Operation Midnight.

I lay trembling on my bed, so keyed up with nerves that my muscles were taut with tension. I’d tried to get out before, of course. I don’t accept imprisonment lightly, though this was the hardest stretch I’d ever faced. Although I’d done my reconnaissance well beforehand, I knew that my task wasn’t going to be easy. My cell was on the top floor, well away from anyone who might have the courage to help me escape. Not that I expected it. People like me don’t make friends easily. In fact I knew then and afterwards that Tommy would be the best friend I’d ever have.

I could feel his presence nearby, the warm feeling I had whenever he was near me. We’d been through such a lot together over the years that I’d come to depend on him. Now I knew that he needed me and whatever the danger, I would go to him.
The night was pitch dark, with no moon to give either of us away. In some ways I knew this was best, but in others I longed for those nights when we crouched together, in the lee of the wall, waiting until the moon rose high in the sky and together we would watch until the sky paled into dawn.
Those were the magical nights when I thought that we would both live forever. It wasn’t that strange. There were others who had managed a lifetime together, though they would be cast off from their families forever. Did I want that? Could I pay that price knowing how strong the enemy could be?

My stomach lurched with anticipation. Though my heart was bursting with grief, I knew what I had to do. Somehow I would have to get out of this pen and join him before it was too late. The door rattled for a moment…my keepers checking that I was still restrained.
I could have let rip a torrent of swear words, but there wasn’t any point. My captors had made sure of my weakness. I don’t like full dark. I was born that way. Tommy understood it and never let on to anyone about it. When we had spent our nights together he had protected me against the dark and taught me to see beyond the shadows to a richer, fuller experience.
The memories were falling into place now, faster as my heart beat in time with the fear.
In my mind I could hear him calling to me. Begging that we complete this last operation together.

I knew fear. They had left me without light, the blackness so complete that I could feel it pushing against me. My fingers tore into my palms, leaving traces of blood where the nails dug in. Carefully…so slowly that I feared I would have to stop breathing, I inched up the window that I’d been working on for the best part of a day. They thought there were no tools, but I found out that when the heart cries out for help, then sometimes prayers are answered. The window wasn’t completely sealed up. The rough iron bed I was given to lay on had a loose spring that, (with a lot of careful work), gave me a tool to open the window.
It wasn’t easy with the blood running down my arms, but I finally forced the window open. I looked at the drop to the ground and fear sizzled throughout my pathetic, spineless body.
I wished then that I had the power of Tommy’s strong body. The sleek lines, the muscular limbs, the power to move silently, but deadly.
Of course he had tried to teach me, we hadn’t been partners for nothing. I wished with all my heart and soul that I could learn from his strength, but my body needed more time to grow and time was something we were running out of.

I pushed the window up, clenching the broken spring in my left hand. Below my cell there was an outhouse of some kind, probably a place to store fuel. I gauged the drop at about ten feet and wondered if I could make it in my heightened state of fear. Then he called and my heart took flight. Whatever happened, we would complete this mission tonight.
They had put me in some kind of restraining garment but nothing could stop me now. Using just my arms I pushed my body out of the window, landing with a sickening jolt on a slippery surface and then hurtling over the edge, finally coming to rest in a huddle on the hard ground.

Though stunned I quickly pulled myself together. I may have been bruised, but Tommy had been wounded in battle. It was my job to help him now and complete our mission. After that we could recuperate in our own time.
I came out of the darkness, shrugging off the restraints. Tommy was close against the rear wall, his body crouched low, his senses seeking out any danger in the midnight air. Our communication was silent. We had never needed words before. We didn’t now.
Slowly I let my own senses roam across the ground in front of us. The night was almost still. Just a small breeze rippled across the undergrowth. We took up our posts together, just as we had done for the last ten years.
The night air soothed my aching heart as I took him in my arms for the last time. I knew then that his injuries were too much for him to survive. This was now my own mission. I would stay with him to the end.

They found us in the early morning. I’d cried myself to sleep against his stiffening body. All the excuses they put forward didn’t mean a thing to me. They had thought him already dead. Someone had hit him hard across his skull, yet when he’d called me in the night he’d been alive. They were going to bury him before I saw the awful damage, that’s what they said.
I didn’t believe them then and forty years later I still know that my cat, Tommy, was alive that night and calling to me. He had a special place in my heart then and still I remember those nights when I ventured outside in the garden. He had been my pet since I was five years old. It was sitting on the garden wall in the summer evenings that helped me to overcome some of my fear of the dark.
A cat crouches in the darkness, ready to chase it’s pray; be it a leaf or a mouse. The body goes taught in anticipation, the rump wriggles and then pounces. That is how I have always remembered him, my sleek black second skin.

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Just in case you didn't guess-- this is an Inspirational point.