The boy with the scar that spread across his left forehead to his lower left cheek gazed at me with an expression that was unsettling in its neutrality.
His smart-looking hair tousled in the wind, and his scholarly appearance exuded a sense of calm.
The scarred boy's dark brown eyes, however, betrayed a faint glimmer of something darker. A playful amusement, perhaps, but it wasn't the kind that brought comfort.
"Don't you think that cat is cute?" His voice was neutral, but there was something in his eyes—a hint of playful malice—that unsettled me. It wasn't reassuring, not in the slightest.
The boy with the blonde hair let out a quiet, insincere chuckle. It wasn't a laugh born of joy but one of hollow politeness, tinged with something colder. A dark amusement that lingered just behind the smile.
His curly blonde hair was on the longer side and his blue eyes seemed icy cold.
"We should introduce it to some friends," he suggested, his grin widening in a way that didn't sit right with me.
I tried to move, but my legs felt like jelly, unresponsive, as though I were trying to walk through thick water, the current pulling me further away from escape.
Without hesitation, the blonde-haired boy scooped me up effortlessly, his strength was something that I could not resist. I struggled, instinctively trying to claw my way free, but my body was too weak, too drained to fight back. If I couldn't escape, I vowed, I'd make them regret ever touching me.
I tried digging my claws into his arm, but it was a futile effort—like scratching at a wall that refused to give. My body was failing me, my claws barely grazing his skin as he shifted me to his side with a fluid motion.
Then, like a rugby pass, he threw me to the scarred boy, the air rushing past me in a nauseating blur. I was airborne for an instant, but there was no ground beneath me, no way to steady myself. I flailed, helpless.
For a moment, I thought I might fly apart midair, but the boy caught me with an ease that made me sick to my stomach. Each time they threw me back and forth, it was like being tossed around in a violent sea—no ground to grasp, no way to control my descent. The nausea rolled over me in waves.
Graffiti marked every surface of the nearby walls, its chaotic splashes undoubtedly created by the unfortunate and unsophisticated.
The smell of nicotine filled the air, heavy and acrid, mingling with the unmistakable stench of decay. The streets were silent—eerily so—but it was a silence that held something uncomfortable within it.
The boys moved through it with casual ease, like this place was nothing more than a dull backdrop to their amusement.
As we walked deeper into the labyrinth of derelict streets, the conditions deteriorated further.
Potholes, cracked stones, and crumbling facades painted a picture of neglect, as if these streets had long since been abandoned by those who could afford to leave leaving only the remainder behind.
The graffiti grew more erratic and desperate as we moved through the streets, as though the artists had lost any sense of coherence or order. The marks were wild, sprawling, their meanings lost to time.
And then, I saw them. People—creatures, really—shuffled past, their eyes dull, their bodies sickly and deformed. Not sick in a natural way, but as though something inside them had long since broken, leaving them hollow and indifferent. They didn't seem to care about the boys or me, like we were all just part of the same rotten world.
As we continued, I began to notice something unsettling about the boys. They weren't friends, not really. Sure, they spoke to each other, shared ideas, but it was like they were just passing through, going through the motions without truly connecting. There was an emptiness to their companionship—like they were more two halves of a whole that didn't quite fit together.
We turned a corner, and the game of toss-and-catch came to an abrupt end. The boys seemed to lose interest, their attention fading as quickly as it had come. It was a welcome relief to me, though my body was still trembling, sick from the relentless motion. But my relief was short-lived. The smell of urine and faeces thickened in the air, and the chaotic shouting from nearby houses—neighbours, perhaps—created a cacophony of dissonant noise. The place felt alive in a way that was unsettling, as though it thrived on its own madness.
Eventually, we arrived at a building. It looked like every other run-down structure on the street—old, faded, and neglected. But there was something off about it, something I couldn't quite place.
The stone walls were cracked and overgrown with moss. The holes in the walls had been filled with rough timber planks, aged and weathered by time. But the door—despite the decay surrounding it—was pristine, thick wood with tightly-knit grains, a strange contrast to everything else. A rusty metallic chain ran across it, a complicated lock hanging from its centre, worn but still functional.
The scarred boy fished a key from his pocket and slid it into the lock. It clicked open with a loud thud, the sound echoing through the street. For some reason, the noise brought me a small, twisted sense of calm—it was a single, grounding noise amidst the madness.
The boy scooped up the lock from the ground and tucked it under his arm before pushing the door open.
Inside, the air hit me like a wave of heat and suffocation. A maelstrom of wild voices raged around me—a cacophony of barking, meowing, and other anguished cries, all distorted by the desperation of the creatures trapped within.
As my eyes adjusted, I saw the source of the noise: animals—dozens of them, all crammed into small cages. Dogs, cats, goats, and creatures I couldn't name. Their bodies pressed against the bars of their prisons, their faces twisted in agony, and their cries—frenzied and desperate—filled the room.
In each cage was an animal, some alive, others dead.
My heart, now the heart of a cat, began to pound harder.
I was no longer just a cat in this place—I felt my instincts flare, the frantic pulse of fear rising in my chest. It wasn't just the noise, or the cramped cages—it was the overwhelming sense of helplessness and hysteria that gnawed at me from the inside.
"Put him in that cage over there," the scarred boy ordered, his voice cold and uncaring.
With a harsh crash, I was thrown into the cage. The impact was deafened by the constant roar of animal voices. I tried to steady myself but immediately stumbled, falling out of the cage once more.
The plain looking boy sighed and grabbed me by the scruff, shoving me back into the small, filthy enclosure.
And just like that, they turned and left walking through the door.
The door slammed shut behind them, and with it, the noise was trapped inside, bouncing off the walls, growing louder, more suffocating. The constant barrage of sound—the barks, the meows, the desperate cries—felt like they were chipping away at my sanity. I could almost feel the rhythm of it, the heartbeat of the room, pushing me closer and closer to madness.
The flickering light overhead only served to make things worse, like a slow, rhythmic hammering that was wearing away at my sanity.
Days blended together. My body, already frail and thin, wasted away further. The boys came every few days, always bringing more animals. Sometimes they fed us, sometimes not. But it was always the bare minimum—enough to keep us alive, but never enough to fill my belly.
The stench of waste became unbearable, and my once-beautiful black fur was matted and stained. I no longer had the strength to resist or even care. The light in the centre of the room flickered in a maddening rhythm, its unreliable pulse echoing through my mind like the clang of a hammer against an anvil.
The noise—the endless, pointless noise—became my world. The barking, the meowing, the hopeless sounds of creatures driven mad by their confinement. There was no rhyme, no reason. Only the need to make noise, to fill the emptiness with sound.
And I became one of them. A prisoner of sound, of futility. I scratched at the bars, meowed for no reason, just another cog in the machine of madness.
But then, something changed.
A noise—different from the usual clamour—pierced the haze of madness. A loud crash. The door creaked open.
Not the boys. These were different figures, clothed in dark uniforms, their faces unreadable.
For the first time in what felt like an eternity, something inside me stirred.
Hope. It was small, fragile, but it grew, pushing against the walls of despair. Could this be the end of my torment?
Am I finally free? I thought, though I knew no one could understand me.
But hope had planted its seed in my heart, and for the first time, I felt the weight of it pull me back from the edge of madness.
For the first time since my arrival in this forsaken place, I allowed myself to believe—truly believe—that freedom wasn't a distant dream. It wasn't a cruel illusion lingering just beyond my grasp. No, it was real, tangible, and for the first time, I could feel it, as if it was waiting for me just beyond the horizon, within reach, ready to pull me from the abyss.
The chains of despair that had bound me for so long began to tremble, and a surge of hope, wild and untamed, ignited deep within me. This was no longer a hopeless existence. The door to my escape had been opened—and I was ready to step through it, no matter the cost.
Something in me told me that this might be the moment when everything changes.