Disclaimer: This whole story explains why Victorious isn't mine.
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The cat was a stray. Skinny, ribs cutting through it's fur, speckled tabby and white. Ears notched in a tally of battles fought, tail curling like a question mark as it padded over Cat's lawn, head turned curiously towards her, where she sat crouched on the cement, arms circling her knees. It mewed, voice high and cutting, before curving towards her.
It'd been flitting around her house for a few days now, unnoticed by her family. They didn't notice little details like Cat did. They kept their eyes on The Big Picture, whereas Cat always got stuck on the intricacies of life. They saw a lawn, whereas Cat saw blades of grass, knitted into the ground, spiking towards the sky, a forest for insects, a buffet for the small birds that hopped and fluttered from spot to spot, beady eyes trained on invisible things. A sharp stab and a head tossed back.
The cat started purring as it got close to her, bones rattling in it's thin form, sound echoing off the hollow walls of it's jutting ribs, amplifying the noise. Cat reach out a cautious hand, sunlight cutting across her wrist like a guillotine. She was in the shade, cement cool under her, on the edge of the sunlit lawn. The cat arched, rolling it's head over her palm, ears flattening, spine arching and legs swaying. She could feel the knobs of it's spine, like the rungs of a ladder, the keys of a xylophone. It gave a cracked meow, turning and arching into her hand again, purr intensifying.
Cat smiled, legs unfolding, soft voice ushering the cat closer. Cat wasn't allowed to have pets. Not since her dog got hit by a car. It'd been not long after the trip to the wax museum. Cat had rushed outside after the yelp-bump-squeal, heart thudding in her throat, spitting blood onto her tongue. The screech of wheels, a screaming engine, and Cat watched a receding convertible disappear into the waving lines of the horizon, before her gaze turned to the twitching heap on the black-streaked roads, lines of tyre-tread mascara painting it. Oscar. What was left. She'd jogged towards him, took him in her arms, touch gentle, his scruffy head lolling, tongue pinched between his teeth. She'd felt the blood wetting her arms, running in rivulets, warm and sticky. The slipperiness of organs, of intestines, jelly-like, sticking to her shirt. She'd set him down on the grass, gingerly, front of her top soaked. From a light blue to a messy, fur strewn painting, splashed with abandon. Cat had watched with curiosity as Oscar's legs trembled, a keening whine rising from his throat. He was spilling everywhere.
She'd searched for his eyes, buried deep in his tufts of hair, black nose bloody. Cat had tilted her head curiously, blood drying on her arms, smeared over her knees, even her cheek, where she'd unconsciously brushed. She'd leaned closer, forearms sticking to her thighs, warm and wet, the lighter smears fading to rust, cracking and flaking. His muddy brown eyes were focussed, terrified, and Cat watched inquisitively as his eyes had dulled, growing distant, wavering in their sockets. And there! There it was. It was faint in him, but she saw it. Like a little flash, without light. A shutter click. It was him. His soul. She knew it. And then his limbs stilled, bloody nose stopping its frothing, its bubbling from his breath, turning to a slow trickle.
Cat had heard the sound of a door closing, distantly, followed by a cutting scream, threads of voice fraying at the end, the click-click-clack of her mother's shoes tapping rapidly towards her.
"He's dead." She said softly, cast over her shoulder. Her mother's hands had fluttered around her like nervous butterflies, unwilling to land on Cat's soiled clothes. Her mother had asked if she was okay, barely cast a glance at Oscar. What was Oscar, more concerned with the blood on Cat's clothes. The only time she noticed was when blood got on the tip of her white high-heels, just a drop, and she'd turned a disgusted gaze to the broken dog, body caught in the midst of a frozen explosion, organs half-spilled. He didn't matter now he was dead. The living were more important.
Cat knew that. Her daddy had lost a few people on his operating table. When Cat had been younger, she'd asked where they'd gone, and her daddy had laughed like she'd told a joke. But Cat knew where they went now. And once they were gone, there was no point to them. Daddy never talked about his patients like people. They were just wax sculptures who could talk. He looked at The Big Picture, and the big picture was money. They gave it to him, and apart from the moments their lives intersected with his, and he altered their path, he gave no thought to them. Her mother's Big Picture was things. Furs, shoes, jewellery. Appearances.
Oscar wasn't in her mother's pictures. He was a symbol of status, a fad. A toy she pulled out to show. And a broken one now. She'd turned Cat away, led her into the house, arms, hands, always an inch away from her. She didn't want to get blood on her hands. She'd told Cat to go wash herself off, before her voice raised, shrill and overloud, calling to the maid.
Cat's feet had found the stairs. This house was so tall. That's what she remembered most about it. It just went up, and up, and maybe it was because the stairs spiralled, but it made Cat feel like she was in the clouds, like she was climbing the beanstalk to steal the golden goose.
She'd stripped her stiff clothes off, letting them drop to the floor, sweeping her hair forward unconsciously and crossing to the large, angular shower, all corners and glass, tiles chilling her bare feet. Cat had paused as she moved in front of the mirror, a flash of red catching her sight. A bloody doppelganger stared back at her, arms slack, brunette hair tipped with red, a smear of it coating her cheek like Indian war paint. She was painted to her elbows with dark runnels of blood, more of it smearing where her arms brushed against her torso in her movements. It stained her thighs, a bloody premonition of womanhood, dribbled down her leg. It smelled like dusty bronze when she lifted a hand to her nose, sniffing at the sticky, globby paint that scrawled over her body; Oscar's last message.
She'd twisted her lips, hollow eyes meeting her own in the mirror, before her tongue had darted out, quick, soft, dabbing at her palm. The thick taste of metal filled her mouth, sticking to the roof of her mouth, and she'd crinkled her nose, hand lowering. She'd stared for a moment, eyebrows thick and heavy over her coffee eyes, a slight rosiness to her lips. Cat's hands had raised impulsively, flattening themselves on her head, sticky against her scalp. She'd swiped them down, painting the brown hair a slick black, a glinting red, fingers skating her cheeks on their downward sweep. Her lips had curved in a smile, face turning from side to side, spears of bloodied hair sticking to her cheeks. Red looked good on her.
The water washed down pink when she showered.
Cat's palm turned up, fingers tickling the purring cat under the chin. She hadn't had a pet since Oscar. Too much trouble, her mother said. Maybe if she asked her mother she could keep this one. He was friendly. But he was so skinny. He wasn't enough of something for her mother. Her hand ran the length of his spine, thin and brittle under the loose skin. The cat swayed from the movement, purring pausing as it regained it's feet. He was so fragile. Cat smiled, repeating the motion, harder this time. The cat let out a soft squeak as if to warn her, the beginnings of a meow. She'd bet she could just snap him, like a dry twig. Her hand could practically encircle his ribcage. Cat wondered for a moment what would happen if she squeezed then, if she drew her fingers in sharply. Would he crumple like paper? Would he snap like a wishbone at Thanksgiving?
Cat looked around, eyebrows arrowing over her eyes. She stood, tongue dipping out over her lips. What would his soul look like, she wondered. Would it be like Oscar's, faint and shuttering? The cat weaved between her legs, stumbling with the fervour it put into rubbing against her. Cat frowned. It was getting her jeans all furry. If there was one thing Cat had learned from her mother, it was that there were people who Mattered, and people who didn't. They weren't part of The Big Picture. Cat was pretty sure this cat wasn't someone who Mattered. He hadn't even Mattered enough to his owners. They'd let him go.
Cat raised a sneakered foot, balance shaky. She hovered it over the cat, another fervent glance swept around her. The cat narrowed it's eyes up at her, sun glaring into it's yellow eyes, purr rumbling like a distant engine. It let out a keening scream when her foot stamped down on it's spine, hard. It's body writhed and twisted, scrabbling under her foot, claws hooking in the denim of her jeans, sinking deep into her calf. The white pearls of Cat's teeth sunk into her lip, a rush of pain swelling from her. She levered her weight further onto the cat, foot slipping suddenly, the cat giving a breathless yowl. Cat stomped down again, quickly, tears welling in her eyes, blurring the tabby and white form coughing beneath her. Ribs snapped like crackling leaves, torso growing pulpy with Cat's repeated stomps, sneaker growing bloody, the cat feebly struggling until her heel slid on it's thin neck, twisting the ropey muscle until a dull crunch sounded.
Cat stumbled back, tears dribbling down her flushed cheeks, taking a sobbing breath, the cat twisted and still in front of her. She swiped at her hot eyes, falling onto her knees, a wave of nausea swelling in her. She pushed it down, crawling forward on skinned hands and scraped knees, head peering at the cat's frozen face, spittle still gleaming in the corners of it's mouth, fixed in a tortured grin, fangs white, gums speckled black and pink. It's eyes stared blankly, pale yellow, like butter, the shine quickly fading from them. Cat watched that light get sucked up like a strand of spaghetti, whisked away by creeping death, closing like a curtain over the still cat, spurs of rib piercing through the dirty fur. They'd broken just as easily as she thought they would.
Cat's stomach heaved, memory of her lunch rising in her throat, and she pulled herself over to the grass and let it spill out, coughing at the sheer force of it, her entire body in revolt. She retched and retched until she was dry and shivering, and all that came up were thin dribbles of bitter bile, spat onto the grass. She took deep, shuddering breaths, scrabbling back onto her bottom, unaware of the chill of the cement, wet sobs shaking her body. She drained the poison of what she had done from her body, purged it on the grass, shed it from her eyes, until she was hollow and quivering, scraped raw and clean inside.
But that still left the matter of what to do with the cat. She'd seen it's soul; it was gone. It was just a body now, a broken, splintered body. It's blood spattered her feet; the cement.
Cat pulled herself to her feet again, wincing at the hot, throbbing pain that erupted in her calf, holes torn in the denim, soaked dark with her blood. She lifted the limp, pulpy form, all rumblings of life faded, it's engine silenced, lights dimmed. There was a crawlspace under her house. She'd discovered it one day, following a meandering trail of ants, trundling over the cement, weaving through the grass. A small dip between the ground and the first support that kept her house striding towards the sky, straddling this sloping hill. It was just big enough for her to wriggle into, earth damp and wet underneath her. She'd expected a treasure trove the first time she'd entered, some secret control room, some underground world. But all she found were the bones of her house. The wooden ribs that curled around the space. The roots that kept it sunk in the ground.
She took the cat there, took the soft, crackling body, tucked it under her arm as she tugged and heaved herself under the house, mud mixing with the blood that stained her, the tears on her cheek. She dug a small hole there, top of her head brushing a wooden beam, knees muddied from the damp earth. It didn't take very long to cover him. He was small. She petted the small mound afterwards, fresh tears on her cheek, a whispered apology issuing from her lips. "I'm sorry, Mr. Kitty."
She crept inside afterwards, dirty prints tracked behind her, clothes smeared with mud, fingernails packed full of dirt, filthy and rimmed black. She showered, washing the last traces of poison, of guilt from her system. The cat was No One. He was a stray; he didn't have some little girl waiting for him, some old lady crying over him. He was nothing. She'd set him free. He would've starved otherwise. He was sick. She just didn't do it right. She ran a hand over her punctured calf, bent, long slashes and deep wounds gouged in a few places, aching deep into the muscle. She hurt him too much. But she'd seen him at the end. He'd been peaceful. His soul had got sucked away, like when you switch a light off, but it still glows a little before fading. He'd been purring before he went away. He'd been happy.
She threw her stained clothes out. Dumped them in the family's trash can. Her house was big enough so that her whole family could be home, and she'd never see them. She barely had to sneak. Her sneakers she washed off in the sink, the blood indistinguishable from the mud. She set these outside to dry, perched together on the edge of the cement, toes inclined towards each other. There wasn't much blood on the cement. A few dribs and drabs, dried browny black. Maybe some of it was Cat's blood. She touched a fingertip to it, tracing the hardened disc of the droplet. Like glass, almost. It was such a pretty colour when it was fresh.
That was the first time Cat every really killed something, on purpose. But it wasn't the last. A childhood spent alone is fertile ground for creation. Or destruction.
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A/N: So. This was hard to write. I guess I hope it was hard to read.
Let me assure everyone that I have three healthy cats that were all strays, and that I am firmly against animal cruelty. If this story makes you happy/feel good, then... there's something wrong with you, not me. Or you've got a unique sense of humour.
Either way, writing this made me feel awful. Which is probably a good thing.
Review if it made you feel anything. Or even just to call me a soulless monster.
Also, if you don't like seeing Cat like this, then... you probably shouldn't read it, yeah?
