Catheroes

by A. J. Chaudhury

  The cocoon was only a few metres away now. I had almost slowed down so much such that I didn’t know if I would be able to reach the cocoon. A metre more I went, and then I knew I would fall, as for a moment I felt like I was hovering in air, no force working on me. But gravity was about to act now. I swung my arm forward, just as gravity began its pull. The claws of my paw buried into the cocoon, enough to detach it from whatever sort of gum that was holding it to the top of the wall. The cocoon was soft, almost like cotton.

  And then the fall began.

  It happened as if in slow motion. Even as I fell, my cat instincts took over such that I shifted my weight to fall on my feet. Except that I had pulled the cocoon under my feet. Closer and closer the ground came. Right below was the half-dug hole of the dogmen, and those working on it fled.

  And then we hit the ground.

  With the force of hitting the ground, my hold on the cocoon was lost and I bounced away. I fell roughly atop a dogman. He tried to hit me, realising that I was a cat. But I threw Human Hands spell on my paw immediately. I grabbed his wrist and for a while the two of us struggled. I kicked him on the stomach, such that suddenly I was in control of the sword and he fell back. Without a weapon, he ran away. That the great metal statue was running towards me helped as well.

  “Are you all right?” Junaki said, falling on her knees beside me. She held my face with her paw, as if trying to check me.

  “I am okay,” I said. Strangely, despite falling so many feet I had only lost ten health. I could live with that. I reckoned it was a good thing that cats usually landed on their all fours. I pointed towards the cocoon. Even the dogmen were looking towards it with awe on their faces.

  The cotton like substance that formed the cocoon was parting. Very slowly. Some of the dogmen which had come near it backed away. They looked scared despite all the weapons that they brandished. No wonder, for whatever insect was going to come out of the cocoon was going to be a very big one. Larger than a crocodile perhaps. The smaller insects they had been battling were much easier to kill.

  It took almost five minutes for the insect to come out. Perhaps, I was in a daze from the fall, but I thought this insect was actually beautiful, although because of its large size it should have been grotesque. I instantly realised that this was the mother. She was very big, and her whole form glowed, such that suddenly the glow of the torches had been overpowered. She turned her head this way and that, moving her antennae. I wondered if the “mother” had just been born, or if she had gone into some kind of sleep inside the cocoon. All the other small insects began to swarm towards her. Only now did I notice that there were hundreds if not thousands of tiny flies inside the pyramidal chamber that I had earlier missed since they were scattered. They were like the size of a point as individuals, like the fly that had led us to the hill, but together now they were of a considerable mass and formed a hemisphere around the mother as a layer of protection.

  “Rupasur,” I said to the metal statue, “protect the large mother from the dogmen.” The dogmen seemed to be finally getting over the trance upon seeing the mother and were slowly approaching her, no doubt with killing in mind.

  “As you please, master,” Rupasur said. He went near the mother and stood beside her in a protective stance, shaking a finger at the dogmen that were approaching in warning.

  And then the mother did something she should have better not. She began to run. Like wild.

  Like a horse, only ten times faster.

  With her six legs she moved all about the chamber. She didn’t even spare the walls. One moment you would see her atop a wall, the next moment she had just passed by you. I reckoned suddenly waking up from her sleep had messed up her brains, for she was being very erratic. Was she searching for the exit? Not likely, for once she actually entered the tunnel that led out, but the next moment she had come out and she began running about again.

  The dogmen were mostly frightened, though a few brave ones tried to catch the speeding mother. They threw swords her away. Usually they missed. But on the rare occasion that their swords were on point, the wall of flies surrounding the mother absolutely absorbed all the force that was making the swords fly. They would then throw away the weapon.

  The other wasp-like insects that were smaller meanwhile swarmed about. They too had gotten frantic. None of them were any more interested in attacking dogmen.

  “Do we need to save the mother from herself?” Riya wondered, her head turning with the movement of the mother.

  And then the mother came directly towards me. I jumped off to the side. But it seemed she was interested in me. Mere moments ago I had thought that the mother was beautiful, now however as she hit her hairy head against me, touching me with her creepy antennae, I was reconsidering my thoughts.

  I heard Junaki cry. She pointed her hand towards the mother and muttered something. For a brief moment the mother stopped, paralysed by the spell. I scrambled back to my feet. The very next instant the mother had regained herself. Now however she turned, so that her giant backside pointed directly at me. There was a smell, like that of gas escaping from a small opening. What followed was a peculiar aroma.

  The world swirled, and I found myself lying on the ground again, saliva drooling out of my mouth.

  After that there was blackness.

  ***

  Chapter 44

  When I opened my eyes I was in a great chamber. I sat up, trying to make sense of what was going on. I felt very unsteady. And were my eyes tricking me? There was what looked like a giant ant with wings surrounded by a hemi circle of sorts running around the place.

  A message popped up in my vision.

  You inhaled the mother’s gas.

  You retain 0% of your memory for the next hour.

  Your best chances of survival, if you are in a dangerous place, is to fight anything that comes towards you. Do not trust anyone. Try not to harm others, but defend yourself from folks who might try to take advantage of your situation.

  Not very far from me were two more cats lying on the ground. They seemed unconscious. There were others too, many of them lying on the ground, while a few others were sitting up, looking about them with dazed expressions. But they weren’t cats. They were strange beings. They had the bodies of humans, but their heads were like that of dogs. And they had tails as well.

  I put energy onto my legs and stood up. Just what the hell was going on? Where was I to begin with?

  But then I thought of the message. I took stock of my situation. I clearly had come to this place with a reason. I didn’t know if I had any friends in this place. My eyes moved over the cats on the ground, they seemed to be stirring. I shook my head. I was not going to take any chances. Perhaps someone had put me in this situation to get information out of me. Naturally they had thought that seeing the cats I would take them to be friends and perhaps give them whatever information I posses. No, I was not going to fall for that.

  As for the… let’s call those strange half dogs, half humans as dogmen, shall we? No other word could better describe them.

  What about the giant insect? I saw some of the dogmen throwing swords, sometimes stones at the giant insect that was moving fast all around. Had we all come here to kill the insect? That was a possibility. Perhaps we were in some kind of a tournament. Whoever killed the insect would get some great reward. Or was it a trick again? Perhaps only I could kill the insect. What if the insect was a friend of mine?

  I took a step backwards. My brain was making me afraid of everything. I wanted to scream out. My heart began to beat faster as panic grew inside me. Wait, it’s only an hour, right? After that my memory would come back to me. I drew in relaxed breaths and my heart beat started to slow. I kept observing the situation. Only now did I notice that towards the middle of the place there was what looked like a great dogman. Except this one was not of bones and flesh. But of metal, that glinted in the light of the torches and of the light that was coming from the giant insect.

  It loo
ked ferocious for sure.

  The more scary part was that it was getting to its feet. Shit, it was quite a few metres tall. If that thing stamped on me, I would die on the spot.

  No, I had to be calm. Better to be calm than not to be calm. I began to take steps backwards. The farther from everyone, the better. In a minute, I hit the wall behind me. I gulped. The giant had all my attention. It was looking this way and that, perhaps trying to pick its next kill.

  A chill crept down my spine as the head of the giant locked in my direction and it began to approach me. For a moment I tried to tell myself that it was probably not looking towards me. But the truth was that it was. My instincts took over. I began to run. I heard the sound of great leaps behind me. It was the giant. It was coming for me.

  I increased my pace. Behind me the giant let out a roar. It threw its fist towards me. I took a sudden turn. The fist hit the ground hard, making soil and stones fly in all directions. Why do I have to be so unlucky?

  The giant wasn’t done it came for me again. I ran, for my life depended on it. Another sound of his fist hitting the ground beside me reached my ears. It was no less than an explosion of sorts. And then, suddenly, I felt a great rush of air overhead. I looked up to see the giant leaping over me. He landed right in front of me. I gulped. The giant grabbed me.

  It observed me, hanging me upside down. I could see the top of the chamber now. It was rather high and I realised that the chamber was a pyramid. My blood rushed to my head, so that it felt very heavy.

  The giant observed me for a while. As if not sure what to do with me, he flung me away. I flew through the air uncontrollably. I was thankful that I was a cat and I landed on my all fours. It didn’t mean the landing was rough though. I felt like my limbs would break from the impact. My health fell.

  I watched as the giant picked up one of the dogmen. He raised the dogman and held him upside down as well. The dogman screamed frantically. I was thankful that I hadn’t screamed when the giant had held me because of my utter fear. For the scream of the dogman seemed to have awakened something very primitive inside the giant. The giant let out a roar. With one hand he grabbed the head of the dogman and with the other he grabbed the legs of the dogman. He pulled.

  I couldn’t bear the scene. The dogman’s scream shook my core. When I opened my eyes, after the dogman had stopped screaming, I watched in horror as the giant threw away the head of the dogman. Its body was still quivering in the grasp of the giant. The giant now let it fall as blood rushed out of the neck with no restraint.

  Suddenly I felt a touch on my shoulder. I whirled around, frightened.

  It was one of the other cats.

  She was a young female it seemed. I felt myself blush, embarrassed that I should be so frightened by her mere touch. But then, anyone would be afraid after witnessing such a horrific sight. The young female had something about herself that attracted me towards her a lot. I felt myself drawn to her, her eyes almost hypnotic. It was a moment before I realised she was actually saying something to me.

  “Could you help me?” she was saying.

  “Help you?” I asked. I was in no position to help anyone.

  “Please,” she said, desperate, “could you help me get out of this place? I have lost my memory. You are a cat as well, maybe you were my friend before?”

  While I definitely would have liked to believe that I was a good friend of the female cat, at the same time, the cautious part of my mind told me to get away from everyone at the moment, including her. Who knew, she was the one that had made me lose my memory, perhaps? And she was now pretending she had lost her memory too.

  “I am sorry,” I said, stepping backwards, “I cannot help you.”

  A frown of alarm suddenly came over the female cat’s forehead. She picked up a sword from nearby that was lying on the ground and pointed it at me.

  Perhaps I was right after all…

  The tip of the sword was mere inches away from my neck.

  “Since you are refusing to help,” the female cat said, “then you must be an enemy of mine.”

  I frowned at her such that I focussed at her face really hard. Suddenly a pop up appeared in my vision.

  It contained everything about the female cat. Her name seemed to be Junaki, a princess. Hmmm… a princess using me to achieve some kind of a dark purpose. Also I just needed to frown and focus to get information of others, right?

  I was quick. As the princess thrust her sword towards me, I bent backwards, the sword missing me. I hit her wrist with my hand with so much force that the sword fell from her grasp. With a laugh of victory I picked it up. Now the roles were reversed.

  “I knew it,” I said, pointing the sword at Junaki.

  “Knew what?” Junaki asked, her eyes forever on the sword.

  “You think you can fool me, eh?” I said.

  Just then a sharp pain exploded on my head. Blinded by it, I let the sword fall, and even I myself fell to my knees, clutching my head which felt like it was going to shatter to pieces. When I opened my eyes, I could see stars everywhere, though I knew they didn’t exist in real. Even Junaki seemed covered in stars, and the sword she had picked up particularly seemed to be glimmering.

  I grunted and turned my head.

  It was the other cat. She had hit me with a rather shapeless staff. Damn, this female cat was an old one, yet she had a lot of strength. Either ways, everything was confirmed. Both the cats were amongst my enemies. I focussed, more like squinted, at the old female as well and received her details. Riya, her name was.

  “Thank you,” Junaki said to Riya. But Riya didn’t smile at her or show any sign of friendship. Her eyes were strict. I began to wonder if both the cats even knew each other.

  “Why are you two fighting?” Riya asked strictly, brandishing her powerful staff. “You are cats, like me, and supposed to be on the same side.”

  Both Junaki and I stared vacantly at Riya with no answers. None of us knew exactly why we had been fighting. Because we didn’t trust each other, maybe?

  “Look, don’t make me lose my head,” Riya said, pointing at us threateningly with her majestic staff, “I already have lost my memory. Make things clear to me.”

  “We… we have lost our memory as well,” I said.

  Riya frowned.

  Just then I realised that some of the dogmen were also behaving weirdly. They were attacking other dogmen. Had they also lost their memory? What about the giant? He was going on killing one dogman after another. The insects he spared. But I was beginning to feel sad for the dogmen. And then I saw it. In the distance the great ant-like insect turned her great behind to a dogman who had been throwing stones at her. The next moment the dogman slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  And then I realised it. The possibility that this was all a planning to get some information out of me began to seem too far flung. It was the big insect that was going around sucking everyone of their memory, if only for an hour. Heck, looking at the erratic behaviour of the insect, I wondered if she as well had lost her memory, perhaps she had done to herself by mistake what she was now doing to everyone else?

  I stood up to my feet, my head still hurting. Riya backed away. She didn’t seem like she trusted either me or Junaki. Junaki was still holding the sword at me. I just grimaced at her. An abashed look came over her and she immediately drew back the weapon.

  I heard a great sound. When I turned, I saw that the giant’s leg seemed to become stuck in some hole in the centre of the chamber. He tried to pull it out, but he just failed. I approached him. To my surprise I didn’t posses any fear, even though I had seen what he had done to the dogmen.

  I looked at him for a moment. Junaki and Riya had also followed me to the centre of the chamber. The giant kept pulling his leg. A minute later it finally came out. But he had pulled with so much force that he himself fell on his buttocks behind.

  I looked down at the hole in the ground. Were my eyes lying to me, or could I see some kind of a metal chest buried a
few feet below in the hole? Curious, I squatted down beside the hole and peered down. Hell, it was indeed a chest!

  The giant had been observing me so far, apparently bored killing the dogmen. He put a massive metal arm into the hole suddenly, so that I had to move away from it. The next moment he had placed a dust covered metal chest in front of us.

  The giant however didn’t open the chest. Instead he stared at me as though I should be the one to perform the holy task. I sighed. There was no lock, and I opened the chest easily.

  Inside was a helmet of sorts. One with antennae. I picked it up, hearing Junaki gasp behind me.

  I looked at the helmet, observing the many intricate designs of insects it had. I nearly dropped the helmet when a quest message appeared.

  Congratulations!

  You have found the Helmet of the Insects!

  Wear it and have complete control over the insects of the hill!

  By finding the helmet before the dogmen you have also saved the Mother!

  Quest completed!

  Wear the helmet and be the master of the insects!

  What the hell, I thought. I put the helmet onto my head. And by magic, the helmet shrunk so that it fit my head perfectly. The sensations that filled my brain the next instant were something that I had never experience before.

  All of a sudden, I could feel all the insects that were inside the chamber. Even the ones that were in other parts of the hill. I could feel them move as though I was moving myself. I could even know what the insects were thinking. Every single one of them thought things that had to do with protecting the mother. Fly this way, stop the dogmen, fly that way.

  But most of all I knew what the Mother was thinking. And it absolutely confirmed what I had suspected earlier.