It was karma, wasn't it?
The promise of an early winter left everything living in the vicinity on edge. The leafless trees shook with anxiety, what little animals around scurrying to and fro to hide from the chilling cold, some in preparation for hibernation, even the river once calmly flowing by seemed to speed up in the presence of the harsh, unforgiving cold.
Snow fell slowly from the sky as if the whole world would stop to witness what lay beneath the cliff between a freezing-over river and the Red Mountains. The suffering thing that would not just end.
The monster that had torn it to pieces had lumbered off long ago into the darkness, leaving the suffering feline barely twitching in the chilling breeze. blood staining the earth around them.
It was karma, wasn't it?
The cat can feel the wounds that'll kill it, there's a deep, gaping, hole in their throat. It bleeds, it feeds, and with it goes their will to live and all the fuzzy things that used to sit there waiting to be used. The monster had dug deep into their hind legs, bringing forth the most pain the cat had ever experienced while at the same time rendering the legs themselves useless. Making it impossible for them to get away—or even drag themselves towards better shelter.
The last wound...was the worst of them all, it left the feline wondering what they had done to deserve such a brutal, careless, way to die.
But in their soul, they knew. They had certainly done something to deserve to choke on their way down to purgatory.
If they tried to move their neck, which they had hours ago.
They could almost glimpse their guts hanging out of their stomach, dried blood gathering together in clumps. It was like the cold stone seeped out all the lingering life left in their body, leaving behind a nameless, pathetic, creature.
It was karma, wasn't it?
What was their name again?
Was it something short? Something meaningless. Something long? Something lengthy, something the gods had hand-picked themselves? Something that would strike fear into the hearts of innocents?
They couldn't remember.
And what is a name but a reminder of the things they had done to move on?
Now that—-those unforgivable things, the feline could remember with frightening clarity. And with it came no guilt, no remorse, only faltering realization. That the reason they lay dead against the stone could be one of a million reasons. Reasons they couldn't possibly narrow down.
He tries his best to think back to before the world he knew was thrown into chaos. Before the bad things...and the good things. Back to a world full of only brown stale pellets, fresh kitty litter, and a gentle hand that had given him everything but freedom.
Then the humans fled...the only hand willing to care for the pathetic scrap of fur going with them. And the cat had had a choice. Either stay in the ruins of an abandoned home or risk its own safety and run away into the streets to find a home within Slate.
And finally. He had gotten all that he wanted. Not only did hundreds of cats, dogs, and other animals care about him. They also downright worshipped him. Bearing gifts and their own lives to hear of the whispered tales and visions that would guide them to survive The Final Day.
What did it matter the lies that were spilled to garner such attention? It was finally all he had ever wanted.
But truly was it? Or did he only want the caring hand that ghosted over his back every time praising, naive, eyes looked up to him?
It was karma, wasn't it?
Did he really deserve this...? Sure he had done some awful things, some horrible things in fact...but did the few good outweigh the many?
He remembers the first time he ever felt powerful. Feeling flesh and blood tear beneath his claws. It felt so horrible but yet...it left that lingering spark of power in him.
The second turned into the third, turning into the fourth and quickly...he lost track of the blood on his paws, that stained his claws, and rooted into his very being. And just like that he just stopped noticing....up until the Cult of Greater Saints.
Killing Isabella and Fredrick was like chewing off his own front legs. He had been forced to do it. Mayor himself, in all his hellish, terrifying, glory had told him to "kill the most outer piece of yourself" and so he'd obliged and maybe he regretted it now but what did it matter?
It's not like he could go back and time and undo the deed that was done. But he sure wished he could. Because maybe then he wouldn't be bleeding out onto the ground..all alone.
Of course, though, he didn't stop at his best friends. He murdered and maimed and drowned and manipulated all in the name of Idris's Cult for as long as the gig would go. And then that ended too. And The Safe One, The Prophet, and Zerrick were left with the emptiness of feeling useless once again.
Then Ivy sparked that self-hatred, that selfish, frustrated side again and he almost went down with it. Until he realized. Even the god's perfect toy was doomed in their benevolent eyes.
It was karma, wasn't it?
Friends.
Did he even ever have friends?
Wasn't everyone always used for a higher gain? The first friend him ever having being the hand that saved him from the box. Didn't he trick the hand into getting food? Just like he tricked everybody else?
Would any of them remember him...? Either for being a savior or a traitor would've been up to him. But would he leave behind a trail of petals or a trail of hearts? That was up to whoever remembered him wasn't it?
Would the Cult remember him? Mayor the cunning and corrupt, willing to wage war against his own to achieve his own goals, Strikal the coward who was willing to suffer to unravel the truth, and Shapeshifter...who he'd left to care for his worshippers.
Would the Slate packs remember him? Even after he tried so hard to get their chosen killed?
He could imagine himself fading from their mind's as soon as he left. A mere speck of dirt, that could be swept away by wind, and maybe even with so much death at the end of it all, he would rather be nothing than stay as he lived.
It was karma.
And so his last moments are focused on the excruciating pain, the numb warmth, as the world turns black, and the birds fly south, and the creatures begin to hibernate, the world slows for a moment...the feline can barely lift its head up towards the sky. The white world around tumbles in their vision, and even after their body gives it's last effort, it's last breath.
The world keeps moving without them. The chill early morning turns into a chilly afternoon, and the afternoon turns into a chilly cold and starless night. By the time the seasons change, and the birds return, the feline is nothing but a skeleton surrounded by melting-snow, and the animals they wished to remember them only remember...them as the heartless, powerful, prophet they came to be.
Nobody remembered the pathetic scrap of fur with nothing to its name, nobody knew the desperate cat who'd lost their home, and nobody knew the wide-eyed, gawking, feline who's just learned the truth.
And maybe... maybe that's what he deserved.
