Burn The City

A shadow drifted out from the alleyway, pattering on its four slim legs and flicking its lively tail. It stayed close to the brick wall of the well-lit restaurant, keeping its pale pink nose within the darkness. Brilliant streetlights nearly betrayed its presence, and the cars rushing past glinted red tail-lights and yellow head-lights. All the noise of the city blended together into the background, forgotten by the passersby and startling the newcomers. A loud couple passed, guffawing, and the shadow shrunk back into its own entire one-foot frame.

On the edge where the sidewalk dipped into the street sat a figure whose body was partially obscured by a jet-black trench coat, smoking a cigarette. The figure's long maple-colored hair fell like a curtain down her back, and her thin fingers cradled the cigarette delicately. Her shoes were torn and yet still tapping out an unheard beat onto the asphalt below. The shadow turned its ice-blue eyes in the direction of the smoke and sound, careful to stay hidden.

The girl's name was Chloe, and she'd stopped by the restaurant for dinner, even though the contents of her shallow pockets were scarce. They had refused to give her food, staring her down as if she were a begger, and pointed her out of the room. The sidewalk was a nice place to sit, so she sat and lit.

Chloe tossed the burnt-out cigarette into the traffic and watched as it was flattened by the tires of a Toyota zooming by.

She straightened up and, out of the corner of her eye, spotted a shifting in the dim lighting around the circumference cast by the restaurant. Two orbs of piercing ocean glare stared back at her out of the gloom.

Instinctively Chloe squatted down non-threateningly. The ghosts of nails and yowls scrabbled at her porcelain-white hands and ears. The street was momentarily deserted.

The shadow, for whatever reason, heard the cries, the encouragement sung by the invisible ribbons Chloe had wrapped about herself. She was a friend, the other cats said, you can come home to us.

Chloe smiled as the cat stepped out of the darkness. She waited as it sniffed her hands and wrung its wiry body around her legs. It wasn't dirty, not at all - on the contrary, it was quite clean and looked only as if it had gotten lost on its way back to the castle from which it came.

She was pleased so see that when she started walking in the direction of home, the cat trotted easily after.

After the city, after the lights, after the noise, out in the field, out in the open, out in the world, there was a two-story wooden house that loomed larger as they approached. Its exterior condition was fine, swathed in the grey of the evening sky, held up by the crisp air. The sea of long grasses and tan weeds swayed, hiding and revealing the worn dirt path up to the antique front door, which was, like always, unlocked, opening to Chloe's world.

Peeling tables and chairs, strips of wood curling away from their original rigid stalks. Settee stuffing burst from rips, and the place stank sour of rot. Dark stains spreaded unevenly in damp puddles on the floor and in places the wood broke into the earth. Sections of the wall were gauged into, and inside these pockets, along with gracing their presence everywhere else, were the cats, poking among the tufts of cotton, scratching at the chair legs, and trodding through the patches of urine.

The once-shadow cat at Chloe's feet slipped past the threshold and joined the hoard.

Chloe shut the door and walked around the rotting areas of her house. She reached inside the cabinet for a mug and spotted a ginger-colored cat nestled on the plates, studying her movements with warm, brown eyes. Chloe smiled and grabbed the handle of her favorite navy mug, but it felt unusually heavy in her hand. She peered inside and found a pair of sharp emerald eyes that held her gaze.

"Hey," Chloe said, and tipped the mug so that the kitten slid out onto the countertop, where it meowed and sat resolutely. She rinsed the mug under the faucet, filled it with ice and water, and made her way to the bedroom on the second floor.

Cats, bodies of all natural colors - black, brown, ginger, blue-black, white, grey, white-blonde - wrung themselves along the banister, their - blue, green, brown, black, red, gold - eyes glittering with stars not yet awake. The carpet lining the upper story was truly repulsive, the fibers alternately wet and torn and altogether abominable. The smell was palpable, stinging her nerve endings and warping shapes beyond repair.

Chloe sank to the floor at the foot of her bed, in the midst of soft bodies and irriguous cloth and the ruins of a once-grand estate, surrounded by the bleak atmosphere and love for all the bodies slowly decaying within.