Blood Moon 2 (Haunted)

9 Lives

Flight. Falling. A dead and bloated corpse. A crow. That was all I could remember. Althorn the crow, the carrier of souls, paid me a visit that cold December day. I lay under that foul park bench in New York City with my coat stuffed full of newspaper scraps shivering. The winter this year was very brutal. Sometime between that part of the night that receives no moonlight and the coldest early morning just before the sun rises to relieve the aching of the frozen bones is when I had the pleasure of making his acquaintance.

Little did I know, meeting such a creature was a misfortune and is never by choice. Knowing him was knowing death and pain and torture. He comes for you only once, to carry you to whatever pleasurable or demented afterlife that awaits you. That is the rule. I am the exception.

Even the grand design of death has flaws. Mistakes can happen and as everyone who knew me would tell you, I am the winner of the unlucky lottery. In both life and death. I was briefly happy in my flight though. After all, whatever awaits me has to be better than the life I left. Warmer. More food.

So it came to be, the mistake that was made. A random miscalculation on some cosmic flight path? The carrier of souls is clumsy? I remember flying above my body and over the park, through the trees,  I watched a poor soul get her purse stolen somewhere around the warehouse district and was immediately reminded of the mercy of death.

I can honestly say, I am unsure of what happened next. A loud muffled caw and a tree branch, black feathers littered the sky and my flight came to a tragic end. Falling. I fell in an imperfect spiral colliding with the mangled body of scruffy Calico cat. Road kill. No doubt the result of a half awake trucker trying to make whatever insane deadline the transportation industry has set forth.

I opened my eyes and stretched. How odd is this? I stretched my paws and wiggled my tail. That was the hardest part for me I think. I have a tail. I wiggled it and I rubbed it against the cold ground. I could feel the muscles strain as I attempted to walk. One foot in front of the other, and again in front of the other.

After an eternity of clumsy drunken stumbles, I finally got the hang of walking. Not so bad at all I think. If anything ,I felt more stable. Everything was heightened, I could smell a fresh pie in someone’s oven become flaky and golden brown.  I could hear the rustling of a plastic bag in the background carelessly tossed to the wind by an unknown litterbug. It’s scraping against the unforgiving cold ground was like nails on a chalkboard to me.

Besides the assault on my senses, this wasn’t turning out too badly at all. I am a cat. Do you know what that means? I can hear my own laughter in my badly bent mind as I speak out loud to no one at all. I can form the words perfectly in my head but what came out of me was utter garbage. A sickly high pitched “MEERRORW”.

It means…I can take what I want. I think to myself. No more going hungry. I want it I can take it, no matter what. It’s not illegal for a cat now is it?

I follow the wonderful smell across town and locate the source. A nice brick house with a very quant manicured lawn. The only obstacle separating me from the wonderful scent of fresh baked goodies was a simple chain linked fence. I follow it with my eyes, analysing it, looking for a way in. I can see the gate and I briefly miss having thumbs. This don’t discourage me for a moment. I’m a cat damn it! Though, I don’t remember the fences ever being this tall before. But hey, that’s the life of a cat. To my left is my only option. A tree branch only a few feet from the top of the culprit. One fancy hard leap of faith and that pie is as good as mine!.

After three tries, I finally figure out how to climb with my new claws. In position now, I line up with the top of the fence. I slowly back up and mentally prepare myself.