of food.

"There's so much food, I think we could live here forever!!".

"Andrew, don't be silly. We're only going to take what we need, nothing more." Katrina said as she began searching through a box containing assortments of meat.

As the kids ate their meal, Katrina began to start coughing uncontrollably.

"Katrina, you sound like Ben." Angelica said.

"Are you ok, Katrina? Katrina?!? Katrina!!!!". Andrew watch in horror as Katrina began to cough up blood. "Katrina hold on, I'll.... I'll...." Andrew, unaware what to do, helped Katrina lay down.

"Ben, is he ok Angelica?"

"He's not very good, poor Ben."

Now with the weight of his brother's and older sister's life's on his shoulders, he began to start crying.

"I told her we should have stayed, I... I don't know what to do. What are we going to..........".

As he looked up, he saw a large human staring at the sick and tired mice under the counter with rappers from the food they ate scattered about.

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"Who are you, why are you in my house?!?" the dark figure in the doorway said.

Lying in her bed, Jennefer tried to respond, "Wait, please!!! I... I'm so sorry, I didn't want to.... I... he brought me.... this is a big....."

Unable to finish a thought, she stopped and took a second to breathe and tried again.

"My name is Mrs. Jennefer Brisby, and I was brought here by mistake. Please for give me, I did not mean any harm."

Then the dark figure started to approach the bed; as the sun revealed more of her, Jennefer's jaw dropped to the floor.

"Your.... you look just like....me.. almost the exact same.... as me. Who are you?"

The reflection of Jennefer replied, "I'm Mrs. Brisby, but I don't.... I don't think we've ever met. How did you get here?"

"It's a real long story but I'll try to tell you the best I can. I live, I recently lived in a brick on the outer edge of the forest and it was moving day. When I tried to move my family, my youngest son got sick. I went to see the great owl for help but, I did not find him. When I came home, my house was devoured by the mud and rain. My children escaped but, I fear that my son could die if I don't find him. I went into the forest to look for them and the rain made me weak and made it harder to track down my kids. Unable to move, that crow, Jeremy, had spotted me. I thought he was going to hurt me so I ran as much as I could. I didn't get far before passing out. When I woke up, I was in your bed. I'm sorry if I brought any trouble on you."

Mrs. Brsiby replied with great sorrow in her voice, "Where is your husband?".

With and even sadder voice, Jennefer replied

"He died a month ago, I'm a widow.".

Mrs. Brisby sat on the bed next to Jennefer, and gave her a hug.

"I.. I lost my husband too. He had died helping the rats of NIMH with their plan. I know what your going through, the same thing happened to me. If you need anything please, let me know, I would really want to help you."

With that said, Jennefer had asked, "If it's not a hassle, can I get something to eat; im exhausted. Oh, and can you tell me more of the rats of NIMH?".

Mrs. Brisby was almost shocked, "Why do you want to know about the rats of NIMH?".

Jennefer responded with a dead tone of voice, "I think NIMH killed my husband, Algernon."

Andrew, now awaking, looks for Katrina and his other siblings.

"Katrina? Angelica! Ben!!! What's going on?"

Ben, now awake, responds with little energy, "The.... the humans took.... took us..... and I.... can.... hear sis coughing, she's..... she's going to die!!!"

Andrew stared at Ben in disbelief, but both started to cry, knowing that if they didn't act fast, they could loose everything.