Chapter 1
I
Nobody’s immortal
I’m in some kind of an old house. There’s cobwebs everywhere. Inside the house there is also some old furniture that is broken. The reason, why I’m here is that I ran away from home and have to stay in this house, since there is no other house nearby and it’s raining and rumbling outside. I don’t like this house much, because it seemed suspicious, like something paranormal was going on here. It’s weirdly quiet and it’s cold here.
The wind is whistling through the windows, if you could call them such, there’s only frames left of them that will fall off if somebody touched them. This house is about 200-300 years old. The roof is broken, a floor, like back in my home, is nowhere to be seen, there’s just dirt. You can even find junk mushrooms here. I’m all alone here and it’s pretty creepy. I’m almost shaking from fear, but I have to be brave because I have to stay here for couple of hours or even for the whole night. Suddenly I feel something cold against my hand, I look at it and see, how it gets paler by every moment. I turn my head away and wouldn’t dare to look again, but still do it and see, how my hand gets back to normal. It’s getting warm again and I’m still thinking, what was happening. I was scared to death, afraid of everything, I saw things in places, where there was nothing, heard noises and felt that someone is watching me. I saw a dark shadow figure in a corner, moving, heard someone calling my name and felt that this figure is looking at me. I wanted to run away, but something was keeping me there, like if someone was telling me not to go away, but stay. I got a feeling that something bad would happen if I left, so I stood, where I was.
Suddenly I saw how a black-haired woman comes in through a window, headed towards me. She looked creepy, like in a horror movie and when she grabbed my arm, I started to yell until she told me to stop screaming, otherwise angry spirits would come, who she called poltergeists. I understood that she is a living human being. For some reason I thought that she was just another paranormal sighting. Honestly, for a moment I even wished I hadn’t run away from home, but if I stood, I would’ve just gone crazy. Non-stop nagging day in and day out, it sucks and was really getting on my nerves. I was praying for it to stop, but it never did. Thanks to my family I’m full of anger and hatred, but because I keep it all to myself I sometimes burst and outlive it on wrong people. I get irritated by every small thing, which is actually bad, so I thought it would be the best if I left my home, hoping to get happy. Right now I’m in some unknown place, even I don’t know where I am and maybe it’s good. This black-haired woman doesn’t know who I am, nobody knows, who I am, even though there is no-one here, but us.
Right now I’m happy that I left, but I have to get used to the wild lifestyle to survive. I’m thinking that I have to somehow spend the night here and when the morning comes I have to go get myself some food. Right now I’m sitting in front of the house and it’s chilly outside. ‘I should go back inside.’ I think to myself and proceed to do so. Inside I see food on the table and a plate with tableware on both ends of the table. I feel warmth and even get a homely feeling. It’s something I haven’t felt for a long time. Before I ran away, I used to live with my father and grandmother. My life would’ve gone to waste if I had stayed there for any longer, I have to live my life so I can remember something later. Adventures... I love adventures. What kind of a cat would I be, if I didn’t anyways? True, old cats want peace, but I’m young, full of will. In cat years I would be just 2-3 years old, but my age is counted in human years, which makes me 16, soon to be 17 years old. Perhaps you’ve seen a cat who’s sitting on a window with a sad face? That was me, when I was still at home – sad, sunk in thoughts and silent. I merely talked to anyone at home, outside, when I saw my friends I could talk them dead, I got a lot to say, even though I’m a cat, I’m still social when with people I like and humor is involved.
Back at home I had a cat who is at a foster home right now. She was my best friend and we used to talk a lot. The best about it was that nobody could understand us, because we spoke in a cat language that humans don’t speak. I’d like to talk to her right now and show her the wild life, what I have to live right now. For her it would be like remembering her childhood, because she was feral in her kitten hood. Now she is 3 years old, soon 4. Also I’d like to hug her, because I haven’t seen her for a month. Possibly I will go and pick her up some time, because I know the way to my home and the foster home is the next house. Sadly I couldn’t offer her the special cat food, but she loves raw meat very much. Maybe I will build up my life again and go to work, giving up the wild life to get everything back to normal, but now I need adventures I came in search for.
Right now I’m sitting by the table and talk to the woman, she said her name is Marika and she’s 20 years old. It’s weird, because she looks so ragged and is so young. She’s telling me what happened, she lost her parents in a house fire. She also had two younger brothers who also died in the fire, from that day she has been living alone and she was just 7 years old. Her brothers were 2 and they were twins. Marika was the only survivor and she understood immediately that she has to start living alone because she had no family and no relatives because of the curse that kills all of her relatives, but not her and her children. The family got cursed by a witch when her mother was pregnant with her.
“Shall all of you die, but not this child.” the witch had said.
After that the witch said something else too, but Marika’s mother didn’t get it. I was stunned while listening to this and couldn’t get a word out of my mouth. And when she told me how she was looking for her mom when she was younger I just broke into tears. She was so young and couldn’t understand that her mother will never come out from behind the corner, will never call out for her, will never hug her or anything. She was crying all the time, searched for food, water and something to cover her fragile body, because she had nothing. Her home got completely destroyed in the fire, she went there multiple times, but there was nothing but smoking ashes and burnt remains of her family. Such a horrible sight for small eyes, but that’s life, it’s never fair and will never be. She wants to show me the location where she used to live with her family and where she instantly had to become an adult. At the moment we are telling each other about our lives, I tell her about mine and she found some silimarities between us. I, myself, had to become an adult in a very young age when my mother left us. I was 8 years old at the time and I was living with just my father. Most of the time I was alone, because my father was always at work, came home only to eat dinner and go to sleep. My grandmother came to live with us 2 years ago. I’ve acquired lots of wisdom and can do anything I need, I can manage a wild life, I guess. We have a lot in common but that comes from our appearances – we both have brown eyes, mine darker, but still brown and long hair.
We make ourselves makeshift beds on the floor from the mattresses and blankets. There’s no pillows in the house, but they are not that important, the neck might be a little stiff at morning, but that’s alright. I couldn’t actually sleep and I can hear meowing from behind the door, like if there was a cat. I try to respond to the feline in cat language and the meowing gets louder and louder. Suddenly I see a scary human looking creature that meows. My heart is racing 155 beats per minute, I’m hyperventilating and shaking violently. I want to scream and run, but I can’t, I’m in a sleep paralysis. Soon enough Marika feels that something’s wrong and comes to wake me up.
“T-thank you.” I could only say, still scared and eyes wide.
She asked me what happened and when I told her what I saw, she said that it’s very common in this house, because she also experienced when she first came here.
“The poltergeists don’t know you and want to make sure you don’t have anything evil in mind, so they scare you.” she said.
“Are you serious?” I ask.
I couldn’t wrap my head around it and actually I wanted to leave as quickly as humanly possible. Sadly I had nowhere else to go, but I was not sleepy anymore and decided to go hunting. I even found a rifle for that and got a wild boar. During hunting I was thinking about my cat who is definitely waiting for my return. Tomorrow I will go and take her away from there and bring her back here with me, perhaps we could even get rid of those poltergeists, because this kitty has the ability to make them leave. I went back to the house where I spent the night, but sadly I didn’t get much further from the door, because I dropped dead on the doorstep. My spirit leaves the body and nobody will ever hear about me again.
