The Big Kitty
My story opens in blood. The way some stories do.
A river of it, down from the temple and out into the streets. The mighty has fallen.
The people drown in its blood and their own rage. I was covered in both. That is
my first memory. Once snow-white fur, matted with thick, iron-smelling, warm, wet
red blood. Swimming for my life.
Rage filled the air with a taint stronger than the smell of the blood. It pulsed,
pushed, burned through me. For hours I fought the current, struggling as it
thickened, sucking me under when my strength tried to flag. Each time my head
submerged, it seeped into my mouth. Just enough strength would come to rise to
the surface once more, to struggle again to stay where the air could reach my
lungs.
Now you sit here, judging me for what I have become. You, who fed rage to
people who had only ever known calm. Fear to people who had only known
security. Want to people who had wanted for nothing. Hate to people who had
only known love. Discord to people who had only known harmony. Darkness to
people who only knew light. Death to people who had only known life.
You created me.
I am the consequence of your choice.
Look at me, fathers and mothers—the blasphemous child you birthed.
You wanted the old gods dead. You wanted magic to fade so science could rule.
You wanted order to be the base of power. You forgot something important in
your arrogance.
Nature makes its own rules and hates a vacuum.
Look at me. Know at last the truth you forced me to learn.
No one escapes the Balance.
Even a kitten, her eyes not yet open.
Oh, dear fathers. Oh, sweet mothers. My first milk was the blood of the mighty.
My first lullaby was the screams of the dying. My first comfort was rage.
From blind and newly born to full grown and beyond, in the time it takes to make
it to market from the farms.Here you sit, condemning me.
When you created me, you left me to fend for myself in the wilds—to die. Where
was the mercy then, that you say I lack now?
What price would you pay to save your sons?
What would you give to rescue your daughters?
What would you relinquish to spare even one life from the misfortune you have
brought upon us all?
Scurry, little mice. Scramble for your toys. Rush about like prey.
Nothing you have will balance the scale to what I have paid.
So dance with me here, beneath the hunter’s moon. Feast on the glory of your
creation.
I have grown tired of the game.
***
Miles downstream, where the blood thinned to only tint the water pink, a
developmentally delayed child pulled me from the river. By then I was
massive—newborn to mature and beyond in mere days of travel. The divine
blood still lingered in the water, causing the child's soul to merge with mine,
entering my feline body. Leaving the tiny broken human shell behind.
That new form ate those remains—the most nourishing meal it would ever have.
Fully uniting child and feline into one *something*. I hunt only evil humans. I
instinctively know the smell of innocence by whatever matrix the universe
considers it. Evil humans taste better and nourish me better. Though if hungry
enough, I will eat the remains of an innocent someone else has killed—finding it
the absolute best food. Not to be hunted, only reclaimed from waste.
I wouldn't even bother with the people I now address if they hadn't trapped me.
They are prey too well guarded to be easy hunts. Too much energy waste to
obtain, even if they would be good food. They were foolish enough to bring their
own destruction into their lab.
***
"I know you can hear me. I smell it in the way fear wafts off you. I haven’t moved,
your fear grows. It is good seasoning to the meal you will provide. You shouldhave run when you heard my voice. Still you stand in judgment. Do you think you
are safe, little mice?"
Are you so foolish as to believe this thin wall of energy can really hold me? That
it is anything more than a silky touch of water on fur as I bathe? Oh, little mouse,
so sure of yourself that you ignore your instincts. Only one of you was innocent.
The lab tech who begged you to stop. "Talk to it," she said. "Try to understand."
You silenced her.
She fed me well—the perfect bait for *your* trap. You thought you set it for me. I
let it close… for you.
Slowly I move through the flimsy wall of energy, luxuriating in its silken
caress—like being petted. One of the few things large enough to feel it. Poor
humans. Watching you scurry at last. Now that it’s too late.
Lazily, I swing my paw. One claw extended. Fresh blood fills the air—not the
divine of my earliest memory, but rich iron, fear, adrenaline. The unique bouquet
of individual prey. This room of your burrow lies empty now. A few bites to tide
me over as I pad down your vast corridors—foolishly built large enough for the
hunter.
The passages and rooms all made to fit me. No prey animal behaves like that.
You think you’re predators. Arrogant little mice. You killed the mighty and think it
makes you my equal.
Level by level, I follow your spiral burrow down. Through energy walls that stroke
like absent hands—reminding me I will never have a mate.
"A thousand little mice now fill my stomach. Come on out and join them. Spare
yourselves the trauma of waiting in fear."
Near the bottom, I pause. One door—too small. Locked from this side. I sniff
deep at the edge. Innocent. I mark it for my return. Innocence should never be
caged. The last of you deserve my attention. Tossed. Played with. No quick
deaths for cage-makers.
You call for help, little mouse? This den is mine now. Your cries summon my next
meal. Thank you. I might keep you alive a while longer—living food doesn't spoilas quickly. Nearly full. You are the last bite. Let me seal you in there. A cage for
the cage-maker.
***
I return to the marked door. *Shhhh, little friend.* You are not food. Not a mouse.
Let me open your cage.
The white tiger steps carefully free. Snifs her giant cousin. Circles once, wary
and wise. Then rubs her head against me.
*Ahhh, thank you, little friend.* I am glad you will stay.
"Ohh, tiny human—your scent mixed so well with hers. I did not know there were
two. Will you stay as well? I will protect you both."
"Big Kitty. Pretty Kitty."
*Yes, tiny one. I am a big kitty.*
***
The fire dies as the old woman rises. "Sleep well, gentlemen. Remember—the
Big Kitty only takes those with evil hearts. Keep yours clear, and you’ll wake
tomorrow."
The men laugh as her ghost story echoes into silence.
She vanishes into the deeper woods. Four feline eyes track her—guardian
shadows. She snuggles behind the ear of the largest cat while the white tiger
curls protectively behind her.
"They are innocent, little one. They have no need to fear me."
"I know, but it never hurts to remind people to stay that way."
"So you keep telling me."