Claire kept a lot of animals around. We had chickens and cows for the farm. There were dogs to keep them safe and cats for the pests. Horses also liked to stay close but were never close enough for me to approach them. All the animals helped out each other like they all had an agreement. We all lived harmoniously, almost as a village. None of them were our pets and I never got too close to any of them. Claire just let them run around in the wild. Claire had a farmhouse just for them to use during winter.

One morning, a kitten’s meow caught my attention. It was during another snowstorm. It wasn’t terrible but it did force all the animals to return to the farmhouse that day. I just thought one of the kittens got lost and just wanted help from me.

Strangely, the kitten sounded weird. Its meows were too short and distorted. It almost sounded like was hurt. I managed to pinpoint where they were coming from. Strange little meows were coming from the snow plains. Even with the auditorial help, the kitten was hard to spot. It wasn’t until I saw two black little ears that I spotted a wet white furball trembling.

“Did you get separated from the cats?” I asked it.

It was trembling too much to respond so I took it inside so it could warm up. Drying it off, I noticed it was a little different than all the cats that live there. I thought it must have been a new kitten. It fell asleep shortly after it got comfortable.

The little cat was completely white except for her ears. Those were black. Cats were always my favorite and I found this one the cutest I’ve seen. It was bigger than any other kitten but still smaller than an adult.

“Let’s take you back. "

The long walk to the farmhouse was interrupted by one of the older cats running up to me. It stopped just to start hissing at me. I ignored it as it wasn't always the friendliest to start with. Once I entered, I found all of the animals' attention on me. The dogs were barking at me and the chickens were going wild. The cows were crying and most important of all, all the cats came up to my feet just to hiss. They weren’t hissing at me at all, it was the kitten they were bothered with. I got the message clear so it was unnecessary when one of the cats started to smack my ankle.

"Ow! Stop that! Isn't she one of yours?" I asked.

The eldest cat of them all and the one I got along with the most ran up to my leg and kept ramming its head onto it. It was telling me to leave. For whatever reason, no one wanted the kitten to be there. I just chalked it up to not being a part of their little home as I'd never seen this cat before.

Back home, I laid the kitten wrapped up on my bed sheets. It had still not woken up. In its sleep, its muscles twitched as if it was experiencing a nightmare.

Claire had been gone for two weeks now. I had no idea if she was coming back. It was getting too lonely for me to bear. I was getting bored of reading Claire's books and wanted some company. There wasn't any rule against me keeping a pet so I decided to make this kitten mine right then and there.

I wonder now how different things would have been if I hadn't decided on that.

The kitty was constantly hissing at me when it woke. When I tried to give it food it kept biting me. The little car was a feisty one. It never kept its eyes off me and always looked like it was ready to attack. I couldn't understand it at all. At first, I thought it was just traumatizing from being abandoned. If I knew the truth, I wouldn't have kept it. In a way, Claire keeping me in the dark about the island only allowed my curiosity to flourish. If she had told me what lived here, our straining relationship probably would have never been mended.

A week went by and my hands and arms were now covered in scratch marks. The little kitten would even attack me in my sleep and I had to lock it in Claire's room every night. I noticed no animals came close to the cabin anymore. They all hated the white cat. No, they were scared of it.

It still hadn't eaten anything so by now it must have been starving. Still, I tried to feed it every day. It attacked every time. The cat with black ears became weaker and weaker each day that passed.

"If you don't eat, you're going to die, Kitty," I told it but she never listened. My patience was starting to thin.

I was forced to go inside the forest when the food storage started to dry up. I never liked to hunt. I only ate meat if it was necessary. Although I understood that I was also part of life's cycle, the act of killing still wounded my little soul.

I came back with enough meat to last a couple of days. I was greeted by a severely weakened kitten hissing softly on top of the kitchen table. It stopped once it noticed I brought back raw meat. Up until this point, I've been trying to feed it cat food. It's what Claire would give the other cars from time to time. She said that's what domesticated cats eat in the outside world. It never occurred to me to give it fresh meat.

It ate a smart piece of my game quietly and was attentive to my presence. I watched it eat quietly just glad that I finally got it to feed. I’m not even sure why I stuck it out for that long. I guess I was just that lonely. I guess I thought we were similar. This little cat had the same shade of white hair that I did. It was sort of a kinship.

“Will you finally play nice?” I asked it once it was done eating.

She glared and then hissed.

It took a week for the cat to stop hissing at me whenever it looked at me. Although it stopped attacking me it wouldn’t let me touch her. I left it alone for a while until one day it disappeared. The snow had melted and so a white furball wasn’t hard to find in a field of green. Not that it mattered, the sound of cats fighting is what drew me in. The little white cat was fighting with the farm cats. She was losing.

I ran in and pulled the kitten away from the claws of the oldest cat that had her pinned down. “Why don’t you guys like the kitten?! She’s just a baby!”

The oldest cat hissed at me. There were two others with him and one of them tried to attack the kitten in my arms. I had to block its fangs with my hand.

Stolen novel; please report.

“You guys are being mean! Ow!”

The oldest cat was hitting his head against my leg again, telling me to leave. I listened and took the kitten back home. She was wounded, bleeding from the claws of the others. I was too young to remember just how deep the wounds went, but I knew it was bad. Her eyes weren’t open and was having trouble breathing. An invisible punch in my gut was twisting me inside. It felt like I wanted to throw up. I didn’t want the kitty to die but I didn’t know how to nurse it back to health either. Claire hadn’t shown me.

None of the books in her library had instructions either. They were just too many to find the right one. I’m sure she had one but I didn’t have the patience to find it. Ms. Kitty was dying and I just had to accept that fact. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I couldn’t do anything. The most I could do was cry while watching that mean little cat lose its life. I was powerless.

I learned that death cannot be stopped.

Death comes for us all. And one day, it will come for me. It was an incomprehensible feeling at the time. I didn’t know what to think of it. The sadness was too great but I knew it was somehow beyond it.

I fell asleep with the kitten in my arms. The least I could do was to be there for when it died.

But death had other plans. I wouldn’t feel that pain until much later.

“Whow,” I heard. “Whaow.”

A little prickly tongue was tickling the side of my cheek. The cat that I thought was dying was now trying to wake me up. Her short white fur brushed against my cheeks when it noticed my eyes open.

“You’re alive!”

“Wha”

The wounds weren’t gone, but they were closed. By some miracle, she survived. She moved like she wasn’t on the brink of death hours before. Ms. Kitty jumped up to my chest and laid down. It was purring. The constant hissing was now gone and it was replaced by this gentle purr.

“Is it because I saved you from those bullies?”

The kitten moved her head to meet my eyes. Just like the cougar I met years before, I felt like it could understand me. The kitten's mouth looked like it was smiling as impossible as that sounds.

This cat that wasn’t ever interested in being civil now clung to me. I don’t know the specifics of why she was out there fighting the cats but she should have trusted me the moment I first found her. I’m glad she wasn’t dead but it could have all been avoided if she was nicer.

It now let me pet her and feel how soft she was. Her white fur was really short and smooth. She was warm and comforting. I got my wish of the pleasant company I wanted. Wherever I went, it went with me. It took a bit to get used to. I imagine that’s how Claire felt whenever I followed her around when I was younger. I didn’t want to be like her so I made sure I always gave the cat lots of pets. I made sure that I never let the kitty feel unwanted.

Another week passed and Claire was still gone. It’d been a month now so I had given up the idea that she would ever come back. I didn’t need her now anyway. I was fully capable of living on my own now. I even had a pet to take care of.

One morning, the earth started to shake again. The kitten went berserk and wouldn’t stop clawing at the front door. The kitten sprinted towards the plains the second I opened it. “Hey! Where are you going?!”

She was no bigger than my forearm but she ran much faster than me. I chased it as best I could but I couldn’t catch up to it. She ran into the forest and it became hard to track her. Shortly after entering, I completely lost her.

I had to stop running so I could catch my breath. A growl caught my attention. The cougar from before was approaching me. It greeted me with a meow and turned around to lie down, looking back at me. Somehow, I understood what it wanted. The cougar gently stood up once I sat firmly on its back. The whiplash of her jumping to a sprint nearly knocks me back.

It was hard to keep my eyes open while the cougar took me deeper into the forest. Usually, it would take a few days to get to the center of the forest where the waterfall lies. On a cougar’s back, it only took an hour.

“What are we doing here?” I asked her once it dropped me down next to the lake. The second I finished saying that, I spotted the white mysterious kitten staring at the fog a couple of feet away. “Hey! Why’d you run away? You need to come back home!”

The kitten turned its head to me. It looked back as if it was making a decision. She decided to run into the fog.

“No! Going in there will kill you!”

I ran after it but stopped shortly before the fog and I touched it. The cougar walked beside me and growled. Before, she stopped me from venturing further inside. Now it was telling me to go in.

“Claire said I’ll die if I do…”

The fog was calling to me just as before. Without a thought, I took a few steps inside again. Like before, it got hard to breathe. My body gave me a considerable shock like it was telling me I needed to leave. I persevered and continued to walk no matter how hard it got. The little kitten's meows ahead of me are what was pushing me forward.

And yet no matter how much I wanted to bring the cat back, the lack of air got to me and I fell to the ground.

A large quadrupedal reptile was waiting for me when I woke up. I was now in a completely different part of the forest.As I sat up, I realized I was surrounded by trees unlike any I'd ever seen. Their trunks shimmered with a soft, blue glow, and their leaves were a blend of rogue red and sapphire blue. Each leaf seemed to have a life of its own, rustling and whispering secrets to the others. White and shimmering dust blanket the air around me

“Ugh, where am I?”

The giant reptile stood from the ground, unraveling its wings. Its navy scales looked hard as rocks but were glistening. A single claw on its feet was the size of my body. Its eyes were a dark yellow and ones of a predator. This creature was unlike anything I have ever seen or read about.

“Who are you? Did you save me?”

The incredibly large creature responded by turning around to walk away. There I got a look at its tail. Ragged and deadly with sharp edges all around. I felt like it could kill me if I just touched one of its sharp edges.

I followed it through this colorful part of the woods. There was no sound here. The air was filled with a sweet, enchanting fragrance, like a bouquet of wildflowers and fresh honey. No small animals were running around or even bugs to bother me. This place was deserted.

“What are you?” I asked the creature.

I didn’t respond and kept on walking. We walked until we reached the end of the tree line. In front was now a massive wall of a mountain. The rocks were completely black and breaking down. The wall sloped down into the ground not too far away, signifying that I was near the edge.

“Snowie!” I yelled out the cat's name.

She was resting against the mountain’s wall. Her head was down into her paws, visibly depressed. When I called out her name, her head rose, wet with tears.

Snowie ran up and jumped into my arms.

“I was worried sick! What happened? Where are we?”

The extremely large reptilian creature with wings sat and lowered its head to the ground, giving me no answers.

“You’re not supposed to go into the fog, Snowie. What if you died?”

Snowie only whimpered and nestled herself deeper into my arms.

“Do you know why that is, child?” An extremely deep voice said right inside my head.

“Who said that?!”

The ground began to shake again. A large crack in the smooth part of the wall began to move. It began to open. As the rocks moved, I took a closer look at them. They weren’t rocks at all but looked exactly like the scales the creature had.

“So you really can talk to us. What an interesting child she found.”

In front of me was no longer a wall of rocks going up a mountain. An eye was now staring right at me. An eye so large that I couldn’t see the top. This eye had an iris of a slightly more grayish white and no pupil.

This mountain was alive.

This is the day I met my father.