"Say, you put one card next to another one every day." The devil speaks to me languidly, "Every day, you add one more card until you see a castle of cards in front of you. You have given so much effort and care to build this castle. In the end, it becomes your only reality. One day, someone pulls a single card. You watch it crumble and you can't do anything. You look at the cards lying on the floor. Then, it occurs to you how fragile your world is."
I stare at the calico cat on the bench, lying with his two arms and legs pointed in four directions with his green eyes looking at the night sky. It has been slit vertically from the top of the head to its anus. There's not a single drop of blood, not even on its fur. His intestines have been tied around his neck like a leash.
Someone screams. I watch the woman cover her mouth and look at the cat with a horrified expression. She is tapping her phone's screen with her trembling fingers. She meets my gaze once. Her face turns pale. She runs away, shrieking like a maniac.
The calico cat is sitting only five feet away from me. He licks his paw and remarks with a voice as sweet as the sound of the cello, "Why are you surprised? You should have noticed that I was quiet since you left the station."
"I don't understand," I mumble.
"You are in shock." The calico cat circles around me. His dead body is still lying cold on the bench. "This is a tight slap on your reality. Are you upset? Are you? You are upset. Kekekekekeke!"
My heart is numb. I don't know how to answer the devil. I don't know what reality he's talking about. It's not strange if I start seeing hallucinations. I already know that my mind is breaking. It's inevitable. What is my reality?
"I can become your only reality." The cat chuckles with the same voice of the devil that I used to hear in my head. "If you can still close your eyes and believe in me."
I take a seat beside the corpse of the cat. I hold my head. This morning, I met a calico cat.
In my house, I saw the cat with my mother. Now, I know what was odd. My mother disliked cats and yet, she was fine with the calico cat.
The calico cat never followed me. My mind has deteriorated enough for the devil to manifest before me as the calico cat that is already dead. Then, why could my mother see it?
"Why, indeed?" The devil's tail brushes against my calf. "I wonder why too. I didn't expect her to see me."
Ah! She's not real either, is she?
"Kekekeke!" The devil laughs. "Do you hate the person who destroyed your castle of cards?"
In front of my eyes, I see an old memory unfold. I see the lifeless body of my mother beside my stepfather. Both of them left the world that day. I must have buried it seven years ago. I cremated their bodies and poured their ashes to the ocean. When I came back home, I saw my mother waiting for me.
"You didn't question it." The devil's green eyes shine in amusement. "If you had questioned once, that reality would have been broken."
Someone else broke it.
"If I had known that the cat would be killed, I wouldn't have taken its form." The devil sighs. It squeezes his eyes and stretches his body. "It was getting boring anyway. You kept repeating the same day for years. You are also tired. You were living because you thought that your mother would be left behind. Now, you have no one. It's time to say goodbye to the world, Nell."
Why am I fighting this? I have nothing left.
"That's true, Nell. You have no family left. What are you living for? You should have jumped into the ocean that day after your mother died. But, you clung to life like a --"
The devil becomes quiet. I realize that I am surrounded by a crowd. They are watching me with widened eyes. I couldn't smell the blood of the calico cat, but I could smell my tears. A police officer comes forward. I could see his mouth moving, but I couldn't hear a voice.
My mind is crumbling down. The devil is staring at something. I follow his gaze and see Eli Sanguine standing among the crowd. He is carrying that recipe book in his hand. His yellowish amber eyes are shimmering like the stars.
The touch of cold metal around my wrist startles me. The officer grabs my arm and pulls me away from the bench. I look over my head. Eli Sanguine is already gone.