Kellia's{23}Key

It was clear that Kellia was disoriented as Davy put the bike in neutral and started pushing it out of the middle of the street. The young woman practically leaned against the side of the vehicle, an unconscious "Whoa!" of reeling realization escaping as she more held on for support rather than help steer much at all...

The cat showed up as Kellia, Arista and Davy shouldered his big road hog to the curb, which overlooked the precipitous, tree covered drop of the Appalachian mountain side. They leaned into the heavy bike, rolled it across the tarmac to the underbrush choked side walk and Kellia was nearly overwhelmed by a sickening sense of vertigo, all that tree choked, boulder cluttered way down, peeking through the branches; like hide and seek with the sky, the thought of free falling worsening an already confabulated state of mind. And then the cat was just there, sitting between the handlebars of Davy's bike, the biggest damn house cat Kellia had ever seen!

Just sitting there, licking itself, the big black feline sported a bright red strip down its back and into rings along its tail, deep onyx eyes stared about with blank interest as it preened and fussed, digging at the particularly tangle-some patch of fur in the spot where it was minus its left foreleg. The three legged cat sat a full three feet tall, easily the size of a four to five year old child. Kellia knew this cat... and so did Davy,

"From the dream... last night. It's the same three legged cat!" The big biker scratched at a spot behind his ear as he pondered this imponderability, eyeing Arista with a brand of dismayed deference. Was this really happening, the look on his face wondered? Kellia shook her head, as if to right herself to what she was seeing...

"It's Black Tom Red... right?" she asked, more of herself than to anyone else; which was why Davy almost squealed like a little girl when the cat started talking,

"Well, of course little girl. Who else would I be?"