Rodentia Adventures

CHAPTER 23: NIGHTMARE

Seraphim bowed her head. As desperately as she had wished to believe otherwise, she knew it to be true: She was a very, very bad kitty. 

She couldn't make out most of the words of the lecture that her owner was giving her, hardly any, in fact. The message was very much clear, nonetheless. 

The young man who had served as the owner of the dark lord wasn't angrily shouting at her, but he was clearly very, very disappointed. He had been saving up his money for a new video game console, but now? Now those savings wouldn't even come close to covering the cost of repairs for the ruined tiled floor or the many burned spots on the walls, furniture and ceiling. 

The human didn't even try to work out the logistics for exactly how that damage was caused. Deep down he knew that that way lie madness. He just knew that the cat was responsible, somehow, and that it was important that she realizes it. Seraphim did, of course. She was a being of light and order, who genuinely hated any sort of mess, especially ones that she happened to be the cause of. The feline leaned her head forward and coughed, a small object clanking onto the damaged kitchen floor below. She frowned at the sight of the popsicle stick. She'd been coughing up garbage for hours now, and even after multiple baths, her fur still looked downright dreadful. 

As much as she would have liked to blame the mice for this, both to her owner and to herself, in the end, she couldn't. This was entirely her responsibility, and true to his words, she was a very, very bad kitty. He would forget this soon enough, being incapable of staying angry at his beloved pet, but her own shame would last considerably longer. That was when it happened. 

The human stopped mid lecture, as the cat opened her eyes wide and tensed up, turning to stare over her shoulder at seemingly nothing. Her golden eyes narrowed, fur standing on end, claws extended and scraped against the ruined floor, as the dark lord Seraphim let out a long, angry hiss. She didn't know exactly where the target of her animosity was located, only the direction.  

Unknown to her, and even more so to her incredibly confused owner, were if not for the wall and other obstacles in her way, she would have been staring straight towards the mouse city. 

<3~ <3~ <3~ <3~ 

Midnight continued to sprint away from the wall, before finally reaching a point that he considered a safe distance, which was basically as far away from that creature as physically possible. He laughed out loud, taking a seat in the tall grass. He'd done it! He had every opportunity to risk his own safety to protect the innocent, but he didn't! He didn't even come close! There wasn't so much as a nagging voice in the back of his head telling him to do the right thing. Quite the contrary, in fact, every instinct he had screamed that he should run, protect himself, to hell with those stupid mice, and that was exactly what he did. 

It was far more satisfying than any victory could ever hope to be, the knowledge that he wasn't losing himself, that he had managed to fight off that vile infection known as morality, and that he could go back to living his life for himself, and nobody else, as he was always meant to. 

The dark lord peered back over his shoulder at the distance walled mouse city, completely enclosed by a black orb of unholy power, tendrils of dark energy dancing and surging across it. A part of him had expected Jerin and the other mice to be following behind him, but he honestly couldn't say that he was too surprised by their absence. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't get over the wall, but of course, they wouldn't have wanted to anyways. Knowing that fool, she'd fight to the bitter end. Ordinarily, he might have fought, as he wasn't particularly frightened of birds, not even unusually large ones, but there was just something about that creature. Something which positively chilled the black cat to the bone. It was just so dark, so empty, and that was speaking from the perspective of a creature who proudly embodied the darkness. Clearly, there are things out there darker than the peak of night. That was a terrifying concept, even to him.