It was a dark and stormy night. In Sissel's opinion, it was an unnecessarily cliché dark and stormy night, but that was entirely beside the point. The night's dark storminess was rather handy, perfect weather for a certain dead kitten to slink through the shadows unnoticed. So he could hardly complain. But as much as he'd like to revel in the classic stereotype, he had a job to do and dead people to see.

With an unnaturally high leap, Sissel alighted on the windowsill, sliding through the windowpane as if it were water. Being a ghost was inconvenient in most respects, but it had its good points. It was incredibly easy to illegally break into buildings.

His new assignment lay sprawled on the ground in front of him, clad in a somewhat unflattering bright orange space suit. Unlike most of his assignments, this guy wasn't some old codger that needed to be adjusted to the spirit world. He was pretty young, barely out of college, if Sissel had to guess. Judging by the knife jutting out of his chest, his death wasn't exactly by natural causes, either. Squinting, Sissel bent closer to the unfortunate dude. Everything about this assignment was above his job level. Why had he even received this job, anyway… wait.

Sissel looked closer, and jumped back in shock, his fur standing on end.

"No way… That aura… It can't be… They told me there was no way it would happen again…"

"…Interesting."


As Clay stood up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he suddenly stopped dead.

A figure darker than the night sky slunk through the closed window, a massive shadow enveloping the room. The demonic beast was all teeth and claws, freezing cold and horrible noises. It was an abomination. It was a waking nightmare. It was the physical incarnation of Satan itself. It was… it was…

A kitten.

It was rather anticlimactic, really.

"Hey. Kid."

Aaaand it was talking. Fantastic.

The kitten padded up to him, stopping near his feet. As the fluffy mammal looked up at him, he noticed that the cat's eyes were somewhat frighteningly flat and glazed over, like they were staring at nothing. Bewildered, tired, and confused, Clay's only response was,

"Wait, what?"

The cat…sighed? Could cats sigh?

"Look, you're probably really confused, and probably curious why you're waking up in a dark room that you don't remember falling asleep in. You're probably also curious why a cat is talking to you right now." Sissel said all this with the blandness of a well-rehearsed speech.

Clay nodded dully.

"Well, this next statement is either going to blow your mind, make everything make sense, or a little of both."

"To put it bluntly, you're dead."


A/N: "Stopped dead" hahahaha pun