Chapter 28 - Tightrope

-H-

    There wasn't much in the way of meat left, my wolf had finished off most of what remained but I grabbed a few pieces of chicken and scrounged through my cabinets. Tuna? Yeah, I'll feed the fucking cat some of Sawyer's old cat food. Fuck him. That's what he gets. I cracked open the can, dumping it into a bowl and stirring it up, tossing the can like it was 'evidence'. I even grabbed the damned creature a glass of water. Play nice.. just for now.

    My mind wandered as I slowly made my way back towards my room like I was walking into a lion's den. I needed to get away from him, get time to think. To sort through everything I'd learned so far, to try and figure this cat out. Maybe figure out my wolf too. He said my wolf was a guardian and I was a gateway? What did that mean.. It was obvious that they had somehow come out of me but.. why? From where? Asking for how is probably asking too much, but I needed answers to the rest. 

    When I returned I was treated to a sight I didn't ever care to see. He was lounging on my bed. Leg in the air. Licking himself. I cringed as I looked over my bed, averting my eyes from the monster on it languidly grooming himself. He paused to give me a studious glance, before resuming his licking, scratchy tongue catching at his thin, papery flesh and tugging at it, wrinkling and bunching his skin. Between licks he purred out over confident and casual orders.

    "Put the... food there. Now leave me.. human" 

    I could hear the rough drags of his tongue between words. It drew to mind thoughts of what big cats had rough tongues for, to scrape meat off of bone. A chill ran through me but I set the food on the corner of my bed and turned to leave. Maybe I could slip something in his food next time? Poison? Sleeping pills? I'd have to plan out everything extraordinarily carefully.. Stopping at the door I clenched my fists. No, I'm not getting kicked out of my own room without getting some answers first.

    "I'll leave after you give me some actual answers.. cat." I added the last word a bit more antagonistically than I meant too, throwing it back at him in the same way his use of human seemed so derogatory. "You keep giving me these nonsense rants and avoid actually answering."

    He paused his grooming once more, giving me a side eyed glance. At first it seemed like me calling him cat was going to set him off, but instead an amused smirk spread. 

    "Oh have I? Perhaps my mind simply wanders to other things.. an empty stomach will do that.."

    "Stop! There you go again.. trying to weasel your way into rambling about anything but what I want to know.. What did you mean about the gateway thing.. Where are you and my wolf from? Give me an answer." I was starting to get upset again, usually I had a pretty calm demeanor, I usually didn't get worked up so easily. I guess stress gave me a much shorter fuse the past few days.

    He studied me a little, letting out an exaggerated sigh and grabbing the bowl of cat food. The monster sniffed at it, scooping a little onto his claw and slurping it off, sampling it and licking his chops. 

    "Not bad... alright. Fine. A meal for an answer. I can play this game. Perhaps if you feed me again I'll give another." His eyes narrowed past the bowl, staring me down. "I'll answer the second part and nothing more. Yet. Your wolf and I are from a place different from yours. Less.. solid. Less real. Emotions. Raw feelings. Abstract creations. Things living between worlds. Things given life by creativity.. by anguish.. by pride. By pain."

    He paused, eyeing me as if waiting for me to interrupt.. but I didn't. He wasn't making sense, what was he trying to say?

    "Tell me, human. How much pain does it take to break one of your kind? How much grief? How much heartache?.. How much before one loses his mind..?" 

    There was a coy glint in his eyes as he took another bite from his meal, staring me down as he strung me along with whatever he was trying to get at.. what.

    "What is any of that supposed to mean? What does that have to do with my question..? With where you two came from?" I felt like a fish on the hook and he just kept reeling me in to some unknown fate that I was struggling to figure out.

    "Little human... Are you so very sure that you are not broken? That your wolf pet on your table is real? That I am real? How does madness take hold of someone I wonder.. What will it make them think? Make them see?"

    There was a heaviness in my chest that I stubbornly fought off, he wasn't going to trick me into believing that. That heaviness of doubt sinking in, as much as I didn't want to give it an ounce of possibility. I broke eye contact with the creature and that was all it took for him to know he'd gotten a hook in, his smug expression almost glowing with how apparent it felt out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't going crazy.. was I? These things were very real. The injuries. The blood. The death of my cat. How could those be explained away as seeing things?

    It was like he could read my mind, my doubts, like an open book as he spoke up in my silence.

    "Trying to disprove it boy?.. Your hand hurts, yes? I drew your blood?... Or perhaps you did. Those of a crumbling mind often inflict their own pains and demons. They convince themselves of another reality."

    "So what, you're saying you aren't real? That you don't exist? And that doesn't bother you in the slightest?" I flashed him a cutting glare, shaking my head. There was no way I was letting him convince me of this, he was playing more of his games.

    All I got out of him was a shrug before he started grooming himself again, deadly toe claws extended towards the ceiling. It looked cute on a little kitty like Sawyer had been.. on this alien looking creature they were like raptor claws.

    "Existence is a fluid thing, human. It doesn't bother me either way it flows.."

    My face crinkled up some as I cringed at him, now he's trying to be all pseudo-philosophical. This wasn't getting me anywhere, I wasn't going to argue my sanity with some 7 foot cat beast from some other dimension or plane or.. wherever he came from. Maybe I was crazy. That sounded like crazy babbling.

    "Okay, answer my question about the gateway then.. if none of this is real and it doesn't matter. Indulge me. What did you mean that I'm a gateway?"

    He sprawled out on my bed, shifting his bare back into it, tendons flexing under his skin and coiled muscles stretching out as he took up as much space as he could on my sheets.. then slumped and relaxed, looking pleased with himself as those large eyes of his looked me over. With how much his skull showed within his sunken skin, those eyes almost seemed to bulge outwards a bit. He opened his mouth with a sigh, about to answer me.

    "..The game was one answer at a time, human. Maybe I'll answer on my next meal, hmm?.. Unless you're going to play a good little servant and come indulge some of my other needs?..."

    My face sunk a little as not only did he skip around giving me what I wanted, he offered a vague alternative that I was not about to ask any more details on. Whatever he wanted to trade for another question I was almost certain I was not going to want to give. My face hurt from how tense it had been this whole time, with how much I was glaring at him.

    "I'll pass on whatever that means.. But that is my bed, and this is my home. I'm not some servant." 

    I moved back towards the bedroom door, stepping out quickly and closing it, gripping the door handle tight like I was trying to hold it closed in case he came after me. He didn't. It was completely silent inside and there was the briefest temptation to open the door a crack to see if he hadn't vanished like some figment of my imagination. Or maybe he'd still be laying there with that awful grin. I didn't know which would be worse, so I backed away from the door and trudged into the living room feeling exhausted and defeated as I slumped onto the couch.