Ninth Life

This happened when I first started my job  It had been a stressful week, but it was Friday, and I didn't have to work on the weekends. I was driving to work, and I must not have been paying enough attention to the road. I saw this cat right in front of me, and I hit it. I braked first, but it wasn't enough.

I pulled over and got out of my car to check on it. It was someone's pet. He just sorta looked at me, gasping for breath. He was certainly dying. He also had a collar, but the collar was really gross, covered in blood, and I was late to work. I just drove off. Oh god, the look on his face, you wouldn't believe. It just looked so betrayed, hopeless, and lost. It stuck around in my head the entire day. I took a different route getting home.

Here's where things started getting weird. When i got home, I could have sworn I saw the cat in my parking space. It wouldn't be unusual for it to have been a stray, but it looked just like that cat. Even his face, it was the same. He quickly ran away before I could get a closer look at him. I looked up online what do if you hit a cat. To be a good samaritan I was supposed to ask around and get ahold of the owners. Yeah, I wasn't going to do that. I just wished it would go away, but it didn't.

That night, I don't remember if it was a dream, or a memory, but the cat walked up to me, and slept with me. I told him it would be alright, that he was going to a better place. Then he walked right up to my face, and swiped at me. It woke me, and the sun was shining, but I remembered it being how I went to sleep. He left little swipe marks across my cheek. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what happened.

So, by this point, I figured I had some freaky cat haunting me. I figured it would just go away soon, though. I ran my errands, bought some groceries. I bought a dream catcher, too. I figured it was too late to do anything about the cat. Things got freaky that night, though. I don't know how to say it. I'll try. Here's what happened.

The night started off pleasant. I thought the cat had gone. When I woke up, it was there, right in front of me. I tried to move, tried to swing at it, but I couldn't. My entire body was paralyzed. He was just there staring at me, and it started pulling my soul out of my mouth. I can't explain the sensation. The cat was just there, and i couldn't breathe, and I didn't need to breathe. He started pulling the breath out of me, and I was going along with it. I could see what was beyond as well. I could see the fires of hell, and feel the pain I was destined to feel. It was trying to carry me into damnation, to take me early to punish me for my sins.

I woke up, and regained my senses, but I knew I had to stop it somehow. I decided to try to make peace with the cat. I went back to the scene of the crime. The cat had dragged itself into a ditch to die. I checked its tag and tracked down its owners. They were forgiving, considering, but I made sure that they would give the cat a proper burial. That's the last I ever saw of it.