31 Days
too much love will kill you in the end
The Cat
emclar
Everywhere she looks, there are signs – signs leading towards freedom, towards hope – and then there are the other signs that lead back to where she started from. Does she choose to go forward or to go back? She knows moving forward is the right answer, but she doesn't know if she wants to face the unknown. The unknown terrifies her as much as the thought of having to go back to the world she has come from.
She is dreaming. The Black God has told her that she will find her answers here, in her thoughts, feelings and the things she fabricates when the world goes dark and she slips into the realm of unconsciousness where everything feels real, but isn't... usually.
She feels her arms bending and breaking into flimsy bones – pain that should be there, like it usually is, isn't there and this reminds her again that she is dreaming – that form her wings and her face extending to take that of a large bird, one who can soar in the skies, surfing the currents in the air.
She tests the ground she is standing on and takes off into the blue, blue, cloudless sky and, for a split second, she forgets everything of her past and just enjoys it for what it is: carefree, uninhibited joy and freedom to enjoy the small things of the big, wide world.
She stretches out her entire body so she is gliding on the air, tumbling through torrents as she makes an obstacle course out of the sky, dodging a falcon here, an eagle there and she hears their voices as they call and sing to her, welcoming her to their home, where they fly free for their days.
There are grey clouds converging metres from her and the currents are pushing her towards them like metal to a magnet. She tries to angle her wings so she can drop out of the current, but it pushes her up and into the clouds. She is flooded with the grey that the rest of the people in her world have been affected by and it tries to claw its way into her body, her mind, but she fights it with every fibre in her being and bursts through the other side of the grey cloud.
In her mad haze, she notices her wings are a streaky blood-ridden brown instead of their normal russet.
And suddenly she is falling and the feathers are being ripped from her wings and pain is coursing through her. The tears that fall from her eyes caught by the wind turn to bloody rain that falls on her as she crashes to the ground and the wind is knocked from her. She involuntarily sucks in a breath and it feels like everything is on fire. She is fire, smouldering embers of hope almost burned out... it almost feels like she has nothing more to live for, even though she knows there are people out there depending on her... she is living for them and they are waiting for her to give them the key to find the way to their own bodies again.
She feels a heavy weight padding along her body, starting from her legs until it stops on her chest. She opens her eyes to find a cat within her vision, staring intently at her with its purple eyes. In them, she can see the stars the cat has come from and the reflection of the Goddess.
When he speaks, she can hear the faint traces of a purr, of cats singing to the night sky in a salute to him, within his voice.
"Hello," he says, "my name is The Cat and I am here to help you." He delicately lifts a paw to his mouth and begins to clean it. "The next time you choose to careen through the skies at a breakneck speed and fall through a cloud of death, please avoid calling the attention of the Goddess. She tends to send me to people such as you and I would rather sleep." He tilts his head to the sky and sighs mournfully. "You almost died, you know. Well, until the Goddess took you in her hand and lay you down on the ground. Too much love, too much joy and not enough care taken, can kill you in the end if you're not careful."
