The room was drenched in silence, thick and suffocating.
I, the cat, rose from my comfortable spot on the couch, stretching my limbs lazily, before settling back into a regal position beside the farmers. My body stretched out luxuriously across the cushions, fur sleek and unruffled, and my eyes, sharp and calculating, never once wavered from the four men standing before us.
They were dressed in pristine suits—dark, almost oppressive in their sharpness, their ties perfectly knotted, their polished shoes gleaming in the dim light. Each one seemed a carbon copy of the other, stiff and unyielding, their expressions unreadable.
The leader, a man with sharp, angular features and eyes that seemed too cold for a human, gave me a long, deliberate look. It wasn't the curiosity of a pet lover, nor the disinterest of a passing observer—it was the cold assessment of someone used to control, to power. After a beat of uncomfortable silence, his lips parted, and his voice rang out, low and mocking, slicing through the quiet.
"I prefer dogs," he said, the corners of his mouth curling into a slight, disdainful smile, as if I were beneath his attention—beneath even his contempt.
The man beside him, taller with a sharper, more condescending air about him, glanced at the leader before turning to his companions. "I agree. Dogs are loyal, obedient. You tell a dog to tear a human apart, it probably would. A cat, though?" He trailed off, the words hanging in the air like a sneer. "I'm not so sure."
I remained unmoved, my eyes half-lidded in that bored way that cats so often adopt when they are being underestimated. They were playing some sort of game, testing each other, testing the farmers—testing me.
The silence settled again, before it was broken by the female farmer. Her voice trembled slightly, but there was a strength in it that I couldn't ignore. "So, what do you want?"
It was simple, direct, but it carried the weight of someone who knew her world was teetering on the edge of chaos. The four men did not respond immediately. Instead, they exchanged cool, almost rehearsed glances. Then, without a word, they placed their suitcases on the table between them—a subtle gesture, but deliberate. Every move they made seemed calculated, measured for impact.
With exaggerated care, they opened one of the cases.
The contents were not a surprise, but the revelation was. Inside the suitcase lay a sleek, black pistol—a weapon of cold, clinical death. The way the metal gleamed under the low light, the silence that followed its unveiling, was disturbing.
The female farmer gasped—sharp and involuntary—her hand flying to her mouth as though she could somehow swallow the terror rising in her throat.
Before anyone could react, the leader spoke again, his voice slow and deliberate, a calculated threat hanging in each word.
"If you move, we will kill all of you."
His words were not raised, not shouted—but they carried the full weight of authority, of finality.
For a long moment, no one moved, not even the air. I could almost feel the collective breath being held—an invisible force pressing down on all of us. I shifted slightly, curling my tail tighter around my paws. They were addicted to the silence, I realized—these men who wore their power like a skin, eager to stretch out each moment for maximum effect. It was childish, really. A game to heighten tension. But it was effective. Silence was, in some cases, terrifying.
The male farmer's voice broke the stillness. "Why are you doing this?" The question trembled on his lips. But beneath it all, there was a spark of defiance—fragile, but real.
The leader leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled in front of him. His posture was a study in calm, in control. His eyes never left the farmer as he spoke, his voice smooth like oil but with an edge of something even thicker.
"Orders from the top," he said, his tone dismissive, as though the answer was as trivial as it was inevitable. "But don't take it personally. It has nothing to do with you, really. More to do with the higher-ups'... crazed delusion that aliens exist."
The leader's lips twisted into a mocking smile as he chuckled, as though the very thought of it was too absurd to be taken seriously. "Can you believe it? These are the people running the country, and they still believe in something as childish as aliens."
Two of the men had already risen from their seats, casually strolling toward the kitchen. They seemed strangely relaxed rummaging through cabinets as if they had all the time in the world. The absurdity of their nonchalance was almost enough to break the tension—almost.
"Anything to drink?" one of them called over his shoulder, his tone too carefree for the situation.
The male farmer swallowed hard, trying to maintain some semblance of control. "Tea," he said, though his voice cracked with the effort.
"Denied!" came the sudden, harsh reply, the man's voice rising with a manic edge. He burst into laughter then—hysterical and exaggerated—throwing his head back as though the situation were some sort of dark comedy.
The leader, however, did not laugh. His gaze remained cold, focused, pinning the male farmer like a specimen under a microscope.
"But in all seriousness," he said, his voice dropping low, a warning hidden behind the casual tone, "do you have a gun in this building?"
The male farmer didn't hesitate. "No," he said, the word coming out too quickly, too urgently. His eyes darted subconsciously towards the female farmer, a flicker of panic in his gaze.
The atmosphere shifted. The men's amusement vanished like smoke, replaced by something much darker. The leader's gaze turned hard, unblinking—like a predator preparing to strike.
"You realize," he said, his voice dangerously quiet, "if you're lying to me, I'll shoot you."
The words hung in the air like a final ultimatum.
The leader's eyebrow quirked as if he were a conductor, orchestrating the performance, before reaching for his own cup of tea. He swirled it slowly, deliberately, before pouring it—no, flinging it—onto the couch with a casual flick of his wrist. The hot liquid splashed against the fabric, sizzling as it soaked into the cushions, leaving a dark stain in its wake.
A moment of pause, and then the leader's voice broke the quiet again, softer now, almost affectionate in a twisted way. "Let me tell you a story," he said, his voice smooth and unsettling.
"There was once a child, much like any other. On the surface, his life seemed full of promise. He had a bright future ahead of him. But then, as time passed, things began to unravel. He spiralled. He found comfort in alcohol, drugs, gambling—the things that offered fleeting moments of escape."
The leader's eyes never left the male farmer, but his gaze seemed to grow distant, as though he were reliving the story in his mind. "The child sought solace in delusion, in things that made him feel good—temporary relief. But that relief never lasted. Soon, he couldn't afford the things that once numbed his pain. Anger took root. A bitterness he could not escape."
The leader's voice dropped lower, as though savouring the darker parts of the story. "One night, the child was sleeping outside, abandoned and broken. A man found him. A man full of pity, who offered the child something more—something real, something that would help him rise from his ruin."
He paused, watching the male farmer closely. "The child did not trust easily, but the man... he took care of him. He educated him, guided him, showed him a different path. And for a time, it worked. The child began to recover. But there was fear in his heart. Fear of being abandoned, of being cast aside. And so, he did everything the man asked."
The leader's voice became even more chilling. "But one day, the child came home and found the man changed. The man was different—cold, distant. And when the child spoke to him, the man simply asked, 'Would you do anything for me?'"
The leader's lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "The child nodded. He would do anything. The man handed him a drug. The very thing that had once torn him apart."
He let the words sink in. "The child refused. He had fought so hard to escape it and did not want to relive the same path of pain. But the man—he laughed. He laughed, and the child gave in. Loyalty triumphs experience, the man told him. And so, the boy, desperate to please, took the drug."
The leader's smile twisted, a dark satisfaction in his voice. "But as soon as the boy took it, he felt nothing but emptiness. The euphoria didn't come. The man's smile twisted as he saw the boy's disappointment."
"Later that night, the boy found the man on the roof, standing at the edge. He called out to him, but the man didn't respond. The boy ran to him, frantic, begging him to come back. But it was too late. The man leaned back and fell, his body hitting the ground with a sickening thud."
The leader's eyes were now cold as steel. "The boy was left with nothing but the remnants of his failure. And in the end, he died. Alone, in the gutter, with no one to remember him. His life had become a hollow shell, wasted on a lie, a futile attempt to escape the truth."
He leaned forward, his voice a low whisper now. "The boy? He died of an overdose, but no one noticed. No one cared."
"That was until the smell of the body rotting."
The leader's smile returned, cruel and cold. "Or was it the smell of addiction. The smell of weakness. The smell of humanity. Who does truly know?"