Old Version of "These 9 Lives"

Prologue: An Unforgettable Death

 Once in a dreadful mansion, lived a pale ginger, once beautiful, mother cat, with her eyes the color of the blue sky, with her two remaining kittens. Toby, who had the fur and eyes of his mother but with light brown stripes, and Lola, who had light brown fur with kind and soft amber eyes.

They could had been more healthy if given the right owner, but no. Their owner was terrible. They were very thin and were starving because of him.

In this place, it was dangerous. It wasn't like most places where the humans were kind. This human was horrible. He killed his pets here. Once simple mistake could get you killed. If he's in front of you, about to kill you, it would be best to do nothing. If you were a cat or a dog there, it would be best to try and escape when he's not present.

So there, they lay on the floor of an empty room with nothing but walls and a window.There, they lay, starving. Mother didn't even have enough milk for her thriving kittens. None of them laughed. None of them talked. None of them played. There was not even the slightest of joy in their hearts. Their hearts were full of emptiness and dark with fear.They just laid there, shaking, worried that the man could come any minute, and murder them all.

Toby layed there with Mother and his sister. He was worried that the human would kill Mother and sister, and he would be alone.

Toby had more siblings other than Lola but they didn't have the strenght to survive long. They died a week after they were born. They might have lasted longer if the human hadn't been so harmful. He had a father too, but he never knew what happened to him. He thought he never would, but as much as he wondered about him, maybe it was for the best he didn't know. He was already depressed about his lost of his siblings.

He would've died along with them.Toby was the weakest one but by some miracle he was strong enough to pull through. Mother said that he had become stronger after she had a dream that he was an adult, and he was following what looked like stars. Apparently, Toby had the same dream.

He remembered the room in which he was born in the mansion. It was called the Rotting Room. That room was the place the human left non-important cats and dogs to rot after death. It was common for mothers to give birth there so then they had enough time to hide their young from the human.

Toby was six days old when he had opened his eyes which was the day before his two older in litter sisters were killed. He remember seeing a black and white cat named May. Mother had said he was born only days before her litter's birth.

Toby didn't remember seeing May's litter, but he only remembered her escape through a window. He knew she was holding a kitten but he couldn't remember. He only knew May was holding a kitten because Mother had said so. Mother never even mentioned the kitten's name. Though Toby hardly knew them, he wished to see that litter again.

When he was about a month old after half of the litter he was born in died, he encountered an Australian shepherd Border collie mix pup who wanted to befriend him. He tried to cheer him up but nothing could cheer him up at the moment. Not when he was grieving for his siblings and it was hard for him to walk. He had became paralyzed in his hind legs after an incident where the human had slammed him against the wall very strongly.

At that age he learned about horrific truth about the mansion. Knowing about the rotting corpses was worse enough. He had saw on something glassy and smooth, that the human had poisoned, beaten, slammed and even whipped animals to death. Each time the scene was the worst a kitten could ever see. At least Lola and Toby had each other.

But even so, Toby wished he could just get out of there for once and for all.

From the moment he was able to walk around with ease, his mother had taught him and his sister stay in the shadows, where it was dark and safe so the human wouldn't see them. She said to think of the darkness as the light. Like how most of the known animals to him loved the light instead the dark. Mother said to just think of it the other way around. But now there were no shadows to hide in this area,so Toby stayed and laid on his mother's flank and Lola was fairly close to Mother.