The City Named Maze

Capitolo 1

When Mallory Antoine awoke, the sun was shining and she could hear the busy street markets outside of her window.

She looked to the end of her bed to find the cat that had made a home there had disappeared, and was nowhere to be found.

Sighing she swung her leg over the edge and slowly pushed herself up out of bed. She knew she had to find him before he got into trouble, again.

Sabbath had a knack for getting himself into trouble. As the town was very superstitious and believed in myths, a black cat roaming around the markets made a lot of chaos.

She got dressed into some jeans and a button-down blouse, (not usual for a girl to wear in the 1800's) grabbed her cloak and went out into the markets.

————•-•———-

Mallory caught the naughty black cat trying to stealthily steal a piece of fish; she grabbed him and held him in her arms. Him trying to paw his way back to the fish, his legs going wildly, but she had him in a tight grip.

When he finally realized he couldn't get free, he climbed his way onto her shoulders and lay down along them.

Mallory then starts her journey through the markets. Each stall there is something different, a wide range of food or clothes adorned different stalls. Some have homemade items, such as jewellery or trinkets for around the house.

One stall stands out from the rest, it is filled with all different kinds of things. From necklaces and bracelets to needles and thread, it had everything in bits and bobs. It was all scattered over the table in a big mess, as she was looking over it, something caught her eye.

It was a card with an interesting picture on the front; it had a depiction of a black cat in the foreground and a smashed mirror in the background. In a fancy font on the bottom was 'La Sfortuna'.

'Interesting,' she thought as she picked it up. When she touched it, she felt a zap on her fingertips and a shiver goes down her spine.

"Would you like that signorina?" Mallory jumped startled at the voice that came from directly in front of her. She looked up to find a middle-aged signora behind the table.

"I don't think I have enough, mi dispiace." Mallory replied shaking her head.

"No, no, no," she said shaking her head fast, "You can have it, it is for free."

"But I insist I must give you something in return." Mallory says trying to give the card back.

Right at that moment Sabbath does the biggest yawn and meows loudly.

The woman gasps, "Get that cat away from here! I do not want misfortune any time soon. Take the card and leave." She pushed the card towards Mallory and make a shoo motion with her hands.

Mallory just nods her head, "Grazie" and walks off down the street.

————•-•———--

As Mallory walks down the street, she takes a look at the card. On the card as she saw before was a black cat that looked strangely like Sabbath and the mirror in the background looked like her mother's old mirror that is hanging up at the foot of her old bed.

"That's strange." Mallory mutters to herself. She places the card into her pocket.

As she starts walking back to her place, some strange things start to happen.

————•-•———-

One of the stalls she passes is a filled with mirrors, they are hanging of the walls and sitting on the table in front of her. Suddenly there is a vibrating feeling in her pocket, and every single mirror in the stall shatters, the lady working there screams.

Mallory backs away astonished, and fall straight over a ladder leg making the ladder shake and falls just over her. She gets up only to feel the vibrating again and 10 black cats, just like Sabbath appear and start walking around and under the shopper's feet. Most look down, scream then run, some do double takes, then scream and run, arms failing behind them.

Mallory stands back up and takes the card out of her pocket, the card has an eerily glow around it, scared she drops the card and as it falls to the ground, all of the cats vanish just leaving Sabbath looking around confused. He walks over to Mallory and rubs his head against her leg, meowing wanting attention. Mallory bends down and pats his head, he purrs and looks up at her. She lefts him climb onto her shoulders. 'Lazy cat.' she smiled a lazy smile.

She slowly looks over at the card to see if it is still glowing, thankfully it had stopped. So she slowly stood up and then slowly backed away then turned than ran.

————•-•———-

Once she reached the front door to her apartment, she looked behind her finding nothing out of ordinary, she went inside and went into her kitchen, then remembered why she had gone to the market for, "Damn."

Not wanting to go back out today, she reached into her pocket for her bag of coins, but found the card instead, she threw the card across the room. She screamed, "Oh My God!"

Her deep breathing could be heard in the room, "Why is this happening to me?"

She carefully picked up the card by one of the corners and went over to one of the candles in the room, placing the card on the table, she picked up the matches next to the candle and lit it. Carefully picking up the card again, she held it over the flame.

The flame swarmed around the card not touching it at all. "Really? Really?"

Her eyes widen when another idea floated into her head, she went over to the window and started to rip the card apart. She ripped it into tiny pieces and threw it out the window into the wind. She breathed a sigh of relief, brushed her hands together, "Hopefully no more of that card."

She then went along with what she was doing before, Sabbath had jumped off her shoulders the moment she got through the door. "Sabbath! Sabbath where are you?!"

The cat meowed from where he was sitting on the lounge chair. Mallory walked into the lounge and carefully picked him up, sat down on the chair and placed him on her lap. She started to slowly stroked his back, and he started to purr.

After a minute of slowly stroking his fur, he started to sniff her pocket like something was in there. "There's nothing in there."

He started to paw her pocket, so she reached in and felt something that should be ripped up. She pulled it out, and of course it is the card.

"What the hell" she said frustrated, "Why won't you just leave me alone!"

She looked at the card puzzled, "Something is not right about this." she then turned the card over and there was something written on the back.

Dear Card Holder

I have selected you to help rescue me.

There are 10 other card holders as well with 9 cards in total.

Once you touched this card, it gave you magic related to the card.

Each card is different, as there are different personalities.

You will meet the other card holders at the fountain at the gate of the city on 9th of August

Once you are there you will head towards the centre of the city to rescue me.

Good Luck and Arrivederci!

D.

'Wonder what that means.' she thought to herself.