Chapter One
“It was a dark and stormy night.”
A small, brown kitten flattened himself anxiously to the ground.
“The wind tossed the trees around so much that it wasn’t unreasonable to be scared one would fall down. Thunder growled, and lightning zapped the woods.”
The kitten gulped, his eyes wide as full moons.
“And our hero, the mighty Thunder Cat, stalked through the woods, searching for his prey...”
A growl sounded behind the small brown kitten, and suddenly he found himself thrown onto his back. His sister’s teeth snapped at his ear. Her weight pressed down on his stomach, and he kicked out, trying to get her off.
“Hey! Filto! Skyla! Are you going to listen to my story or do you want to go to bed already?”
The weight lifted as his sister jumped off. The little brown kitten sprung to attention, eyes fixed on his dad, a bulky brown tabby who was looking at him with playful annoyance.
“Sorry, Dad,” his sister Skyla said, glancing at Filto. Her black and white fur was puffed up in excitement. “I just...got so excited. You know. About your story.”
“Yeah, sorry, Dad,” Filto said quickly. He could feel the annoyed glances of his other two siblings, Emeth and Mysterie, but he tried to ignore them.
Hyto, their father, shook his head, mock-serious. “When a great storyteller comes to talk to you, you should pay attention to him.”
Skyla straightened up instantly. “There’s a great storyteller here? You didn’t tell me that!” She looked dramatically around the small clearing their family called home.
“Hey!” Hyto laughed, pretending to be hurt. “Okay, I’ll tell the rest of the story and maybe by then your mom will be back with dinner.”
“Uuuugggghhhhh,” Skyla groaned, flopping to the ground. “But I’m hungry now.”
Emeth made a small humph at this, but said nothing.
“Okay, okay...” Hyto slunk down to the ground, narrowing his eyes. “Thunder Cat looked for his enemy, the mighty Tiger. Tiger had threatened to overtake Thunder Cat’s land, and Thunder Cat would not stand for this. So off he went, hunting for his enemy...He found Tiger next to the river, where he was hunting for fish. Thunder Cat sneaked up behind him. Tiger didn’t realize he was there at all. Suddenly, Thunder Cat sprang!” Hyto jumped to his feet dramatically. “They had a vicious fight. Thunder Cat pushed Tiger into the river, where Tiger floundered. He could not swim very well, and Thunder Cat knew that the water was Tiger’s weakness.”
“I thought tigers can swim pretty well,” Mysterie interrupted softly.
Hyto stopped, looked at his small daughter seriously. “Can they?”
Mysterie nodded seriously.
“Oh. Well.” Hyto’s mouth twitched. “This specific tiger missed that swimming lesson, I guess. Cause he couldn’t swim very well. And Thunder Cat knew this.” Hyto, back into his story, flattened himself to the earth. “The water was deep. Thunder Cat watched Tiger struggle in the water, and then he began to feel bad. He didn’t want Tiger to die. He just wanted Tiger to leave him alone. So he grabbed a big stick and offered it to Tiger so that Tiger could come back onto the land, but Tiger would not grab hold.”
“He wants to die?” Skyla said loudly.
“Shhhhh,” Emeth said irritably.
“Well, why the heck would he not grab the branch,” Skyla said snottily, “if he didn’t want to die?”
“Maybe he just wanted to be the one to save himself,” Filto said hesitantly.
“But if he’s drowning--”
“Hey, hey, hey, okay! Okay. Tiger splashed around in the water, but then smacked into the branch that Thunder Cat offered. He was able to push off the branch and started swimming to the other bank, away from Thunder Cat,” Hyto said.
“So he suddenly learns how to swim? How does that make sense?” Skyla said.
“Shut. Up,” Emeth said angrily. “Just listen to the story!”
“It doesn’t make sense! I’m not going to just sit back and listen if it doesn’t make sense!”
Filto groaned loudly. Skyla could be so annoying sometimes.
“Kits!” A female voice cut jarringly through their argument. Their mother had returned from hunting, and in an instant, storytime was over. The smell of fresh rabbit drifted through the air. Filto’s stomach grumbled in response.
All four kits hurried over to their mother, mewling excitedly. Hyto followed behind more slowly.
Skyla and Emeth shoved their way to the front, sinking their teeth into the fresh-kill instantly. Mysterie lingered beside Filto, her cream-colored fur seemingly on fire in the dying sunlight. She glanced at him, her blue eyes looking purple in the orange light.
Emeth backed up into Filto as she tried to drag some of the rabbit away so Skyla couldn’t steal her food. Dusty brown fur met glossy tortoiseshell, and Filto jumped back anxiously. “Hey, watch out!” he said, but Emeth wasn’t listening.
Finally able to get close enough to the food to eat, Filto crouched between Skyla and Mysterie. As he ate, he listened to his parents. He loved listening to adult conversations, even though sometimes it took effort to hear them properly.
“...found another one by the old oak tree,” Crystala, Filto’s mother said.
Hyto murmured something in response, but Filto couldn’t guess what had been said.
“I don’t know,” Crystala said softly. “We might want to try and find out, though. It’s getting more frequent.”
Find out what? Filto wondered. But his curiosity was quickly overpowered by other thoughts, like how Skyla was shoving him away from the rabbit. He grunted and shoved her back, which prompted her to aggressively butt him with her shoulder.
And in no time at all, the two were tussling together on the ground. Paws and claws and teeth, bites and scratches and snarls, and Filto felt himself being lifted up into the air. Disoriented, he swung around with his paws, seeking something, and met the torso of his father, who was holding him up by the scruff of his neck. “Hey,” Hyto grunted through this teeth. “No fighting.”
“She was shoving me, Dad!” Filto said.
“I don’t care. No fighting.” Hyto set Filto down again roughly. Skyla, who hadn’t gotten picked up, smirked at him. Annoyed, Filto flicked his tail at her. He turned and charged over to the bush where they slept, ducking under the branches. He didn’t want to see his family anymore. Dumb Skyla and dumb Dad and dumb Emeth and dumb Mysterie and dumb Mom, he thought angrily. He curled up on his nest and stared at the rest of his family over his tail, irritation prickling like energy in his paws.
Night was quickly falling. Dusk had invaded the camp, slowly blurring the images of his family into hazy outlines as the world grew darker. Filto’s eyelids grew heavy.
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Chapter Two
It was cold and rainy, and Filto felt thoroughly miserable.
He sat under the branches of the bush, feeling the squishy sogginess of his nest under his paws. It was the middle of the night, and it had started pouring down rain, so much rain that it had completely soaked Filto’s nest. And only his nest, it seemed, because all the rest of his family slept soundly. Since Filto’s nest was the one closest to the edge and thus the least covered by the patchwork of holly leaves woven into a roof above them, he was the one to suffer in such torrential rain.
His dusty brown fur was utterly soaked. Irritable, he looked over at his sleeping parents, weighing whether or not he wanted to wake them up.
Rain thundered on the ground in the clearing outside. He was already soaked, and felt so irritated by the fact that he was awake and soaked and no one else was, that he decided he must get away from everyone else and leave the den. It wasn’t like he was going to be any drier in here, after all.
Filto carefully exited the den, his paws squelching in the watery mud. His paws sunk way down, the mud climbing up to encompass nearly half his leg. Picking his feet up almost comically high, Filto picked his way out into the downpour.
The clearing was very dark, between the rain and clouds and it being the dead of night. Filto made his way over to the large ash tree on the very edge of the clearing, where he hoped he might find some better shelter. It was very cold, and the rain made him colder still. The clearing was a little spooky in that dismal blackness, with the dull roar of the rainfall blocking out all sound.
As he approached the ash tree, he saw a figure hunched beside the trunk. Filto stopped, suddenly terrified. “Who’s there?” he asked squeakily.
The shadowy figure did not move.
“Are you okay?” Filto asked.
No response.
Filto wondered if maybe he was being silly. Maybe there was no figure there, maybe it was just a branch. But it looked so very much like a hunched cat...
Filto glanced back at the bush, under which his family slept. His heart was beating so loud, so fast, it seemed to mimic the rainfall around him. Should he go get his mom? He was scared.
But what if the figure was just a log or something? Filto knew that if it were just a log, then his mother would be annoyed at him for waking her in the middle of the night, and would surely scold him for leaving the den at such an hour, too. And he wasn’t quite certain that it was a cat...
Filto squared his shoulders. He was the oldest of the kits, and he was brave. He would see what this shadowy figure was, because he was bold and brave and fearless, like Thunder Cat from Dad’s stories. And after all, it was probably nothing. He was sure that it was nothing. It had to be nothing.
Thoughts of monsters swum in Filto’s head as he carefully approached the dark figure. He got closer and closer, and then he was close enough to see it--
Fur fluffed up, spiky, wet and yet hard.
Back bent like it was broken, legs reached out, grass torn up and stuck between claws.
Face stuck in an eternal hiss.
Eyes black as midnight, dark as evil.
Mouth stained completely black, black as sin.
And something dark dripping from its sneering jaws...
Filto stood frozen, gaping, his breath frozen in his lungs.
A twitch of movement from the figure, and it turned its face towards Filto.
Filto tried to scream, but he couldn’t. He had no voice. He had nothing at all.
---
Filto woke, gasping for breath. Brilliant, scorching sunlight speared through the branches of the den. He stood up immediately, whipping himself around again and again. His family was out in the clearing, their beds perfectly dry. His bed was perfectly dry, too. No mud to be seen anywhere. His gaze turned towards the ash tree. No figure. Nothing.
Relieved, Filto sat down on his nest. It was all a dream. A terrible, horrible dream. There was no monster beneath the ash. There had been no rain. There was just him and his family and the bright, bright sunlight.
He exited the den, moving over to where the rest of his siblings stood, bickering over the remnants of their breakfast.
“Oh, look who decided to show up, lazy butt,” Skyla said.
Filto squinted at her, trying to be annoyed even though he was relieved to see her, relieved that all of that had been a dream. “I got my beauty rest, unlike some cats I could mention.”
“Are you calling me ugly?” Skyla asked angrily.
“Well,” Emeth said in a tone of infinite equity, “he never said you weren’t.”
“Hey!” Skyla swatted Emeth, and in an instant the two were fighting on the ground.
Filto left, wandering over to his parents. They were sharing a mouse beside the boulder in the middle of the clearing.
“Filto!” Hyto’s eyes were bright and beckoning. “Good morning, my son.”
“Hello,” Filto said softly.
“Are you okay?” Crystala asked, her eyes narrowed worriedly.
“I don’t know...I had a bad dream,” Filto said.
“Bad dream? Do you want to talk about it?” Hyto asked.
Filto nodded sullenly, lowering his gaze to the ground. He told them about the dream, the rain and the darkness and the terrible figure under the ash tree. Its black, black eyes and mouth.
He looked back at his parents after finishing his recounting of the dream. His father’s face looked struck, like Filto had reached out and smacked him, or said a terrible swear word. His mother looked extremely grave.
“What?” Filto said anxiously. “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, of course not, son.” Hyto wouldn’t meet Filto’s eyes. “I’m just...that’s a really scary dream. I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
Filto shrugged. “It’s okay, I guess,” he mumbled.
“Well.” Crystala stood up and walked towards her small brown kit, wrapping her tail around his shoulders. “Let’s get you some breakfast, how does that sound?”
“I think Skyla and Emeth ate it all,” Filto said grumpily.
“Then we’ll catch you some more,” Crystala said. As she walked away with Filto, he saw her throw an anxious look back at his father. Filto thought he might even call it terrified.
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