The Girl With The Cat On Her Shoulder

✦

"It's her," they said. Whispers in the crowd, repeating the phrase to one another, like a wave of hope rippling over their bodies, energizing their fight.

It was true. She was there, and the crowd could feel her power, her anger, forged from pain. Because it was their anger too. It was familiar, it was a friend reaching over their shoulder and telling them, 'It will be okay. I'm here now. You don't have to fight alone. You won't lose this time, because you have me now.'

The rumors spread far, even the law-forcers knew of her. They knew of her as a myth, a story the people would tell to ease the pain of their subjugation. An empty promise shouted at the law-forcers, that one day they'll be sorry, that one day victory won't be theirs to take. She was the woman with the black cat on her shoulder. One look into those feline eyes and judgment is swift.

Some believed the cat is a creature from the underworld. The beast heard the people's cries and clawed its way up into this world, collecting souls of abusers and assaulters, dragging them back down to its dark home. Some people believe the cat is part of her, she wields and controls the beast like a limb, that she isn't human, but an angel, the savior of the people.

But she is neither and the cat is neither. She is like them. Born without wealth, without love, abandoned and alone, she grew up too quickly. A sad story told a million different ways by a million different girls. She lived her life as they all did, she worked and worked and worked and worked, and lived. She didn't want anything more but to live...

Alejandra didn't want anything more but to live, and perhaps it was by some divine intervention, she doesn't know, that she crossed paths with a lonely black cat, so small and broken, so desperate to survive like her. She freed him and in ways she could not imagine, he freed her.

—

From the crowd of bodies, the woman with the black cat on her shoulder stepped to the front. Her clothes were black, pants torn and patched, sewn back stronger. A tight shirt so they made no mistake, it was a woman under that mask. Black cloth covering her face and hair, the amount of her hair hidden under her hood. But they could still see her eyes, accentuated by black eyeliner and hatred. And on her shoulder, a large black cat, long wild hair to match its wild eyes.

The law-forcers stood in a line, guns and shields ready. The angry crowd had nothing but hope now.

The law-forcers didn't really believe it was her, looking down at her still. Any woman could find a black cat and pretend. They saw her as a martyr, a faker, their trigger fingers itching to make an example of her.

The cat hissed, mouth stretched wide open and long fangs displayed. The hiss was loud and piercing and the law-forcers flinched, embarrassingly reacting. The crowd jeered and laughed and the law-forcers pointed their guns at the black cat, growing in anger for being made fools.

Alejandra whispered to her companion to wait. Let them attack first. Show the world the true aggressor before them.

She waited because she knew the beast on her shoulder was a magical being. And the thing about living magic in a world filled with human creation, is that magic and technology reacted like oil and water, coexisting but unable to intermix, and magic was by far the stronger force.

Red lasers land on her and her companion, but she stubbornly stand tall and the crowd mirrors her actions. The cat growls low and menacing and hisses again. It only took one scared threatened man, one trigger happy finger, and then it was all over...for them.

-

A gun shot rang out, and smoke appears where the black cat on the woman's shoulder stood, weaving and twisting in the air like black rivers, dispersing and covering the empty zone between the crowd and the law-forcers. Bullets entered the smoke and the magical force created a barrier, stopping them in midair. That is when they all knew, they knew she was not just a myth.