White.

A familiar place.

A familiar, familiar place. I’d been here.

And seen that whiteness before.

That sky… this grass. This blindingly bright world.

And then I’d seen an angel. I’d seen an elf. I’d seen Mom. No, this time there wasn’t one. Instead, I just fell on the grass. And saw someone leave me behind. Someone, I’d seen before.

So, he was my father… huh?

I thought I’d felt a connection to the person. But… didn’t think he was my dad. He just left me here, he just left. He didn’t even look back.

Guess, I wasn’t worth it?

I stayed there for a couple of days; no monsters, no food… nothing. And then died. And then Lin found me. But just moments before she found the dead boy, he came alive… I came alive.

And then I found my Mom.

And now I’m dead. All because I wanted revenge. All because I wanted to… sigh. In the end, it really wasn’t worth it. Now that I could think calmly. Now that I didn’t feel the constant dread, the constant hate, the constant resentment… I could think. And I knew, I was glad that man had abandoned me, because otherwise the past owner of this body wouldn’t be dead and I wouldn’t be with Lin, even if our time together was brief. Hey, I felt bad for the boy. But… but, I loved Lin. I hated to admit it but I loved Den too. And I was glad I got to grew up with them.

Wish I could say goodbye.

Wish I could at least-

“Ba…”

Goat?

There was a goat before me. When’d she? I patted her head. She liked me, and tried to bite me. Of course, I didn’t let her and… and wait, mother cat was here too!?

Didn’t that mean… Sisna was dead?

“You died to save me?” I said. My eyes moistened. “I’m sorry I couldn’t make good use of this life. I’m….” she licked my face and comforted me.

Mother cat came over and licked me too. The kids also weirdly came to me and jumped on me and… well, I guess dying might not have been that bad; I wasn’t alone here. I was going to wait here for Lin and Den… hopefully they’ll keep me waiting for a few decades at least.

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Yet… yet why did I feel so bad? Why did I feel so… sad?

Why did I… cry?

Hugging the kittens tight, I cried. “I’m sorry I couldn’t avenge you. I’m sorry, I’m so powerless. I’m sorry Lin… I can’t go back to you…Mom.” I sobbed, I cried.

I just fell on my knees, as all the cats just surrounded me. Meanwhile, the goat just fucking rammed me over the air. What the fuck? “Hey, that hurts!” I said… sniffling, rolling on the ground, picking myself back up again. “Hurts?” My hands and body started going all blurry, like I was being censored or something. “The hell?” Something grabbed me. A white tail. It wrapped around my chest like a snake coiling and then I felt a pull. Almost like I was being pulled into the grass.

The goat and Kittens stayed put, while Mother Cat put her paw on my chest and everything just went dark, but before all that I could have sworn I heard something.

My chest hurt, and it felt warm and someone was screaming my name.

“Mom?” I managed, opened my eyes and nope, it was my dear sister instead. “Oh, hi sis,” I said.

“I thought you were dead.” She was crying?

Face full of tears, snot leaking out; ugly. Yet… comforting.

“Me too…” I was crying too actually. And I might or might not have pissed myself. “I reek,” I said.

“Yeah,” she snickered.

“FUU!!!” Fire. Blindingly bright flames scorched the very ground behind us, or rather in front of me, since Shia was hugging so damn tightly.

“ARGHH!!!” Someone was screaming, he was taking the full brunt of the fire. He was dying. Unlike my fire, this one was far, far stronger, bluer, and Rexen? The fuck was he doing here? Guy has wings.

And who the fuck was the charred-up geezer? “Don’t kill him. I need some answers,” I said. The words came out, but my chest hurt. With each breath the pain dissipated though.

“Ke k ke?” Rexen came over, and as usual that damn smile was creepy as fuck but… I was kind of glad he showed up. He disappeared or more like shrunk. Rexy came crawling back to me and was as cute as ever as she promptly fell asleep on my chest.

“What is this?” Shia said, showing my scaly finger to me and checking my body for scales. I had a lot of scales. Specially my chest where there was a vertical line. I could have sworn I never saw myself get cut but…I guess Alustur was just that fast. And he was basically a corpse right now. Sizzling. Smoking. Guy was still alive!

I guess Rexen was just that much of a badass. But he was gone. “Questions later. Help me cover this up and-”

People started coming from all over the school. And they told me it was a suicide mission and didn’t want anything to do with this at all! Liars.

I saw some familiar faces leading; Chamille, Mike, Nisa.

“Quick!” I said.

“Okay, okay,” Shia rolled her eyes and tore a bit of her dress and hid my scaly finger and insignia. My shirt was kind of burned but it wasn’t making the scales obvious so that was fine, for now.

“The hell happened here?” Miss Chamille came straight to me. “What in Askavan are you doing?” I guess she didn’t know?

“He caught the mass murderer,” Shia said. “The headmaster came to help but was caught in the crossfire. They’re still alive… I think,” she said, and quite chirpily too.

Chamille groaned. “Take them to the infirmary.” She slouched down to pick me up.

“Wait,” I said, staring at Shia. “I need you to do something for me.”

She sighed. “What?”

Before leaving I’d heard mother cat say something. Take care of the little one. “There’s another kitten. Find it.”

She stared at me, rolled her eyes hysterically. “Alright.”

The moment Miss Chamille picked me up to take me to the infirmary, I actually passed out. Oh fuck… I wanted to feel them…. I could still hear shit though… weird.