Cat

Alone in the house, I looked out the window. Searching for the person responsible for the ear piercing screams interrupting my movie night. Someone on my street was throwing a party (I wasn’t invited), and all the screaming was most definitely from the party. I decide to take a walk to the party house, just to make sure no one was dying. Movie night was ruined anyway so an adventure would make my night interesting. Not wanting to walk through the grass, because it’s wet and full of fallen leaves, I walk strictly on the cement. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch. Glancing behind me I check to see if someone is following me. I know that I have not stepped on a single leaf on my walk, and there has been way too much crunching going on. You will not let the paranoia get to you. Do your breathing exercises. During my walk to the (assumed) party house I glance behind me often, still feeling like someone was following me, and see a faded black shadow. Walking towards a cluster of bushes I make my way inside them. Paranoia got to you. My heads starts spinning out of control. I’m going to die tonight at the hands of something unseen. Will my screams be silent? Will I laugh a nervous laugh as the thing takes my last breath? Will I just let it kill me? As the shadow grows larger and my breathing grows shorter, I shrink further into the bushes praying to be hidden from my tormentor. I hear the clinking of the thing’s weapon. Peaking through the bushes I don’t see anything moving around me. The panic quickly set in. Is it toying with me? Letting me think that I’m safe? That it let me live? The bushes around me shuffle. I see the thing. It’s just a cat. A cat has been following me all night. I walk up to the animal and glance at its collar, Ryan. “Aw. Ryan, you had me pretty terrified there. Where’s your owner?” I say at the cat, knowing full well that it cannot answer me. “Behind you love.” I hear the wicked tone in his voice and slowly turn around. “Woah. Woah. Woah. Man, chill out, no need for a knife. Your cat has been following me, I wasn’t gonna take him or anything,” I shuffle backwards, to make some space between myself and the guy. The knife turns glints in the moonlight. Blood. So much blood was on the knife. “Fifteen sounds like a perfect stopping number for tonight.” The screaming wasn’t from the party-- it was from this guy’s victims. The guys was following me, not the cat. Screaming is heard off in the distance, but it’s hard to tell where it’s coming from. All the sounds around me blended together. The sirens. The screams. The sobs. The panic. And worst of all, the laughter.

​Anonymous