The voices were deafening, barking cruel things. Rough, grunting things. The child's orange eye peeked through the crack in a door left ajar, watching as bitter hearts spoke on the television.
A couple sitting on a nearby couch, watching. Growing angry, as they barked along. These 'human things.' Did they not see, what she saw? Were they blind to the horrors?
The child wondered this, feared this. As sometimes...sometimes when she was alone long enough. When she felt hungry, or afraid, she saw things...differently. Imperceptible things becoming visible.
The man on the tv spoke with a slack jaw, his works never quite syncing correctly. His mouth never properly closing, like he was always breathing through it. Like he never stopped doing so, had to keep going in perpetuity. His eyes endlessly staring, with deep gashes in them, presses into the jelly.
The flesh, the hair, it was all rotting. He would laugh this strange, fake laugh. And would get angry laughs from the couple on the couch.
A desire swelling in her chest. Why couldn't they see it? Didn't they see the way their necks stretched? The way their eyes seem to start drooping? The way their fingers bled, and stretched like claws?
She pushed out of the room, and sprinted over. Unplugging the television. Leaving only the dark screen, and their reflections to face them. The couple shrieking in a shrill, horrific manner, rising like eldritch unknowable things.
A hard hand smacked across her face. A foot pressed hard against her, as they angrily barked and growled, furious at the loss of the very thing that was corrupting them. The pain rising, vision blurring, and then...nothing but the sound of silence.
Aliza blinked slowly, her eyes opening. Her breathing was erratic and troubled, and she shivered and sniffled, tears welling in her eyes.
"Pray tell, what transpired within your imagination, Aliza?" asked the yellow-eyed cat, sitting before her.
The two were sitting on the side of a building. Aliza was dressed in a torn yellow raincoat with patches of different fabric, to mend the holes across it. The cat sitting across from her, now wearing a yellow scarf.
"It's...I don't...like it," Aliza muttered quietly. "Pablo, do I have to say?"
"Confronting these phantasms is utterly necessary to dispel them," the cat assured quietly. "Please, tell me."
"I...I saw my... I saw creatures," Aliza replied quietly. "They...aren't all bad...though."
"Many times, we desire the capability to perceive goodness and fine qualities within those we have encountered. Even when few exist," Pablo spoke plainer, calmer to ensure she understood.. "I understand it's troubling, and for that, you have my sincerest apologies."
Aliza winced at the implication. She knew he was right. He was a smart kitty, and often was. She just didn't like to admit it sometimes.
"Why did...why did they hate me?" she asked quietly.
Pablo scanned her sorrowful expression. "I don't know," he said. "Were it that I could answer, I would. Yet do remind yourself of this: it was not your fault."
"How do you know?" she asked.
"Because you are brilliant," Pablo replied. "As sad as it may be, sometimes people become cruel. They become like creatures, and there is nothing to be done. That...is not your fault."
Aliza tried to resist the feeling welling in her throat, choking back the quivers, before feeling the cat climb onto her lap. Her composure failed, and she hugged him, sobbing in the alleyway.
She would cry for some time before her eyes closed and she fell into rest.
Pablo sat in the aftermath of the girl's emotional outburst, feeling a bit like a stuffed animal that had been tightly squeezed. He delicately pulled himself from her tired grasp, letting out a sigh of relief.
Although it was not his job or duty to offer assistance to the child, he felt a sense of responsibility. After all, everyone liked cats, and he liked to imagine himself capable of liking everyone else in return.
He had weighed her heart. It was heavy, but it was not guilty. Yet, it had the potential, as wounded hearts did, to fester if left alone.
The cat sat in the middle of the alleyway, staring out onto the streets where humans and mutated creatures limped by, some more grotesque than the rest, with protrusions from beneath their skin and twists in their bones. Some coughed on the heavy smoke that made up the air around them, imperceptible to the rest, and even to themselves.
One creature stopped briefly at the end of the alleyway, clutching a cell phone with a head ripping through the jaw of the last head. It turned to observe the cat, flickering slightly and stepping out of sync with the world. Pablo knew, however, that sometimes, things became a bit 'off' in this world. Knew well the faults of festered hearts, and rotten soul. How the could twist beings in ways they could never imagine, or recover from.
Its eyes fell upon the girl, a lengthy thing, like an intestinal tongue dropping from its rotting lips. But he had given up pitying the creatures, that lost themselves completely. Their minds could not accept nor grasp the reality of what they'd become. And thus, the horrible realizations were forced, and buried deep in the corners of madness and fear.
The creature began to hobble closer.
Pablo spoke. "You would be unwise, oh unruly specter." The creature stopping briefly. "I'm afraid, the child is not yet lost. Even that she were, I'd not welcome your intrusive perception of what she may be in your 'custody.'
The creature groaned in reply. "Die."
Pablo's eyes shone with power. "Very well."
There was a surge of movement as it lurched forward. The cat's eye flashed, flickering blue and then back to yellow. The sound of tearing flesh and a single hiss filled the alleyway for a moment.
Pablo's profession was not to cater to the broken soul of a lost child. It was his profession to provide judgment to the unworthy and cruel - those who became threats to others, those who torment the undeserving.
As he sat purring on her lap, the nearby trash can was newly closed. A strange, goopy and thick liquid mixture seeped out from one angle. His eyes closed as he felt content.
It was not his profession, but that didn't mean he couldn't try.