A Pride of Werecats

Chapter 38

Sarika's POV

Broken eyes. 

When the windows to the soul are broken the soul is also broken. Truly broken. This is a demon. Demons feed off dark thoughts, depression, anxiety they are thought to be the cause of it too. From the pits of Tartarus they come, they destroy everything they can before someone is able to take them down. Groups of demons are chaotic but not unheard of. Poorly organised and purely for survival, they work together thought often they are alone. 

It is the groups that are dangerous and it is one of those groups that destroyed everything Sarika cared for.

Sarika grew up in a large family. Her extended family lived with her, all in one squashy but big house. There was always something to do, someone to talk to, some tea to be spilt. Despite the craziness of it all Sarika loved her family and they loved her.

One night Sarika, when Sarika was fourteen, she was walking home from a friend's house. Her friend's mother had offered to drive her home but she was so busy with preparing dinner Sarika didn't want to be an inconvenience. It wasn't far away. The sun was slowly setting so Sarika picked up her pace. But she wasn't fast enough. 

Sarika often wondered what would have happened if she stayed at her friend's house to watch the next episode or had left an episode earlier, would the same thing still have happened on that short walk home?

She didn't see it coming at all. Until it was upon her. 

A cheetah.

A huge cheetah the size of a horse, it knocked her to the ground and its massive fangs sunk into her shoulder. Sarika blacked out.

She awoke alone and alive, no wound but a tattoo of a black cat mid-step on her shoulder.  Sarika was now a werecat, it had been passed down to her from the cheetah who had bitten her. She learnt it slowly and secretively. Not telling a soul which was extremely difficult in such a packed house but she managed, knowing it would change everything if they found out. 

When Sarika turned eighteen she left and never returned. The other werecats had always been calling out to her and once she was a legal adult she was free to go find them. It took months but she found them. A Pride of five werecats and she joined them to become number six. A full Pride. 

Together they were powerful. they could take down any threat they came across. It didn't last long though. They could sense the demons becoming stronger, taking more and more human lives. It was such a problem that the werecats needed to step in and do something about it. 

They did and they were slaughtered. Sarika didn't want to recall the memory. Her soul darkened and her eyes welled up with tears at the thought of it. She was the only one fast enough to run away. A blessing from the gods but also a curse. She alone survived and she alone remembered. 

It didn't take long for Pan to find new werecats, she figured he would be in a panic because of the demons. She felt the werecats be created but she couldn't go find them, it hurt too much. She stayed hidden from them, hoping they wouldn't come to find her. But as the days passed she realised the demons wouldn't stop with just her Pride, they would come for these newer werecats. Ones with even less experience than her own Pride. 

So she had to find them and she ran as fast as she could. Her speed being a blessing this time, the fates smiled down upon her as it seemed she could stop them from repeating history.

First published - 23/11/2019

Next Chapter - 6/12/2019