I awoke in a desert.

  A cold desert. So cold - a bone aching, soul crushing coldness I had never experienced before, not even in the darkest, deepest depths of the nastiest coldest winter. It was weird. It smelt funny. I did not like it. I reached for my qi, for my warning fire within, for my sunshine, but found only the barest spark. It was fluttering, like a candle seconds before going out. Fluttering in a wind that was not familiar or friendly. Muttering soothing thoughts to it, I vowed to protect it, to keep it safe. I had endured cold before, this was nothing.

  Looking up, I saw a black void above and experienced a brief moment of confusion. It felt as if I might fall up, and keep falling forever, forever, discombobulated and spinning in that silence without anything to hold me down - nothing to tether me, nothing to anchor me to reality.

  That was not how I wanted to fly.

  But perhaps this wasn’t real? It did not look like any sky that I had ever seen - there was no sign of Moon, no stars. Not a single cloud, no mist, no flyers, no friends. Nothing. Suspicious.

  I was stood atop a tall sand dune, the rolling sea of bleached white grains stretching away in every direction. Reaching out my senses I found… nothing. No qi. Absolutely no qi anywhere. Just…utter lifelessness. The tiny spark of qi within me was all that existed.

  Was I dead? Truly, finally, absolutely dead? It seemed so.

  A disquieting thought. A mournful wind whispered around me then, as if in answer to my melancholy thoughts, and the sand rustled. A qi-less wind. I stayed on that dune top for a while, thinking, my tail wrapped tight about me. I do not know for how long. It was hard to judge the passage of time in that place but I think it was a long time. I thought about all my lives and decided …I had done well. Yes. I had done well. There had been mistakes, sure, but to make mistakes was to be truly alive.

  It was ironic - the blade that took my last mortal life was a small thing, slipping between my ribs to puncture my beautiful heart. I could remember it now, vividly. A silver flashing thing. Sharp. Rippling with magic to penetrate my qi enhanced hide. A weakness found in the chaos of battle. A small misjudgement, when it mattered most. Alas. I could not call foul, though I had trained and worked, and plotted, defeating demonic rats, only to be laid low by larger two-legger pests.

  Alas that my skin was not yet tough enough to turn away sharp steel. Alas. Metal had never been my friend so I could not even claim betrayal. And yet, dead though I was, I was still there. Thinking these thoughts of bitterness and anger. Curious. Did it matter? Did anything matter?

  Yes, it did, what a foolish thought.

  I was dead. This fact was immutable. I mattered. Of course I mattered. I was very important. Things could not continue without me, not as they should.

  And yet here I was. Somewhere. Still me. So what was I? Besides Jenkins? I had a body, of sorts. I looked down at it, ghostly, pale, barely there. Still gorgeous. Was I a ghostie? A spirit? Ghosties had unfinished business. I had unfinished business (people to kill, glory to be obtained, flight to be flown and so on), so that made sense. Kind of.

  Strangely, despite being some kind of ghostie my body still had some weight to it. As I moved, the sand shifted. It felt… nice. I blinked as I realised the possibilities. There was sand everywhere! It skidded and skittered beneath my paws!

  I dug, gleefully, for no other reason than the joy of digging, throwing it up everywhere in an ecstasy of delight. I shoved my paws into the holes, then ran up and down the dunes and dug some more. This activity distracted me for a while and made me think being dead was not so bad. So I played, and played, but when I had had enough I decided I missed my friends. So I set off across the endless desert to explore.

  Perhaps there were bridges or doorways that I could use to go home? How else would ghosties exist in the living world? I just needed to find a ghostie door. Simple. Usually ghosties were sad, silly things, floating about haunting places or people. I would not be a sad, silly ghostie. I would be beautiful and vindictive, hunting down my murderers and killing them, one by one.

  One thing that was strange about being dead was it was quite difficult to concentrate. One moment I was walking, and the next I was playing in the sand again, with no notion of what had happened in between. Eventually I would remember again, shaking the forgetfulness from my brain like cobwebs from Maud’s broom and set off once more across the shifting sands. Perhaps there would be ghost mice to chase? I focused on that. Mice, mice, mice.

  There were not a lot of ghosties. Sometimes I would come across one - animal, two-legger or Small folk. Sometimes there would be a cluster, hanging about in the air, reminding me of lazy schools of fishes. I tried to talk to them, but no one was chatty. I was not even sure if they could hear me, all of them just drifting around in a state of gentle confusion. None of them emitted any qi, not a single one. Not even a little spark like I had. Their eyes were wide open, as well as their jaws. I snapped mine shut.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  I didn’t find any ghost mice specifically, which was a shame. Swiping my own translucent paw through another ghostie seemed to have little effect. Like a puff of extra coldness, gone the next moment.

  Later, I found some ghosties that seemed to be going somewhere. I followed them for a while watching their pale, translucent bodies. They were all drifting together, in a big confused cloud towards a dark mountain that had appeared on the very far horizon. So featureless was the desert that I was pleased to see any variation, and so I trotted off towards it. Cautiously, following the spirit river in the sky.

  The nasty whispery hissing wind blew more I approached, and the mountain rose, higher and higher. It was very dark, and very oddly shaped. When I got closer I realised it wasn’t a mountain.

  It was a god.

  An Old God, a two-legger god, sitting there on an obsidian throne, a dark cowl over his face, a hammer the size of a castle resting by his side. I huddled in the sand, not daring to go any closer. The hissing wind was concentrated on and around him, the whispers thick and sibilant, making a mockery of life where there was none. I didn’t like it.

  The god himself was absolutely still, like he was carved from stone. Or dead.

  However I did not think he was completely dead, because something projected from that form. Not quite a killing intent, but something …similar. A presence so intense it could crush real mountains to dust in an instant. This was no place for cats, but I stayed. Not because I wanted to but because I had no choice.

  Again, I have no idea how long I stayed and watched that form.

  Perhaps it was years? I did not grow hungry or weary in that place and time was as slippery as a minnow down River’s falls. I simply was, and the desert simply was, and the god was, remaining unmoving. All of it unchanging, ungrowing, static. Not just dead but stuck, paralysed in a state of nonexistence. I vaguely recall peering at the grains of sand closely. They were shaped like teeny, tiny cat skulls.

  The god’s tattered cloak and cowl fluttered a little in the wind, drawing my attention again, and I watched it for minutes or days. The cloak was strange, my eyes slipping off it. Sometimes I could see myself there, an image, rippling in the folds and shadows - a young drowning kit, water claiming all nine lives, never having the opportunity to grow and live. Sometimes I saw myself as I knew I would become, great, important, powerful. Sometimes I was just bones. Sometimes I was a pale and ghostie cat, as I was now.

  At length I pulled my eyes away.

  Where else to look? Rust and rot dripped from his nails and down his axe. I could not see his eyes. I did not want to see his eyes.

  The ghosties seemed drawn to him, and afraid of him, drifting around at the centre of a confused vortex. Every now and then one of them got sucked into the hammer, though no action was taken that I could see to make this happen. Lines were drawn there in blood or darkness, and they wriggled and writhed whenever a spirit got too close.

  I needed to leave. I did not want to get sucked into that hammer, that was not my destiny. I decided I would hunt rat ghosties in the other direction. Yes. That was the plan.

  The amount of willpower it took to leave was immense, but of course I found it, because I was, I am amazing, and took off over the dunes. Away. Away. The god did not turn his head as I ran. I felt quite keenly that this was for the best. For once it was good to be small and not very noticeable.

  Two shadows did peel away from his feet, dark ones, small ones. They flitted after me. I did not like that, it made me feel like prey. I ran as fast as I could. The shadows chased me over the dunes for some time, until I lost them by digging myself deep into a hole, so that only my whiskers stuck out. I did not need to breathe, which was useful.

  Just as I had decided I had exhausted the enjoyment of being dead I felt something strange.

  A tug. Like someone calling me from far, far away. A kind voice. A familiar voice. My Maud! She needed me! My Maud. I sprinted as fast as I could towards the sound of her voice, kicking up the sand, my heart aching, I ran and ran and ran, where where where. My Maud! I could hear her calling but not get to her. I shut my eyes and tried really hard - and - and - ran straight into a bony knee.

  I opened my eyes. I was in the cottage. I was home. How was I home?

  Emotions rushed into my body, thoughts, feelings, confusion.

  I was on the kitchen table, the taste of desert in my mouth. A hand descended towards my head. I bit it out of reflex before realising it was Maud. My Maud. My bony, skeletal Maud. She was peering at me anxiously but I was too busy feeling myself to comfort her. My body felt weird. The smells of home were bone achingly wonderful but also overwhelming. I had thought I would never smell them again.

  I was in my cottage, in the kitchen, with Maud. I was back, but it felt so strange. She had brought me back to live… my tenth life? I had gone beyond the knowledge of cats. Was I even alive?

  No.

  Yes.

  Maybe.

  I looked down at my body, inspecting it outside and in. What was this? My body was… my body, but there was no blood pumping through my veins, no heart working like a bellows, no breath… I was not breathing but … Frantically I went looking for my core. It was still there, qi spooled within but the body around it dull, the flesh unliving. Somehow I was both alive and dead at the same time. Two-legger magic. Could I still cultivate? Extending my perception I felt qi, and heaved an enormous breath of relief. Well, not a breath… but I felt better.

  I would figure out the specifics later.

  It had been a very long day.

  Leaping onto Maud’s lap I settled down to groom myself. That felt nice. My fur was all out of place. I had a wound in my side which I recognised as the means of my last death. Maud had neatly stitched it closed with black silk threads. It looked quite neat. A fitting memento of nine lives.

  I washed myself as best I could and decided that, whatever the details, I was back, and life was good.

  The rest I would figure out later.