It was a sunny Sunday morning when he’d found Rose, bounding around an alleyway and cradling the fattest, fluffiest yellow tabby cat they’d ever seen. Unsurprising, since they didn’t exactly see much strays. Meat used to be a delicacy, after all.
“OOOOOOOOOH my gooooodness, lookatchuImmaeatyouup-”
“We are not eating the cat,”
“…”
There was a pause and a freeze, Rose and the cat were one in stillness, neither breaking eye contact or breathing. Then,
“OOOOOOOOOOOO my goodness, Immapetyousoha-”
And on and on did he go, yammering and scratching the cat’s head like erratically as an itchy addict. Well, least he was happy, could certainly use a pet after their last mission.
They went along their merry way, toting groceries about twenty pounds heavier.
----------------------------------------
“Angel?”
“Yes O’ brudder of mine?”
“The cat’s calling the aliens,”
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Indeed, the cat was calling the aliens. It stood on two legs; paws raised in the eternal position of ‘pick me up’ facing the empty wall while a low yowl vibrated the foundations of their home.
WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
What a yowl it was, he could feel it in his ears, shaking his breath. The air was changing, hotter and hotter like the Summers in Florida, hotter and hotter till the tables lacquer melted and wax stained the carpet.
He saw Van wince, then throw a grey foldup chair at the pudgy tabby cat.
It bounced right off an invisible wall.
Ah shit.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
It was two toned, deep at first but undercut by a sharp whistling noise that dug into his bones.
RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
Like a foghorn, it pressed into their ears like two fingertips poking their eardrums, like a child squeezing into a balloon.
Reality parted, space stretched thin as a gummy torn to sticky strings and ooze leaked inbetween.
Something murky and black but not fell from the ceiling, going up, down and sideways and spiraled out from the ceiling. Glowing neon nothings the color of ring-pops squirmed between the edges and bled from the stretched wall that was empty but a second prior.
Ashva, hand holding salt and silver was wrenched into the wall, a large mass of something smelling like the sea pinned him to the source of nothing and choked the breath from his lungs.
Wind picked up, the yowling gave way to and empty, full breath of something that ached and made him deaf, everything floated and the heat turned cold. Tables rose and stretched and the ooze coalesced into something solid as a gas and wind whipped round them with the force of it’s existence.
Ashva felt as if he was in a hurricane again, like when Sister Martha threw them out when the winds were highest. A pen scored a deep, pink line across his cheek and he felt just as helpless as a beaten, weak teenager in an alleyway cradling his three brothers against storm winds.
His brother, bless him, didn’t seem to care.
Blood dripped out Rose eyes as he crawled close and closer to Ashva, leaping over the whipping currents on all fours like a rabid beast.
Purple tendrils lifted the kitty by it’s armpits, the cat purred and crawled onto the mass, circling the wide limb and curling into a ball of satisfied fluff.
“That’s my kitty ya f-”
And then all was normal.
Rose’ nose cracked against the normal wall, objects burst by the weight of another existence reconvened to become unbroken and blood rolled itself back into Ashva’s ears.
Ashva slumped against the empty wall, a formerly floating bottle of Caroni Puncheon dropped square his hand. He sliced the neck off and took a long swig, muttering with a huff,
“Can’t have shit in Brokton,”