Lost

Lost

The silver moon loomed large in the starry night sky. Streetlights flickered on, casting deep shadows against dark windowed buildings. All was silent, save for the occasional drip of water in the drains. The drip of water ceased. All was silent. All was still.

* * *

A girl sat, crouching in the shadows. Two large, pointed ears grew from the top of her head. She wore ragged, dirty clothing that hardly covered her. Matted hair shrouded a small, delicate face. A thick, dappled tail curled around her feet. The girl shifted and blinked, her slanted, cat-like eyes glinting in the moonlight.
Pebbles clattered down a mound of aluminum garbage cans, shattering the icy silence. Muffled squeaks came from the mound, that and the scratching of miniscule toenails. The girl’s ears pricked up and swiveled towards the sound. Slowly she moved forward on all fours, her limbs becoming thick and shaggy. Her clothes blended into her skin as her spine lengthened and spotted fur grew in waves upon her body. Her face grew out into a cat's jaws as whiskers grew out of her cheeks. Claws scraped the dirty concrete to disappear into their sheaths a moment later. The girl, now a large, elegant spotted cat, slunk silently towards the mound of garbage cans, the tip of her tail twitching. As she got nearer to the sound, her tail increased its movement, now lashing from side to side.
One of the garbage cans shook, assorted garbage at the top rustling. The spotted cat crouched, eyes staring up at her target. A grey, pointed snout appeared amidst the garbage, whiskers aquiver. The cat froze, every muscle tensed. Following the grey snout was a pair of beady black eyes and two round ears. Slowly, with expertise, the cat eased into a crouch, never taking an eye off her quarry. The rat crept out of the refuse and sat, nibbling on a chicken bone. Catching a predatorily scent, it stood stock-still. The warning didn’t come soon enough. The cat pounced! Shaggy limbs reaching outward, she landed upon the rat and snapped its neck with a shake of her powerful jaws. Carcass hanging in her mouth, the cat leapt off the pile of waste and crept to a cleaner space to feast on her kill.
Sharp incisors shredding the rat’s remains, the cat sat bent over, swallowing the morsels in quick bites. It appeared that, though the cat looked healthy enough, she was voraciously hungry. Looking up every few seconds or so, she was alert, ready to flee if there were any signs of danger. Having finished with her meal, the cat crept back into the shadows, fur smoothing into human skin, limbs lengthening into the scrawny arms of the underfed girl. Though she became human, there were still the large ears, magnificent tail, and slanted cat like eyes.

* * *

“Well, ‘ave you seen ‘er?” Military Captain Riskan asked as his men filed into the small room. Monitor screens were the only source of light as they lit the room in an eerie, blue glow. Riskan sat in a black leather armchair already knowing the answer. Staring at the floor, the uniformed men muttered their replies. A look of exasperation crossed his face. “Still! It has been three weeks since the last time she was seen. She didn’t just disappear! How hard can it be to track down a raggedy orphan girl?” Riskan had leaned forward gripping the armrests of his chair as so his joints cracked. “She isn’t just a girl.” One of the men looked up, voice rising slightly. “She can also change into a cat-”
“And how many spotted cats of that size roam the city?” Captain Riskan roared, drowning out the rest of the man's words. “Double the searchers! Get a squad of helicopters to patrol the area! Take dogs to the forest outside the city! I want to see either a cat or a scrawny kid in front of me by tomorrow night!” Riskan’s eyes were flashing as he stood up, knocking his chair aside. “Now…Get out of my sight!!”

* * *

The moon slowly faded away into the dark horizon. For a few more hours, nothing moved. Then, the sky took on a lighter shade. A deep, reddish-pink glow shone, a small crack of light in the darkness. The glow gradually split into hues of orange, red, yellow, purple, pink, and many other colors besides. The picture seemed frozen for a few moments. Then, a blast of blinding light showed as the sun passed into the sky with flying colors. Birds awoke and called to each other, each clamoring to greet the sun. The next day had begun.

* * *

As cars and people began to roam the dirty streets and sidewalks, all the animals and nocturnal visitors retreated to a lesser know place. Rats went back to the sewers; bats back to their roosts and a girl back to one of the wooded areas surrounding the city. At night, humans had to be wary when wandering, for it was others domain, but when the sun rose, humans ruled the city. The forest was ruled by none.

* * *

Trees reached proudly upwards, shadowing the forest in a dim light. Shafts of sunlight penetrated the leafy barrier lighting up swirling dust motes. Pine needles covered the forest floor, allowing creatures to walk there unheard. This was where the girl lived most of her days. Though she was most often as the cat, she did become human for other needs. Cats could not easily crack nutshells. Tangles of plant life were easier to remove when you had fingers.
Creeping through the undergrowth, the large spotted cat had heard a disturbance in the normal forest sounds. Hiding under a bush, she watched the strange sight. A man in a dark suit stood holding the leashes of three large bloodhounds. The man had a strange sort of gun on his back and was talking into a small black box. “There’s no sign of the girl or the cat. I’ve already searched half of this place and the dogs haven’t found a thing. Its not worth the trouble to search-“ The dogs, sniffing around the clearing, had picked up the scent of the cat. Barking and wagging their tails, they dragged the man after them, heading straight for her hiding place.
The cat, immediately knowing the danger of being caught, bolted and ran away at full speed. Weaving in and out through the mossy tree trunks she raced, the dogs baying and barreling after her. The cat, though larger and faster than the dogs, could not lose them. They had her scent and had a clear trail. An animal sense as wily as a fox, and a human brain besides, let the cat use tricks that no forest animal would think of, much less the bloodhounds. She backtracked and ran in circles, jumped pits and streams, waded through water and climbed trees. With the few extra seconds she had, she constructed trip lines, covered pits, and anything else that would stop the dogs. She was at the top of a tall tree when the dogs and the man burst through the underbrush, the dogs sniffing the base of the tree and the man peering up through the needled branches. Fortunately the cat was well hidden from view, though her pursuers stayed for quite awhile, the hounds found a false trail that she had used and, baying their hunt song, thundered off. Tail twitching from nerves, the cat stayed up there for another hour, before climbing head first down the trunk, not at all pleased.

* * *

The man that had been with the dogs in the forest stood in front of Captain Riskan, dreading what was to come. “Well, where is the girl?” Riskan leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head, voice calm. “I don’t see her. Tell me, why is she not with you?”

* * *
==End of Part One==