He noticed the creature a long time before he made his plan to capture it.  At first, he was intrigued by its quiet movements, the unobtrusive way it lived within the woodwork, coming out only when it felt safe and unobserved. Its nocturnal excurions into his world fascinated him, there was a beauty in its fear as its cautious eyes probed the darkness.  He took a certain pleasure in crouching in the dark corner, still and undetected by the creature.  Night after night he sat in silent observation, noting its movements, and its timid exploration.

He didn't know quite when the idea to capture it came to him.  It seemed to slip into his mind the way the moonlight slipped through the slats in the blind in the window over the sink. It lay across the path of the creature, forcing it at times to walk through an illuminating slice, a danger to its stealth.  He waited for those moments, and his fascination with the creature's habits continued to grow.

He began slowly.  He marked paths across the floor with tidbits and crumbs.  A few at first to see if the creature would follow.  He was pleased that it seemed interested in what he had left there, and he manoeuvered its path towards the light a little more each evening, drawing the creature closer to his hiding place with every seeding.  The first time he lured the creature close enough to see him, he had inadvertently moved too quickly and sent it skittering off back into its hiding place and it did not return that evening.  He began again and painstakingly.  It may have been a few weeks or longer, he did not know, that he sat in that dark corner watching the creature's approach; never moving, until its confidence in the safety of his presence was won.

He was content to sit alone in the dark hours and wait for it to emerge.  He increased the light reaching his corner by tiny amounts over a long period of time.  He did not do this for the benefit of the creature, whose eyes perceived all it needed to know in the blackness and who understood without seeing, the dangers inherent in this human domain. The creature was beautiful in the complexity of its interactions, the simplicity of its acceptance of him.  He simply wanted to watch it and see that it could learn to trust him.  For some reason it was this trust that drove him forward in his plan. It was this trust he had purposely engendered that held him prisoner to the creature and he must break free.

The trap was easily set.  A few of the usual and expected tasties placed in a path that led to it. He placed the trap near him, where it was dimly illuminated.  He didn't even know why he was doing it. The power? The control? Whatever it was it was exhilarating.  A sliver of moonlight crept across the floor and glinted off the steel sprung gate.  The bait set, he sat and waited.

 His breath came in ragged intervals and he tried to regulate the pounding in his chest, the anticipation collected on his face in beads of cold sweat and dripped into his eyes; the salty drops stung and a knife-like pain went through his chest at the moment just before it was too late.

The creature emerged near midnight. The device was a new item, an addition to its usual surroundings but the bait was familiar and enticing. A tentative step towards it and no danger was sensed.  A certain boldness had been birthed in the creature, going against its natural inclinations.  He had given it confidence in his presence that was contrary to its instinct, anathema to survival.  It took an easy step to the expectation created in it and a delicate foot on the trigger tripped the spring.  The blow was crushing in intensity, caught at the neck, yet alive, it struggled.  

He was transfixed at first by the desperation in its eyes, the futility of its battle to live.  There was a exquisite beauty in its expiration.  He had a brief desire to free it, but he knew it would be in vain. He could not return its life to it.  Then waiting was ended, the deed done and suddenly, the sight of his destruction filled him with revulsion; the gruesome portrait of death by his hands. He  picked it up and threw the mouse, still bound in the trap, into the trash bin where its pleading eyes could not haunt him.