Second Life
His eyes flashed open.
The familiar sight of a dreary sky knocked him back from hell. He was lying flat on the river bank, his black fur wet. He rolled to the side, picking himself up, before he cautiously went to the edge of the river, finding his familiar reflection.
The red eyes stared at him, in a sort of reprimanding manner.
Then he noticed his tails' appearance.
Nine lives.
He waved the tails gently. It was a strange sight to bear, since the fact that he could suddenly manipulate two tails felt unreal.
He was at his second life.
A clap of thunder, and all a sudden, the rain poured down. He gazed up, shutting his eyes, bathing himself under the pelting droplets of water, feeling as if his soul was being cleansed.
He managed to save her.
He managed to do something he failed to do in the past.
But seeing her again, and then parting, he couldn't help wonder.
Was God tormenting him? Punishing him for being the Grim Reaper's messenger? For being the Devil's pet?
Or is he giving him a second chance?
He breathed out heavily as he waved his tail nimbly.
If this was a lie, he would gladly go along with it.
In his first life, even if he was only alive for mere months, he was quite sure all the streets were ingrained into his memory. But this time, he could recognize nothing. In fact, this was a different city, a different road, a different place.
It was more bustling than ever, as if some sort of industrial force had magically conjured up all those buildings, and had created a million more people to walk around the concrete grounds.
He wondered why he would be reincarnated in such a place.
Was she here?
Or perhaps, someone else? Something else?
He gracefully jumped up onto the guard rail, watching the cars whizzing past him.
He did not know where exactly he was going, but he continued to walk.
"Ew."
Red gulped nervously. He recognized this voice. The self-important tone, the disgust hidden behind those words.
"Hey guys, look at this cat."
He turned to his right, just to see a male with a spiky hair-do, his green eyes scrutinizing him like he was a sort of deformed monster.
The male's hand reached out, grasping Red's tail strongly.
He froze, as he was suddenly lifted up by the tail. He winced as his tail was pulled. Frightened, angry and shocked at the same time, he did the most logical thing.
His claws scratched the male's arm, the wound red and bleeding.
"Ow! F***!" Cursed the male, as he let go of Red's tail. Red wasted no time to run along the rail, escaping from the fuming teenager.
"Red-eyed Devil! I swear, once I get my hands on you, you're dead meat!" Howled the teenager
Red dashed away. Even these threats and insults sounded familiar. The same foul mouth. The same green eyes.
Green Oak.
Finally finding peace in one of the small, fairly clean alleyways, Red rested his lethargic body against the wall lined with graffiti.
So his second life was this mess.
Dealing with Green Oak.
He was not quite on friendly terms with the person himself in his past life. In fact, Green Oak was the biggest bully ever during his childhood. But if he thought about it, Green had self-proclaimed himself as Red's only rival.
He started recollecting what were the loose ends he had with Green Oak. Other than triumphing over him every single match.
Red's cat face fell, when a thought struck him.
He supposed he never said goodbye to him before he went off to kill himself. No, wait.
I will win, the next one, for sure!
Green never won against him. Not even once.
"I swear I'll get that black cat once I see it again!" Green Oak yelled.
"Oh come on, man, it's just a black cat! You're drunk." One of his friends laughed. "How many days has it been? Ten? Twelve? It ain't gonna come again, man! Probably died in some gutter!"
"Yeah, he's right, you know. Why stress over some black cat!" Another one chimed.
His groups of friends laughed at his silliness, patting on the back, telling him to forget it.
"Forget it? No, I won't. That cat... it just gives me this sour feeling... of... of... I don't know." He gasped.
"You're probably just tired, man. Take a chill pill!" His friends joked. Green sighed. They just don't understand.
After he parted ways with them, he slowly trudged along the pavement, moving in the direction of his house.
Until he felt a chill up his back.
He spun around instinctively, finding himself looking eye-to-eye to a pair of almost-human red eyes.
"Ah." He exclaimed.
Suddenly the cat leaped off, swiftly running down the pavement.
"Hey! F***!" Green sputtered, once again spewing out a vulgarity. "Wait, you-!"
He chased after the cat, bumping into many people. The black cat weaved in and out of the crowd, while Green desperately tried to keep up with it. The teenager felt almost nostalgic as he chased after the cat, as if he had did this so many times but failed to succeed. Somewhere in him, something was screaming at him to not screw this up, and to capture the feline without fail.
Taking a jump, he pounced onto the cat.
"Gotcha!"
Scrambling up, Green found himself right next to the riverbank. He had ran quite far away from the streets. Then, he glanced at his hands, expecting the cat to be in surrender.
But no, his hands were empty, and a heavy feeling weighed in his heart.
Messing his hair up in annoyance, he moaned and groaned, feeling horribly angry and sore. He took a look at his surroundings, but in the dead of night, he supposed he won't be able to find the cat any longer. Picking himself up, he got ready to leave, until he came face-to-face with a person.
He stumbled backwards in surprise, and barely held his balance. Wanting to berate the person before him, he opened his mouth, already prepared to shoot out vulgarities, until he stopped short in bewilderment.
It was a raven-haired teenager, intense red eyes staring at him. He donned a red vest and ripped jeans that looked as if they haven't been washed his whole life. Then Green noticed something really strange about this boy.
A pair of black, cat-like ears were sitting atop of his hair, two tails swishing behind him.
"What the-"
The boy thrust out his hand.
Green stared at him in pure shock.
"What... the f*** are you?" He said warily. "Bastet? The Grim Reaper?"
"Well, those two are quite extreme, aren't they." The boy spoke. "And I see you're as vulgar as ever."
Green stood there, jaw-dropped, as he gaze at this strange being before him.
"You want to fight, right?" The boy said again. "So now I'm here, just throw your fist at me."
"Huh?"
The boy looked visibly disappointed. Sighing, he started cracking his knuckles.
"Well, here I come."
And before Green knew what was going on, a solid fist was pummeled right at his face.
"Hey sonny, you alright?"
His grandfather, Samuel Oak, asked as his grandson stumbled into the house, all bruised and scratched.
"I got into a fight."
"I can see that." The old man sighed. "Was it with Vincent? Or Aaron? Or-"
"A cat."
"Sorry?"
"A cat-boy... No... Bastet? The Grim Reaper?" Green said dully. "I don't know anymore."
The teenager dragged his feet back to his room to nurse his wounds, while Samuel Oak sat at his rocking chair, wondering what his grandson was talking about.
"Oof!" Green cried out as the wind got knocked out of him. He staggered backwards, before he landed on his buttocks. Meanwhile, the cat... the cat-boy, coolly walked towards him.
"You know, when I was still human, still part of that world, I never got to hit you once, after all that bullying you did. I guess this is quite satisfactory." The cat-boy said with a smile.
And with that, he dealt another blow at Green at the chest.
Green glared at the cat-boy. After losing to him... it, thrice in a row, he had quite enough. In a fit of rage, Green pushed himself up, grabbed the cat-boy by his collar, and after making sure he had a good hold of him, he started hitting him, hard in the stomach.
"You f*****, don't get so full of yourself!" Green yelled.
Yet, the cat-boy bit him on the arm, and suddenly judo-threw him down onto the grass. Moaning, Green attempted to stand, but the pain pinned him to the ground.
"I could say the same thing to you."
And the next moment, Green whited out.
Red went back to his make-shift home, a small cardboard box sitting silently underneath the bridge. He slowly limped towards it, before he slipped, falling flat onto the concrete with a thud. Staying in human form was no easy matter. He didn't know how he did it, and why he could do it, but he supposed it was God's way of letting him do his thing.
But even in human form, he knew it took a toll on his body. The wounds and bruises he suffered in human form was no mere injuries once he converted back to his cat form. And bit by bit, he knew his second life was coming to an end.
The next fight will be the last.
And it will be their last fight.
"Hey cat-boy." Green snapped. "This time, I will win."
"I expect you to." The cat-boy said in reply.
"And if I win, you tell me your name."
The cat-boy said nothing.
Green kicked the boy harder. And harder. Until he was certain that the cat-boy was finally drained of his strength.
Dropping him down onto the grass, Green's legs gave way and he collapsed to the ground. Punching his fist into the air, he grinned triumphantly.
"Hey, cat-boy. I won." He panted.
No answer.
"Tell me your name."
No answer.
"Hey, cat-boy..."
No answer.
A cold, bleak wind blew, tousling Green's brown hair.
The boy pulled himself up, crawling over to where his rival laid.
Rival?
The moment he laid eyes onto the body of the black cat, an incredibly lonely sensation swept over him. He punched the ground, repeatedly, as he wailed. He cursed, over and over again, as tears forced themselves out of his eyes. He glared at the corpse with love and hate, at those eyes that seemed to tear him apart.
As the green eyes met the red ones, all Green Oak could think of, was a name.
Red.