The cat stood on her hind legs as a ripple went across her coat of fur. Her limbs and torso began to stretch and pull and bulge and bulk. Her shoulders widened. Her arms lengthened and so did her legs. Her torso grew at least four times its original size. And her paws became the size of a bear's.

  I watched in awe and bewilderment.

  "I see that you are mesmerized by my new form," Smokewell said with her usual self-absorbed confidence.

  "You are...just a much larger cat," I said, cocking my head as I looked up at the black feline that was now the size of a polar bear. "You look weird. That's considering the fact that your other form has a hack saw tail."

  "Shut up," the cat grumbled. "I've taught you girls with a little too much of leniency that you go around shooting your mouth at me like that."

  As she said that I finally remembered something. "Wait, we almost forgot Lily," I said, pulling out the bottle of the distress call potion she had given me. "Should we call her? We don't even know what might've happened to her."

  "Don't worry, they already know," Smokewell said, raising her much larger head up to the sky.

  "Who's they?" I said.

  "The audience of course," she said. "They must be alternating between us and Lily to see how she is doing."

  "You mean the gods that you mentioned the last time we were here?" I said.

  "Of course, unlike me, they have the luxury of turning off your annoying voice when they want and go watch someone else survive in this place," the cat said.

  I wasn't amused and I gave her a look that would appropriately communicate the emotion. "We are digressing. I meant shouldn't we call for Lily before proceeding."

  "No," the cat said, lifting me off the ground as easily as she would've lifted a straw doll. "She has her own mission to fulfill. We should respect her independence to solve her own problems."

  She set me on her shoulder. I felt a sense of irony overcoming me at the action. "Sounds like a clever way to avoid taking responsibility."

  "We have our own responsibilities to take care of. Lily will be fine. I know. Now, hang tight. The ride might get a bit bumpy." With that, the cat took running.

  ****

  Even though her form of a giant cat was supposed to be a quadruped, Smokewell was surprisingly fast on just her hind legs. I'm sure that also had something to do with her using her forelimbs to grab onto tree trunks and branches to hoist her up and propel herself forward like a feline Tarzan. I was clinging onto her fur tightly, my heart racing much faster than her speed of running. I was also trying to hold back my screams and cries of fear each time she took a terrifying leap or gripped a branch that snapped too easily on her taking hold. I wasn't doing a very good job of it.

  But I tried to distract myself by directing her which way we were supposed to go since what Godfrey had seen was now imprinted in my brain.

  Smokewell came to a halt not long after a few dozen swings and leaps and bounds. "Wait," I said. "We aren't at the mountain yet."

  The cat set me back on my feet. "No we aren't."

  "Then why did we stop?" I asked.

  "Tents," the cat pointed at a line of silhouettes in the clearing around two hundred metres ahead.

  I had to squint to make out their shapes. After squinting a bit harder I made out the faint flickers of lights beyond--the kind of light that comes from bonfires. And there was a distant hum of chatter.

  "Someone's camping ahead, it seems." I turned back to the cat. "Why did we stop though? This doesn't seem urgent enough to stop and look."

  The cat's eyes furrowed. "I don't get a good feeling about this. Something is making me wary."

  I frowned. "Is this something related to your powers as a cat sìth or is it just a feeling."

  "Just a feeling. But I don't think we should be heading that way."

  "It's not a settlement," I said. "This can't be a humble civilization that has got you this apprehensive." I looked at the cat. "These might either be soldiers or maybe a violent tribe."

  The cat just nodded.

  "Um, it won't hurt to take another route," I said and we turned to leave.

  But the first thing that was greeting us were a pair of loaded crossbows. Holding them were a pair of rough hands. And two pairs of sleepless, bloodshot eyes glared at us. "Are you from beyond the lake?" one of the crossbowmen asked.

  "Whether or not we are, why is it any business of yours?" Smokewell said, rising to her full height of a polar bear, towering over everyone. The crossbowmen squirmed quite visibly before taking a hesitant step back.

  Then the bushes rustled behind us, twigs snapped, leaves were crushed. Another voice spoke up. This time it was a woman. "Don't mind those two. They were on guard duty. Just like me, they were walking around looking out for the camp we had set up."

  I turned to look at her. She was shorter than me and a lot more petite. If I had seen her shadow before hearing her talk, I would've confused her for a school girl. "What kind of camp?" I said, stepping up to her. I got a better look at her features--which were mostly round and soft but her eyes had a weariness that came from surviving one too many harsh winters at a young age. Yet the smile on her lips resembled that of someone who was seeing a long lost friend.

  Even though her friendly demeanor should've disarmed me, something about her very presence was alienating. Just by looking at her, it was hard to believe that someone like her had made it out in a place like this for this long.

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  She introduced herself as Ariane Muller. And she was from Minnesota. A place in the world of my previous life. I was rather amused at how she had just named her native state instead of the country. Or even named the planet where she was from. "We are...well, we are just a bunch of people caught up in a war," she said, turning to leave and nodding at us to follow her.

  Smokewell and I did so a bit reluctantly. "So you are soldiers?" the cat asked.

  One of the crossbowmen scoffed. "Soldiers have an army, a country that they are trying to protect. And a family waiting for them back home. We have none of that."

  Ariane sighed. "As much as I hate to admit it but Norman is right, calling ourselves soldiers is a disservice to the title. We are, as we described, just a bunch of people caught up in a war."

  "And I guess you are fighting someone who lives beyond the lake?" I said.

  "Bingo," she said.

  "Bingo?" Smokewell said.

  Ariane laughed. "I'm sorry, I forgot you might not know about that word. It's an expression we use in the world that I come from. But getting back on track, yes, we are indeed trying to fight those that live beyond the lake."

  I was starting to get curious but Smokewell whispered to me. "I don't know about you but I'm not really interested in whatever it is that they are fighting for. Let's just get back to what we were doing."

  I actually agreed with the cat. Time moved much faster here than it did in Ravenwind, that meant we really didn't have much of it to sit and waste. But Ariane couldn't read my thoughts or hear Smokewell's whisper and started speaking again.

  "I can't imagine what you guys must be feeling right now," she said. "You don't look like you are from anywhere around here. Well, none of us are either. I imagine you must be feeling like a stranger in your own body. It's such a visceral experience to suddenly open your eyes and you are in a place you've never seen before and you have to make yourself survive in this strange land."

  "Listen, lady, we appreciate your capability to empathize but we really don't care," Smokewell said. "We have our own business to attend to. So, no we aren't interested in seeing your camp or meeting your people or eventually fight the war that you are fighting."

  That's when Ariane halted in her steps. "The no non-sense types, huh?" she said, her back turned to us. "I'm glad to know you didn't waste any time shedding your decency. But then again, you are a giant cat. Not even a human. I can tell you it helps to survive here quite well."

  I frowned and put my hand on Smokewell's furry arm. "How long have you been here anyway?" I asked cautiously.

  "Does it matter?" the guy named Norman said behind us. "My sense of telling time is already twisted by now. So I guess it must have been quite a while down here."

  "Time moves pretty fast here," Ariane said. "I like to amuse myself by imagining that it was the time itself that allowed me to change so fast." She gave a dry, grating chuckle. "Anyway, you said you had business to attend to. May I ask what business it might be?"

  "We are headed west," I said.

  "The lake is up west," the other crossbowman with Norman said.

  That's when the strangers and the forest went quiet at the same time. In the lingering beats of silence I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. I swallowed hard before asking, "You still didn't answer my question. How long have you and your companions been surviving here?"

  "It’s been close to three hundred days according to the time in my world," Ariane said quietly.

  "And how many of you are left?" Smokewell said curiously.

  "I don't think that's any business of yours," Norman said.

  "You asked us enough questions. I guess it’s okay if we ask you a question as well. Are you really human?" Ariane asked.

  Smokewell scoffed. "Can't you tell?"

  I leaned towards the cat and said, "I don't think the question was directed towards you." I looked back at Ariane. "Also, why would you be curious about asking me that? What were you expecting me to be."

  The second crossbowman said again, "The lake is up west."

  "I didn't trust you the moment I saw you," Ariane said. Then she whipped out a bunch of throwing knives and flung them at me. Smokewell jumped in front of me, engulfing me in a giant bear hug and deflecting the knives with her tail that had transformed into its serrated blade form mid-leap.

  The crossbowmen were about to loose their bolts on me when I threw my curse cards at them. "Absumo!"

  The silver cards soared through the air, catching fire on the way and striking the two targets, dowsing them in flames right away. The men screamed as they writhed around in agony of the infernal embrace. Ariane's face was pale with fear but she quickly replaced it with a glare and turned to run off in the direction of the camp.

  "Don't let her escape," I snapped at Smokewell who took a single giant leap and covered the distance of about sixty meters to strike a paw on her exposed back. Blood spurted. Ariane shrieked and tripped in her tracks.

  Smokewell dropped one massive paw on her back to hold her down from trying to get up. "You've been surviving in the forest for three hundred days and you still don't know not to expose your back to a big cat? Shame."

  I walked up to the prone woman. "You thought we were spies of your enemies beyond the lake?" I asked.

  "Fuck off if you think I'm gonna tell you anything," Ariane glared at us.

  "Why are we even wasting our time on her?" Smokewell asked. "We can just kill her right here and be back on our way to the mountain."

  That's when I leaned towards Smokewell and said, “Don't you see her halo? It's almost completely red.”

  Smokewell paused. “What in the name of…” she mumbled.

  “Escalayne should've come down to kill her by now but he hasn't.” I rubbed my chin, frowning. “Maybe it has something to do with the changes the Butcher King has made in this world. Just like the passage of time, the inhabitants can be as sinful as they want and don't get punished by any gods.” I looked at Smokewell. “Would that be possible?”

  “It can be.” The cat nodded. “Escalayne is an outer deity after all. If the ruler of a world forbids him from interfering in his matters, Escalayne will have to obey.”

  I looked back at Ariane. “You are still going to die,” I said, pulling out another curse channelling card and set it on fire. “But I won't deny that I'm still curious about what your deal is.”

  Ariane glared up at me, her teeth clenched in fury. I knew that questioning her was going to be in vain. Anyone who survived this long in a place like this with a halo that's nearly red was pretty much fucked in the head--there was no doubt about it.

  “Ostendo,” I threw the burning card at Ariane.

  Next thing I knew I was standing in a tiny room with pulsating red walls and soggy red floor. It looked like I was inside the intestine of a large creature. Then a voice spoke up.

  “So…hungry…but I don't want to eat them…it makes me sick…yet I can't deny it. Denying it will make me look weak. And I'll end up like that boy…weak are nothing but…food for the stronger. I need to stay strong. Or I'll end up as food myself…I can't…deny…food…”

  Clap!

  The red walls and the floor disappeared. I was back in the forest, my stomach churning from what I had just seen and heard. The half burnt card came back in my hand.

  “What did you see?” Smokewell asked me.

  I glared down at Ariane. “You sick bastard…” I muttered. “You are a can–”

  Before I could finish my sentence, there was a loud crash in the distance. It was in the direction of Ariane's camp.

  “What was that?” Smokewell asked.

  Ariane scoffed. “The enemy from beyond the lake,” she said. “The blood walkers.”