Amber Tom woke up in the middle of the night, and realized that she had left her dental retainer downstairs in the office. She had two choices. She could go back to sleep and forget about it, or she could go up and get it.
On one hand, it was cold and her bed was warm. On the other hand, her mother had spent all that money on orthodontic work… Plus the fact that if her teeth rearranged back, she'd have to have the braces put back on. Two more years of being called brace face, metal mouth, and other such names that annoyed her to no end.
Yawning, the redhead threw on a housecoat, slid her feet into a pair of slippers and padded down out of her and her mother's upstairs flat into the veterinary office below.
She had found her retainer in its case on the office desk and was about to go back upstairs when she heard a loud yowling, followed by frantic scratching on the door. Amber frowned, cautiously unlocking the door and opening it a crack.
Something silver and red bolted through, nearly tripping her. On further inspection, she saw it was a tabby carrying a red bundle in its mouth. She had never seen a cat do that before. At least not by its own free will. Amber didn't have much more time to ponder, however, because the desperate tom sunk his claws into her leg.
"Ow! Damn it!" she cursed, jumping away from the feline. "Son of a… What is your problem, you psycho cat!"
The tabby thrust the bundle towards her and she bent to grab it, peeling the fabric back…
What she saw nearly made her sick. It was a kitten, and its fur was red. Not a natural ginger, bright red. It was covered with blood. The sheet was soaked in it as well. The tiny thing's chest was rapidly moving up and down, and its tiny form was limp in her arms.
"Oh God…" she whispered. "Mum! Mum! Get down here! Now!"
After several precious minutes, the vet emerged from the staircase. "Amber, have you lost your mind? Do you have any idea what time it is?"
Her daughter simply displayed the kitten, and the woman's face paled.
"Good lord. Get him into the examination room. I'll need your help, Amber."
The two humans rushed into a back room, the door swinging shut behind them and trapping Munkustrap out. He knew that he could yowl until they let him in, but that would mean seconds that could save Deuteronomy's life. So instead, he curled up on a stiff plastic chair in the waiting room and tried not to picture the kit's bloody form.
Cold. It was cold. He batted aimlessly, trying to hit whatever force was hitting his skin and soaking his fur and making him cold. He was hungry as well… Sharp pain shot through his stomach and made him feel sick. Whenever he had been hungry before, he had cried out, and then Father had shouted at Not Momma, and then he had received warm, sweet milk.
But Father had been gone for… The tiny kitten had little sense of time, but he had been gone for a long while. Not Momma had been gone for not as long, but long enough to make even him realize that she wasn't coming back.
Suddenly, he heard a voice. A tom's voice. But not like Father's or Brother's… Not harsh and angry. Kind and caring. Gentle.
"What on earth are you doing out here in the rain, little one?" it inquired.
The tiny kitten gave a pitiful mew and tried to raise his head but found he was too weak. He felt warm, soft fur touch his face as the voice nuzzled him.
"Don't worry, kit. I'll take you to my human's house. You'll be warm there, and I'll make sure you get some hot food."
He felt himself be lifted by the neck. Gently and carefully, not roughly and carelessly like he was used to. After some time, he fell asleep to the steady beat of his rescuer's paws on the ground.
"Good God, what a mess," Dr. Tom stated. "Where to begin… Amber, try to stop the bleeding around his neck while I get some disinfectant and get on a pair of gloves."
The teenager grabbed some medical padding, and pressed it against the kit's neck, half afraid that she would break him. He seemed to fragile, laying there. Small patches of grey were unstained, and his paws were twitching slightly, as was his tail.
"You know, he looks familiar…" she mused aloud. "Like… like that cat who bit me! It looks almost exactly like him!"
"The one with the quiet girl for an owner?" her mother asked, dousing a cotton ball with a clear liquid and dabbing at some of the deeper cuts. "Look at these slashes… It was either a small dog or racoon, or one big cat."
"Yeah, the freaky girl…" Amber muttered. "Weird, but cute in a way…"
The vet looked up sharply. "What did you just say?"
She studied the kitten intently. "Yeah, there's been something I've been meaning to tell you…"
Dr. Tom held up her hand. "Sorry to stop you, but this is neither the time nor the place." She worked the buckle on the kitten's collar undone, and wiped the blood off of the tag. "Alexander… I'm pretty sure he's one of my patients. There's a number here. Go out into the office and call up this little guy's owner. It's late, but I don't think they'll mind."
"Uh… Father… Cold… No!"
"Munkustrap? Munkustrap, wake up!"
His bright blue eyes shot open to see the comforting face of Old Deuteronomy. He immediately leapt forward and buried his face into the older tom's thick fur.
The leader nuzzled him comfortingly. "It was only a dream, Munkustrap. You're safe here, your father can't get you."
"He was chasing me," he murmured, hot tears flowing freely. "It was raining…. He… He killed you… I hate him so much. I don't even know him and I hate him…" He wiped at his face with a paw. "… You must think I'm a newborn, crying…"
"I don't think that, Munkustrap, not at all. I often have nightmares myself."
"I bet you don't cry."
Old Deuteronomy smiled sadly at him. "When I first started getting them, I did. But I had to do it when no one else was around."
"Why?"
"Because the Jellicle leader's not suppose to cry, Munkustrap."
"Not even when you're hurt?"
He shook his head. "Nope, not even then. Other cats might think I'm weak if I cry in front of them."
"Does it make you weak to cry?"
"Not at all, Munkustrap." He paused, before adding "Sometimes it takes a stronger leader to cry rather than to hold it all in."
Munkustrap's head shot up, and he suddenly realized that the fur around his face was wet. He blushed a bit, and instinctively checked to make sure no one was around. He sat up and began to groom himself. The door of the office creaked open, and the girl emerged.
Amber took it, and rushed out to the desk. She flicked on a light, grabbed the phone, and punched in the number. She grimaced slightly when she realized that everything she touched was being smeared with red.
"Hello?" asked a groggy voice on the other end.
"Hi! Um, this is the veterinarian clinic. Dr. Tom's. I'm her daughter."
"What are you doing calling at this hour?"
"Well, we're not exactly sure what happened, but… your cat was attacked and he was hurt pretty badly. Me and my mum are doing what we can, but…"
"Attacked?" The voice was suddenly awake. "By what? Oh, never mind. Which cat? What does he look like?"
"A grey tom kitten, the name on the collar is Alexander."
"But Theodore never lets him out of his sight…"
Amber looked at the grown tom staring at her from a chair. "Is Theodore a silver tabby, by any chance?"
"Yes! How did you…"
"Well he's here, too. Doesn't look like he's hurt though."
"I'll be down as soon as I can." There was a click, then the annoying, droning tone that followed.
The girl replaced the phone, and turned to face the cat who was obviously named Theodore. "Don't stare at me like that, you're creeping me out."
He continued to look at her with his blue eyes.
She shuddered, and went back into the examination room.
While her daughter had been on the phone, Dr. Tom had been doing her best to stop the bleeding. It seemed to be in vain, however, because no matter how tightly she compressed the padding, it was soaked with blood soon enough. She honestly didn't think a kitten that size could have that much blood.
She shook her head sadly, and turned to grab some more bandages. She found none. She dropped to her knees to rummage through a lower cabinet. If she had turned around, she would have seen the tiny kit's entire form enfolded in green sparks that made the fur on his throat, the most wounded place, stand on end, and then see the sparks melt into the table. When she rose, however, the grey kitten was still panting and still covered in blood.
Amber hurried back into the room, this time remembering to pull on a pair of medical gloves. She, unlike her mother, didn't do such things automatically. "How is he?"
"Worse, if anything," she sighed, striding over to the other side to fetch some peroxide. "Try to press down on that wound on his hind right."
The girl nodded, separating the fur to get at it. Once she saw it, however, her face twisted into a mask of confusion. "What… How… It's but a flesh wound!"
"Amber, this is no time to be quoting Monty Python!"
"I didn't… Oh, right… But look at this! This was a gaping hole when I left, and now it's barely more than a nick!"
Dr. Tom ran her hand through the fur, frowning. "Maybe it's just that cut wasn't all that deep…"
"But blood was pouring out of it! It's all over him! You saw it!"
"It could be like a paper cut. It bleeds a lot and hurts like hell, but it's not that serious."
"Mum, he was hyperventilating a few minutes ago. The wound on his neck was spurting blood. And now… It's barely deep enough to justify a bandage now. Something's not right about this, something's not right at all."
"Don't be so paranoid. Whatever attacked him must have just broken open a lot of blood cells without doing much damage to anything else."
"That's the best you can come up with!"
"That's the only thing I can come up with, Amber. How else could you explain it? Magic, perhaps?"
The girl was silent.
"I hear someone out in the waiting room, I'll bet it's little Alexander's owner. Put a bandage on that throat wound, and try to clean him up a bit. I don't want that owner fainting or getting sick."
She nodded as her mother walked out, and swiftly secured a cotton pad onto the kitten's deepest cut. Once she had dabbed away all she could of the blood with a wet cloth, she inspected his hind right leg again. There was a familiar scar there, one she knew but just couldn't place…
Everything was spinning. The world was spinning one way, and his head was spinning the opposite way. Nothing seemed real. The only thing that tied him to the ground was the pain. The pain was intense.
He blearily tried to opened his eyes, with little avail. Someone… Something… was singing. Not extremely well, either.
"The sirens are screaming and the fires are howling
Way down in the valley tonight
There's a man in the shadows with a gun in his eye
And a blade shining oh so bright."
There was music in the background… If one could call it music. The only thing he could think it resembled was the Rum Tum Tugger's song. Only this was… stranger. Wilder, if at all possible.
"There's evil in the air and there's thunder in the sky
And a killer's on the bloodshot streets
Oh, and down in the tunnels where the deadly are rising
I swear I saw a young boy, down in the gutter
He was starting to foam in the heat."
The old cat's eyes flickered open, and he saw a redheaded girl tidying up a cabinet across the room. He was in a cage… The pound? No… The operation… He was in the clinic… This girl resembled the vet… Her daughter?
"Oh baby, you're the only thing in this whole world
That's pure and good and right
And wherever you are and wherever you go
There's always going to be some light
But I gotta get out, I gotta…"
She turned around, and stopped singing. "Oh, you're awake, are you?" She walked towards him, spinning the radio dial higher as she passed. "I thought you'd never get up."
Old Deuteronomy flattened his ears against his skull and thrashed his tail and hissed in warning. He was still dizzy from whatever they had given him, and his leg was throbbing. He didn't want that strange human anywhere near him.
Ignoring the cat's warnings, the girl flipped the catch on his cage, gathering him into her arms and petting his fur, going against the grain. "What's wrong with you? Your leg hurting?"
He whipped his head around and sunk his teeth into the skin between her thumb and her index finger, and couldn't help but grin slightly at the loud yelp that followed…
The kitten slowly opened his eyes, blinking them at the bright light. There was a lot of white… All around him… Where was he…? Where was Munk… ? Was he dead…? Was this the Heaviside Layer…? A million questions buzzed in his mind.
Deuteronomy's vision was still a bit blurry, and his body still ached, but he could hear a voice.
"Hey, you're awake!"
A familiar voice. A voice that made him bare his teeth a bit, although he didn't know why. He just had a feeling that he didn't like whoever that voice belonged to.
"Poor little guy, you must be feeling miserable…"
He felt a hand go down to pet him, covering his eyes and blocking the light. He bit it, and heard a yelp that seemed equally familiar, along with some words Munk had told him before never to repeat. Feeling satisfied and tired, he allowed himself to drift back to sleep.
Used lyrics are from the song "Bat Out of Hell" by Meat Loaf. I wish I owned them, but I don't.