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Chapter Five
They walked for what seemed like miles to Felix, but it felt like they had accomplished nothing.  He wasn't even sure Mel really knew where she was going.  But, he knew he had no choice but to trust her.
"How far away is this city?" Felix dared to ask after several hours.
"Pretty far.  Now, stop complaining!  We'll stop and rest soon if you're too soft to go any farther," she teased.  Felix didn't say anything else for a while.  He desperately wanted to prove to Mel that he was tough enough to handle this.
After a while, they reached a wide river.  They stopped for a drink, though the water tasted foul, nothing like what he used to drink out of his dish.  He felt a pang of homesickness, but he pushed it away.  He'd back to sleeping in his cozy bed soon enough.  Felix just couldn't wait until this crazy adventure was over with.
Mel stared across the broad river for several moments.  "We cross here," she said eventually.
"Bu-bu-but, I can't swim!" Mel smiled knowingly and shook her head slowly.
"It's easy!  Even a soft pad like you can do it.  Just pretend you're running.  You'll do fine!" Mel said, jumping in.  Felix was still unsure.  He noticed several objects floating in the water.  He jumped on one and was able to balance himself just right.
"Well, that way works too," Mel said with a sigh.  Felix looked to his left. There was a bridge going over the river.  He motioned to it with his tail.
"Why don't we go that way?" he inquired.
"Well, this might be a big shocker to you, Kitty, but not all humans are going to give you belly rubs and feed you treats."  Felix thought of the men who took away Yuke.
"Yeah, that makes sense," he said, jumping to the next crate. He heard a loud noise coming from farther down the river.  A big white thing sliced through the water and came straight at them.  Felix jumped back and nearly plunged into the river.  He froze, sprawled out on a wooden plank, bobbing in the waves.
"Well, come on!  I know you're accustomed to lying about all day, but we must get moving," Mel said, who was, to Felix's alarm, a fair distance ahead of him.  Felix stood up and looked around.  The boat had moved Felix's path of items farther apart.  He thought about swimming, but quickly abolished that idea.
He felt like he had to leap farther and farther each time.  Felix looked to his next platform, a tipped-over box. He focused all his strength into his hind legs, but it was not enough.  His front claws scrabbled on the box, but his weight turned it upside-down and Felix was trapped underneath.
He managed to push it off of him, but that wasn't much better.  He flailed his paws in the water, but that only made him sink.  His fur felt like it weighed a ton, and he was dragged down.  His world went fuzzy, and then he blacked out completely.
Felix woke up to a cat figure crouching over him. "Yuke...?" he thought.  His vision cleared, and he saw that it was Mel who had saved him.  He coughed up some water and stood up.
"It's about time you woke up!" said Mel, "Well, I suppose it's about time we stopped for the day, anyways.  Sheesh, you sure are heavy!"
Felix didn't reply.  He was too exhausted to be annoyed at Mel's insults.  He just wanted to sleep.