Kitty vs Alien (Feral Aliens)

by Loki Renard

  Somewhere between the tenth and eleventh orgasm, I find the strength to slide off the toy. He may come back and punish me, but my sex is so tender I don’t think I can take another orgasm.

  I try to gather my thoughts. What was the code out of here and to Scratch City? That’s where I need to go. That’s where my cat, and my way home has to be.

  I think the code was either 42 21 99, or 99 21 42. Or maybe it was 24 12 99, or maybe…. Aw, hell. I’ll try something. I have to try something. I can’t sit here, paralyzed with indecision, remembering Skoll’s threat to punish me once he finds me. What he doesn’t know is that I don’t care if he hurts me. Pain is inevitable. Freedom is not.

  Slipping up to the wall, I try the first combination. The wall shimmers and I peek through, except it does nothing. This isn’t like a curtain through which you can look. This is like… some other thing. You have to be in all the way, or it doesn’t work.

  I don’t know the code for this mountain, so once I go through, I have to keep going. There is no coming back. Once I take this step into oblivion, oblivion may very well claim me. It would be safer to stay here on the mountain, to put myself back on the vibrating toy and wait for Skoll to return, perhaps to praise me.

  But I can’t do that.

  The future is beckoning me. An infinite array of options, destinations, and possible futures shimmers ahead. I take the step and find myself…

  “What are you doing!? Oh my god! What even are you!”

  There is a naked lady grimalkin and I appear to have portalled directly into her dressing room. She is naked. I can’t help noticing that she has six breasts in three rows of two, located on the lower half of her upper body.

  She does not appear to enjoy my confused staring.

  “Sorry!”

  “ARRRGHHH!” she screams again, just pointing and screaming and bouncing up on her toes, trying to get away from me.

  “Could I maybe…” I point at a super cute little dress that’s hanging up near me. It’s black with claw marks cut into it. It’s a far cry from the overalls and baggy sweaters I used to wear, but it’s clothing, and at this point, I’ll take anything to stop being naked. “Could I…” I reach out and take it. Being naked is a real problem. If nothing else, it’s cold. But mostly it’s humiliating. It makes me feel like an animal and I don’t want to be like an animal. I want to be civilized. I want to be recieved with something other than a high-pitched scream and a cry for help.

  I grab the dress and she shrieks as if she’s seen a rat. I am vermin on this planet. That’s fine. I will at least be well-dressed vermin.

  I pull the dress on over my head. This brings action from the grimalkin female who grabs a broom from where it completely doesn’t belong in her wardrobe, and starts hitting me with it, the bristles abrasive on my skin, before the head of the broom threatens to knock me unconscious. She is much, much stronger than I am.

  I dash back into the portal. The broom smashes the coordinates pad and sends me…

  Bright light assaults my eyes. It is an artificial glow, as if a thousand fluorescent lights were all turned on at once.

  I cast my hands over my brows and try to block out the bulk of it. Doing so allows me to see that I am standing in a very bright white square of space, having just leaped out of a wall.

  “Out of the way!” someone growls impatiently, shoving into me.

  There are many dozens of grimalkin here, rushing back and forth with their own personal agendas, barely looking at one another, certainly not paying any attention to me. I’ve been places like this before. I…

  “Ooof!”

  I am pushed aggressively out of the way by someone who just came through the shimmering gate behind me.

  “Get out of the way! You’re blocking traffic!” the grimalkin says, with an intonation which strongly implies there could be no greater sin than to block traffic. God forbid the traffic be blocked, however temporarily.

  But I can’t be mad at him. I’ve gotten annoyed at people blocking the aisles in grocery stores, and what I’m doing is probably way more annoying.

  I slip to the side and press myself back up against the actual wall, the place people aren’t leaping out of. Grimalkin. Not people. I can’t let myself start to see this place as normal, though I can’t help it. The sight of whiskers and fangs and feline fur is beginning to become commonplace. It might even seem stranger to see human faces at this point. When I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the shimmering wall, my eyes seem very wide, my face very pale and bare. I feel strange in myself, though oddly, the city itself does not feel so odd.

  The major difference between Scratch City and any given human city is that this one doesn’t have any particular place for vehicular traffic. I guess there’s no need for cars or buses when you can just walk into the shining wall of your choosing and end up where you want to be. I’m surprised there’s so much foot traffic at all, but I guess the walls are probably expensive and more likely to go into zones rather than individual buildings, unless those buildings are owned by rich grimalkin. Which means I have a higher than average chance of running into the elite of this world.

  There are statues everywhere, lining the streets, dozens upon dozens of what I suppose must be revered grimalkin honored with marble-looking erections in their honor. They stand almost twice as tall as I do, their cold pale eyes looking over the citizens of their city who pay them no mind.

  I feel a chill of awe. This is like being inside a living cathedral. I do not know what the grimalkin worship, but as far as I can tell, it is probably themselves. Each and every one of them seems completely fixated on their own personal mission to the exclusion of all others. The place is eerily silent. Grimalkin do not make a lot of noise when they move. Even wearing footwear there is relatively little sound as their feet fall, so the aural scape of this city is incredibly quiet, a sort of mass ASMR hush of rustling and motion.

  White appears to be the favorite color for clothing, though many of them have splashes of color reminiscent of their own markings across their own attire. One white-suit-clad grimalkin wears red slashes down one arm, as if the wilderness of his spirit might break through the restraint of his attire.

  These are all very dangerous creatures, each and every one an apex predator in his or her own right. I don’t know what they have to worry about which keeps them rushing from travel wall to travel wall, but there’s something very important motivating them all, apparently.

  REEEEEOOOWWW!

  A sudden snarling and spitting nearby makes me turn, concerned for my safety. Have I been caught? Or am I about to become prey? I swing around, expecting to see claws and jaws descending on me. But they are not. I seem to remain invisible to these busy creatures who care not for a lost human looking for a way home.

  The noise is coming from two younger grimalkin fighting one another in the middle of the great marble square. I don’t know what their quarrel is about, but I know nobody seems to notice or care. Back on Earth, we used to give each other shit for paying too much attention to cellphones, but it turns out you can not give a shit about others without the need for technology at all.

  Claws are extended. Contact is made. Blood is shed, but the grimalkin just flow around the carnage as if it isn’t there as two bodies become a writhing mass of powerful feline rage.

  I don’t like seeing the violence escalating before my eyes. Bright red sanguine stains are flowing over the pristine white marble, dripping away into the carefully designed drains which have been ornamentally made to look as pleasing and artistic.

  I keep expecting somebody to stop it. One of the grimalkin must be a police person, or their equivalent of it. But if they are, they don’t care. The red smears are cast over the pristine surfaces of shining stone until one of the combatants lies awfully still.

  Only then does anything happen. A few grimalkin emerge from the crowd. The wounded, perhaps killed beast is loaded onto a stretcher and carried off into the swirl of others. The victor turns
and limps off in the other direction, leaving blood, viscera, and fur sticking in a big animal mess in the middle of the square. I stare, horrified, until a set of sprinklers apparently designed for the purpose activate and wash the carnage away.

  I have the feeling that space is designated specifically for that activity. It seems barbaric and nasty, but it does not shock or even particularly interest the crowds. They do not feel any compulsion to join in, to take sides with the aggressor or the victim. I don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified.

  WATCH CRIMINALS DIE | ARENA CODE 23 67 99

  A shining sign appears in the fall of water. Oh god. That was a live advertisement for some kind of carnival circus of death, I think. I can’t be sure, but I’m not going to stick around and find out. My stomach churns, the passive expressions of all the passing grimalkin seeming even more perverse than before.

  I want to get away from here more than ever. I have to find my way to the place where shuttles leave for Earth. I have to get back to a more ordinary world, because I don’t think I can get used to this one. I want so badly to find Mr Tiddles. The idea of leaving without him makes my stomach churn.

  I shuffle back to the shimmering travel wall, try to push a number, but before I can someone reaches over me, slams in a combination, and pushes me through. I don't think they mean to bring me with them. I think I’m just so much of a complete irrelevance to them they try to walk through me.

  Light turns to dark immediately. I can’t tell if we’ve gone across the planet, or if we’re in the same city, and I guess on a planet like Purr, it doesn’t really matter. The travel walls make everything one big sort of single place.

  Whether it is the same city geographically, or the equivalent of another country, this isn’t the bright bustling metropolis I just saw. This is more like Brooklyn, New York in the 1980’s. There’s graffiti literally everywhere, covering every surface in a series of bright scrawls and bold markings.

  There are fewer grimalkin here, and they are clustered in small groups for the most part, moving in what I’d call packs. I do not feel safe, but I do feel intrigued.

  Again, nobody is really paying attention to me. They have their own dramas playing out between them. There’s a lot more hissing and growling here, sort of an omnipresent sound of grimalkin discontent. But nobody is being slaughtered in the street for amusement, and they seem, for the most part, happy. The clothing they wear is rougher and cheaper, worn through at the elbows and knees.

  I’m still not seeing what I need. There’s nothing that looks remotely like a bicycle, let alone a ship. I am starting to despair. I may have escaped Skoll, but if I am left to wander around the planet with no concept of where I am going or what I am doing, it is not much of an escape.

  A vendor walks by, pushing a cart from which the most magnificent food scent is emerging. He has one eye, the other seems to have been sewn closed. The remaining eye is green and seems to be warm. He has the demeanor of a shyster and a liar, which is fine by me. I am a criminal on this world, and I need to associate with those who are not interested in turning me in.

  “Hello,” I say.

  “Hello. What are you supposed to be?”

  “I really don’t know.”

  That seems to satisfy the vendor.

  “Hungry?”

  “I don’t have any money,” I tell him.

  “Oh. Sucks to be you.”

  “It does.”

  “What are you doing here? You don't look like you’re from here.”

  “I’m looking for my cat.”

  “Your cat, huh. What’s a cat?”

  “It’s like an animal, but it’s small and…”

  He suddenly leans back and points at me. “I know what you are! You’re a human! Wow. I didn’t know we were taking human immigration. That will be an absolute nightmare, if so.”

  “I don’t think you are, officially.”

  “Oh well, as long as it is unofficial, that’s fine. Things don’t count if they’re unofficial. Welcome to Scratch City,” he says, handing me a chunk of meat festooned with sour cream.

  “Thank you!” I dig my teeth into the meal and feel the immediate relief of not being half as hungry. There’s nothing like a big chunk of meat to satisfy and satiate, that’s what I always think, and the more I eat, the more I think it.

  “I wish I had something to give you, but all I have is my stolen dress and this chain I can’t get off from around my neck.”

  “Ah yes, quite a pretty chain,” the vendor says with what I’m sure he wouldn’t want me to think was a leer. “Why don’t you come with me? I’ve got a lot more where that came from. We might even be able to find your… what was it again? Cat?”

  The invitation makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. He offers it in a friendly enough fashion, but in a place like this, friendly overtures are almost more frightening than being ignored.

  He’s a stranger, after all. I’m taking a stranger’s meat. This feels wrong. It feels like the very behavior I’ve been warned about since I was old enough to heed warnings.

  “I’m just going to keep looking around, thanks.”

  He shrugs as if he doesn’t care. “Don’t expect too much more free food around these parts. This is a rough neighborhood. There’s plenty who’d take you for meat rather than giving you any to eat.”

  “I might try another place, then. Why would anyone stay here when you can just walk through a wall and be somewhere else?”

  “You don’t always end up where you want to go,” he says, leaning on his elbow on his cart with a devil-may-care, rakish sort of pose. “The authorities can pluck you right out of transit space.”

  “Huh. They haven’t done it so far. And they’re looking for me, so…”

  “They will soon enough. We outlaws, criminals, and knowledge holders don’t use those gates. They track you with them and read your thoughts.”

  “Read your thoughts?”

  “Indeed. And when you use the gates, they can take that opportunity to implant you with devices that follow you and send information to them constantly.”

  “Who is they?”

  “The authorities, of course, those who saw power and grasped it with both hands. Those who can put up with being hated in return for being able to manipulate the rest of us.”

  He sounds crazy, but everything about this world is crazy. I don’t know if what he’s saying is absolutely true, or complete conspiracy fantasy. I do know that he fed me because I look hungry and that sort of kindness is not common here. So he’s either super nice, or he wants something from me.

  “Where do I go if I want to get a ship off the planet?”

  He cocks his head to the side and smirks at me as if I am a simple animal who is too silly to understand anything. “You don’t get a ship off this planet. Doesn’t happen.”

  “It has to happen. I was brought here on a ship.”

  He cocks his head back the other way. “Were you?”

  That’s actually a very good question. I assumed I had been brought on a ship. One moment I was fighting with the alien in my back yard, the next I was in the giant kitty carrier. Maybe there was no ship. I’ve been looking for a space port, but I haven’t seen a single vehicle on this planet, so why would there have been one involved in my capture? Maybe that walking wall technology was used to access Earth somehow. Maybe I’m closer to escape than I know.

  “You’ve been really helpful,” I say, feeling quite grateful for the tip he’s just given me. I could have spent months looking for a spaceship that never existed. “What’s your name?”

  “They call me Garbage,” he says.

  “Garbage. Cool. Is that supposed to be an insult, or…”

  “Not at all. I am what others throw away. I know the things they know, but refuse to know.”

  “That sounds like something you should be compensated for a lot better than you are.”

  “Who says I’m not well compensated?”

  True.
Again, I’m making an assumption that I probably shouldn’t be.

  “I tell you what you know,” he continues. “You need to know that home is gone.”

  “Home isn’t gone. It is where it always was.”

  “Yes, but you are not where you always were.”

  I have the strange feeling you get when you completely understand something, but you don’t consciously know what it means. Kind of an ah huh? moment.

  “Fuck.”

  “So, whoever that chain belongs to,” Garbage says. “He’s more important than you might think.”

  “Sure, my captor and tormentor is very much important,” I agree without hesitation.

  “I wouldn’t go through the wall again, is what I’m saying.”

  “I don’t have any choice. I can’t stay here. Mr Tiddles isn’t here.”

  “Wherever Mr Tiddles is, or isn’t, you have to stop running eventually.”

  “I might stop running, but I’ll never stop looking.”

  “Spoken like a true mama,” Garbage smiles.

  I like him. I don’t trust him. He has ulterior motive written all over his face, but I do like him. He is the first grimalkin to show me kindness and to speak to me in a way which reaches me where I am. Skoll has dominated me, made me a criminal, taken me as his own, and though I have submitted to his carnal energy, I have not truly connected with him. I didn’t think it was possible to connect with any of these wild creatures.

  “I’m going to try the wall again,” I tell him. “Thank you for the food. And good luck with knowing all the things people don’t want to know. That’s a heavy burden.”

  “The heaviest,” he agrees. “But somebody has to do it. I will hold your knowledge of it being a bad idea to go back through that wall, and later you can pretend that you didn’t know any better, and what happened to you afterward was a horrible twist of fate.”