we've come so far somehow
Panic was bursting in the young cat’s chest as he sprinted down the empty street, claws scrabbling against the pavement painfully. He could hear his panting all too clearly against his mask and it was making it harder to breathe but it was the only form of protection he had left.
Cynque felt naked without his cloak or talisman but they were gone now, too far away for him to make it to them in time. They’d gotten caught on a fence and the spirit had blindsided him - his instincts had told him to cut his losses and run.
Except that wasn’t the smartest move; those had been protecting him against said spirit and now he was running for his life with no end goal.
Cynque had never been on this side of the town before, he’d never needed to be. He had no idea where he was going and in his adrenaline-fueled blind sprint, he’d gone down an alley that was blocked off by a chain-link fence. The small black cat glanced over his shoulder quickly before launching himself up toward the top, climbing up and over it and catching his front right paw on a loose end of sharp wire when he threw himself down on the other side.
Cynque let out a soft hiss at the pain and stopped for a split second to lick at the wound. He glanced over his shoulder again and saw the wispy spirit closing in on him, and he had to ignore the pain and run again.
His lungs felt like they were on fire and his pants were becoming wheezes. He refused to give up though, and he sprinted down a small side street. This one ended in a taller fence, one he wasn’t sure he’d be able to scale in time. One look over his shoulder confirmed this, and he whipped around to face the menacing spirit behind him. He’d be damned if he died while he was trying to run away like a coward, he could at least face his death when it came for him.
The spirit was just as he’d remembered from all those years ago when it’d killed his sister. It was vaguely dog-like in the face, with pupiless eyes staring at him blankly. Otherwise, it was just a mass of black mist.
Cynque winced and let his other legs take the weight off his wounded paw so he could lift it. The spirit wouldn’t judge him for this, surely. It was just here to kill him.
Perhaps the worst part of this was that Cynque would never know if it was to preserve the secret that he and his sister had discovered or whether the spirit had wanted the power all to itself. Were its intentions good or bad? Was Cynque the villain in its story? He’d never know.
“You caught me.” Cynque tried to sound brave or even defiant, but his voice was breathless and shaking as much as he was. He was terrified. “Go on, then. Kill me.”
The spirit stared at him for a long while. Cynque did nothing but stand there, shaking, waiting for his demise. Staring it right in the eyes almost defiantly.
The spirit huffed softly, but all Cynque felt was the icy dead-of-night breeze that lightly ruffled his fur and cooled him down everywhere but where the skull mask sat on his face. Despite his terror, Cynque decided that this was a nice night to die.
It slowly approached him and Cynque shook harder but stood his ground. He would stare death in the face as it came for him. This was the last way, the only way he could be dignified. But when the spirit touched him, it was gentle - not that he could really feel much more beyond a cool presence on his shoulder, but it was almost as if it wasn’t trying to kill him.
‘You learned an important lesson that day, Cynque,’ a deep voice spoke in his head, definitely foreign and not one that he’d ever heard before. Not that he’d ever really had voices in his head besides his sister’s.
‘I’m sorry you had to learn it that way.’
Cynque’s vision was filled with… himself. As if his life was flashing before his eyes - and it was. It was him, renouncing his past and moving on with his life, deciding to help and befriend others, slowly moving on from that horrible incident that had shattered his life.
As Cynque’s vision came back to reality and he blinked the flashbacks away, he looked up into the emotionless eyes of the spirit and felt… confused. “... You’re letting me go?”
‘All these years, I’ve been trying to tell you that it was okay. At first, I did mean to kill you. But then I realized you knew better now. Had you taken off your protection sooner, I would’ve told you long ago.’
An odd, numb sense of relief washed over Cynque. He wasn’t going to die? He was… okay? The spirit didn’t want to kill him?
The apparition blinked at him. ‘You paid a hefty price for meddling with the spirit realm. Now you know better. You should not be punished further for that.’
Cynque began to wonder what would’ve happened had the spirit not killed his sister. He still missed her dearly, but surely the power would’ve corrupted the both of them. It would’ve ended poorly, he was sure of that. Perhaps that was what her death meant. It was one hell of a warning.
“I’m sorry,” Cynque said softly.
‘I’m sorry too.’ The spirit blinked at him once more and then faded from existence. A weight lifted off of Cynque’s shoulders and he blinked, exhaled sharply through his mouth. He was… okay. The thing that had been chasing him for years was gone.
Cynque slowly limped back home.