I’ve tried to wipe the image from my mind— of her, in that casket, pale and dead as a ghost.

I try and I try, but it won’t go away. The emotionless face, the eyeless sleep.

_That wasn’t her._ I tell myself, cold. _It_ wasn’t her. I knew her— a living, breathing being, with flowing blood and flowing laughte_r. I knew her. _

The sky is always cold and grey— at least, that’s what it is in my eyes. There are not enough souls in the world, not anymore. There is not enough life, and there never will be again. Not ever.

The people are nothing but faceless masks, soundless words, long dead feelings. They are nothing, and neither am I.

I am sitting on a bench, and I hear a small sound—

_Mrrow? _

It’s a bony black cat, his face holding two yellow moons that lock my gaze.

My chest is seared with pain, and I turn myself away from the pitiful creature. I can’t, and won’t, think about those animals.

I get up and walk home.

It follows me. I hear wiry pawsteps on concrete, and hoarse, quiet mewing. It goes to leap through my door and I almost kick it— my foot held stiffly over its head, my eyes back over its tortured face. But I lower myself, and I slam the door.

The next day yeilds two more, following behind me, singing their crying, dying voices. White and orange, orange and black. Crooked whiskers and desperate eyes.

The day after that there are five— striped and gray, blue-eyed white. They cry, louder and louder, begging me, screaming for me, waiting for me. I try to ignore them but they won’t stop. I see them when I close my eyes. I hear them when I sleep.

The fourth day there are eight.

They’re haunting me.

Like echoes of her voice, dark tendrils of her hair, lithe, withered fragments of her body.

I try to shoo them away but all they do is circle back, whining and moaning, their ribs heaving through their sides. They’re starving, and they’ll die without her.

I’ve considered speeding up the process. Poison, antifreeze. Fox traps, maybe, though that seems too gruesome. But I reserve myself— that would be too callous, even for me. They can waste away by themselves, and then this will all be over. She will leave me.

She loved those cats. She’d bring them something every morning— stroke their faces, while I watched her through the window. Then she’d come inside and kiss me on the cheek, tell me, _Casper is doing well today! And Georgie has brought one of her kittens, isn’t that wonderful? _

Eyes bright, full of joy, alive.

And I would kiss her back, and tell her, _That is wonderful, dear. Which one is Georgie? _And have her tell me all about it, for as long as she felt like, fresh cups of coffee in our hands and smiles in our lips.

But now she is dead. And they, too, will die— _should_ die, without her. Because how could the world ever go on without her? Without her song and her warm loving fingertips; without her softness, which once cloaked the world in color and in light.

Out on the doorstep lies the black cat, unmoving. His eyes are closed, his tail curled around his frail cold form.

I’m hit with something— feeling, perhaps. Regret? No, I don’t regret. But as I stare at his crumpled form, I feel a sinking in my stomach, and my hands grow cold as ice. As I crouch before him, I see his chest ever so slightly rise, and then fall.

There is little time more. This cat will die, unless I feed it.

Losing control of myself, of the creature I’d been forced to become, my body carries to the kitchen. I set about taking the chicken from the fridge and chopping its flesh to small pieces.

I lay a saucer in front of the dark creature, and the smell stirs it from death.

In his eyes, now looking up to me again, I see hers— waking from deep slumber, and smiling once more.

[ Okay, I feel like maybe there’s issues with the pacing here. This is another story I might end up making a second draft of, which would probably be a little longer for better impact. Any advice on this is welcome! ]