A/N: Hi :)

Without further ado, I present to you my entry for Meg Cahill's Save Saladin contest! It is also my entry for bluester007's Anti-Cliché contest! *applause* *cheers*

Disclaimer: I definitely do not own Saladin, he's too cool for me ;-; Oh yeah, and I don't own T39C. :)

Everything is dark.

It is not cold, though. Strange. I have grown to associate dark places with cold- but it is very warm here. I can feel cold pressing on the edges of the warmth, though, and I shiver.

I cannot see anything. It is too dark. But I can smell it... I have the nose of a cat, after all...

Red snapper.

My eyes strain, but even they cannot pierce the absolute blackness. I have never before been in such a place as this, and my owners Amy and Dan have gotten me into plenty of dark places.

Take the Clue hunt, for example. All those silly humans flying around the world, my owners along with them, searching for clues like gold, myrrh, rosemary... gold is shiny, but myrrh smells nasty. I don't know why they frolicked like kittens after thread, looking for those clues. Clues to what, anyway? A large dish of automatically refilling red snapper is the only prize worthwhile enough that I can think of.

I do not like the thought of getting lost in this blackness. But the red snapper seems to be just ahead of me... the smell makes my mouth water. And then it occurs to me that I am lost in any case- I do not know where I am. I need to think about this. Might as well eat some of that red snapper while I am thinking.

So I move forward cautiously. The place is completely silent as well; I have never been in a place so completely devoid of sound before. How could I have been, when one of my current owners is a monkey of a boy who constantly fills every place around him with noise? Indeed, I have seen quieter monkeys, and they are one of the noisiest peoples I know.

But he feeds me well and often, and talks to me all the time. Dan is a caring owner: I know other cats in my neighborhood who are not treated half as well as I am. He is just a kitten- he will grow up, and then he will not make so much noise.

Before I have gone more than a few steps, I see it. It is a large can- larger than I have ever seen before. It is almost as tall as me, and three times as wide. I try to approach it warily, but the smell is overpowering by now- saliva drips off my front teeth and tongue when I open my mouth. I approach the red snapper, thoughts of caution forgotten. It is just red snapper, after all.

I put my paws on the side of the large can and look in. Sure enough, there it lies... my treat. I wonder who has set this much of it out for me briefly, but soon lean into the bowl and try to eat it. I am an impatient cat.

All of a sudden, it changes.

It glows with an eerie light, which grows more and more blinding. I fall back onto my hind legs in a hurry. What is this? Is it another one of those 39 Clues that I've actually stumbled upon?

Suddenly, there is a pop, like a balloon has just been burst. I experience something I've never felt before. Something my owners try to guard themselves again, but experience frequently... fear.

My cat heart "skips a beat". (I don't know if that is what actually happened, but it feels like it- I heard Amy reading that phrase out loud from a book before.) My round eyes widen. I back away from the can slowly.

What then emerges from the can is certainly not what I am expecting. A hairy, thin limb peeks out over one side of the can, and I retreat much farther. The limb quivers, and another exactly like it pops up beside it. Just when I am about to turn tail and run, the head rises above the surface.

Four large, beady eyes trap me in place. The brown pupils are almost as huge as the eyes themselves. The head is enormous and round, shaped like a light bulb, and hairy all over. Even the long-bearded, white-haired man that appeared in Amy's favorite movies did not have this much hair on his skull... I think his name is Dumbledore.

It is a monstrously large spider.

I don't like spiders, of course; nasty little creepy crawly things. This thing is creepy, crawly, and nasty- but it is certainly not little. It is maybe seven times my size, and when it rises fully out of the can of red snapper, I see that its fangs are as long as my tail. It grins at me evilly. I swallow and sit back on my haunches nervously; I desperately want to run away, but where would I run to in this blackness?

The arachnid takes a step out of the can, and I decide I don't care. I turn and run with my tail in between my hind paws. Although I don't run very often, I can really sprint when I want to, and now I really want to- so I sprint. I cannot see anything ahead of me. The red snapper glow fades behind me, and I run headlong into darkness.

All of a sudden, I hear a dull thud some way ahead of me. Moments later, I hit a wall.

It is not a wall of bricks, or a wall of cement, or even a wall of rocks. No, this wall is unreally smooth, and hard as well. It feels like those things Amy's friend Evan wears on his nose... glasses, I think... Then I understand. It is a wall of glass.

The glass does not seem to be very thick. I nuzzle it with my nose. I think, Maybe I can jump over it. So I gather myself up, retreat a few feet, run forward, and jump up as high as I can- which is a long way, because after all I am a cat. But I smack hard into the wall and fall back down, my breath gone for the moment.

Behind me, the dim glow of the red snapper gets brighter. I look behind fearfully and realize that the spider is approaching. I know I have to do something. I run to the left and to the right, following the wall; but it seems to be endless. When I notice that I seem to be closer to the spider after following the wall for a while, I stop, puzzled.

The monster gets closer. It seems to be grinning- its fangs are shaking from side to side, and its black mouth is wide open, revealing things I really do not want to see. When it is mere feet away, it raises a leg threateningly, and I know my end is close. I wonder fleetingly if I will go to that place humans talk about so much- the one called heaven- and see Grace again. My life simply has not been the same since she went... I miss her so much.

Instead of crushing me, the monster smacks the wall. The wall, in turn, pushes against me and sends me scraping roughly across the floor a few yards. When I have stopped sliding, I lie on the ground for a few moments, trying to catch my breath. When I finally get up, I see that the monster is grinning even wider, its front legs shaking with glee.

Behind the spider, a dim green glow begins. It grows brighter and brighter, until it fills the room, and I do not know where it's coming from anymore. It gets to the point where it's blinding, and I have to close my eyes for a bit before I can see anything again.

When I can finally see where I am, I gaze around in wonder. It is a large room- large and extremely familiar. I am in the living room of the mansion. I begin to sigh with relief, and then realize that everything is ten times larger.

Dan's giant backpack lies in a corner. Above it on the wall the calendar proclaims 12/2/2013 in huge numbers. Amy's book lies on the sofa, seemingly thrice as long as me. I myself am standing on the huge pink rug that covers most of the living room floor. When I look down, I see wool strands, some reaching all the way to my neck; when I walk, it is like wading through tall grass.

Then I realize the spider is still there. It is still staring at me, and it whacks the wall again, sending me skimming across the rug a few feet more. When I inspect my surroundings closely, I realize that the 'wall' is actually a glass- the very glass that Dan had drunk orange juice from and left behind on the living room floor.

Then, finally, I understand what is going on.

-Earlier that day-

"Saladin, leave the poor spider alone!" Amy said, walking into the living room. She was holding her book, as usual, and she was about to settle down on the couch with it, but what I was doing had caught her attention.

I nudged the glass with my paw. The spider skittered comically across the rug, and I looked up at Amy, trying to tell her, Do you not see how much fun this is?

I told the little spider silently, I will name you Karma. I did not know completely what 'Karma' meant, but I'd heard Amy and Nellie talking about it the other day. And the word sounded... cool, as Dan would put it.

Amy squatted down next to me and took the glass away. "Saladin, I told you to let the poor spider alone. Let it crawl away, alright?"

The spider, now free, bared its miniscule fangs at me and scuttled away quickly. Amy stood up and went back to her book. But I didn't want to let the little nuisance go that easily- I had gone to a lot of trouble to catch that spider, and I wanted to play with it a little more.

With difficulty, I maneuvered the fallen glass in between both my front paws. I hurried after the spider as best as I could, and caught up in a bit. Just as it was about to hide under the sofa, I dropped the glass so it would trap the spider within.

Or I meant to drop the glass so the spider would be caught. Instead, my aim was a bit off and the glass fell on the spider, crushing it. I moved the glass hastily, but it was no use- Karma was dead. I lay by its dead body for a long time and thought about karma- the actual idea of karma, not the spider.

-Back to the present-

I finally grasp what karma means- 'What goes around, comes around' is how Nellie explained it to me, but I did not fully understand at first. Now I know. Whatever I did to the spider will happen to me.

Sure enough, I see Amy in the doorway of the living room. She is enormous now, like the Eiffel Tower- and believe me, I know what the Eiffel Tower looks like. Giant-Amy says, "Spider, leave the poor Saladin alone!"

I know what is coming. I brace myself for the next whack, and it comes right on time. I skid across the floor roughly and lie on the floor for a moment, panting. When I look up next, Amy is sitting on the ground next to the spider, pulling the glass away. "Spider, I told you to let the poor Saladin alone. Let it crawl away, alright?"

Up till now, I did not realize just how stale the air around me was. But now, when I breathe fresh, air-conditioned air in, I fill my lungs and savor the feel. Then I remember that I should be running away. Automatically, I turn and head for the sofa, but I know in my heart with a dreadful certainty that I will not make it.

The spider comes hurrying after me, the glass clutched between two of its hairy front legs. I look ahead, and as the dark gap under the sofa draws closer, I think maybe- just maybe, I will make it. I feel a spark of hope.

Then I turn around, and realize the spider is upon me already. It drops the glass on me, and as the thick wall bears down on me, I have time to think just one sentence: Karma has come to me.

And then the crushing pain blinds me to the world forever.

Um.

I really don't know where this came from.

If this distressed you in any way, with the death of Saladin and all, I'm sorry... that was necessary for the non-cliché. o_O

I have no idea how I'm so calm. Inwardly I'm like "LOL WUT EVEN IS THIS STORY...?!" o_O I think it's the weirdest I've written or read yet, and I've read some pretty weird stuff on here.

I hope you liked it, Morgzi and Meg. :)

DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW OR KARMA WILL COME TO YOU. *evil laugh*

Yeah. Okay. I'll leave now. .-.

~Sri