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| - The mist around my face cleared, and my foggy brain slowly recovered from its numb state and began to register things. I glanced around uncertainly, wondering where I was, and what I would do when I finally sorted things out. But when my eyes finally adjusted to my surroundings, I could only stare. Huge trees towered over me in every direction I looked. The sunlight dappled the ground in a bright kaleidoscope of golden sections. It was beautiful. The tranquility of it all seeped into me and I closed my eyes slowly, breathing in the fresh scent of undergrowth. Of life. I blinked and gazed around me, then stepped forward. Time to do what I've come here for. Then I realized I didn't know why I'd come. To live. To avoid death. The best I could do was find my way around. I needed another cat with me - after all, that was why I'd come here in the first place. I needed to search for company. Lazuli would know what to do, I thought ruefully, grief overcoming me. Then I shook my head to clear my thoughts. Lazuli is dead. It is up to you and only you to keep yourself alive. I swept aside a swath of ferns and ducked underneath. First, I needed to find food and water, and sitting around pining for Lazuli wouldn't get me where I needed to be. Stalking across, I looked around for any sign of life. Nothing stirred, not even the wind in the limbs of the great pines above me. The only sound in the forest was of a songbird twittering above in the branches of a stumpy evergreen. With not a hint of a warning, something slammed into my back, knocking the breath out of me. My face buried in the ground, my rump uncomfortably sticking into the air, I let out a muffled, "Mmmph!" into the dirt. My unknown attacker lifted their weight off of my back, but, I noticed, still kept one paw hovering over me. I lifted myself up and turned around to look at the tom. And gasped. I was staring straight into the gaze of Lazuli. Except this was a tom. Not a she-cat. And he definitely couldn't be Lazuli. She had died, and she had never known about this alernate universe (as far as I'd known). Certainly, this was just a coincidence? But my foolish mouth blurted out before my brain could register, "Lazuli!" The tom stared at me through narrowed eyes, clouded with confusion. "What?" "L-Lazuli - you look just like - n-never mind," I stammered ungracefully. I silently cursed myself loads of mouse dung for acting so strangely. Because for a stranger, I felt attracted to him. He seemed interesting, and boundless. He seemed the type of character who saw right through you. Not to mention his good looks. "You're coming with me," the cat mewed, giving me a hard look. Despite his apparent lack of friendliness toward me, he gently steered me forward, silently making sure he remained behind me at all times. "Where are you taking me?" I hissed, suddenly on my defensive mode. I swore at myself yet again. I had never fallen for a tom before. In fact, I tended to act out in front of them, purposefully pointing out each and every reason why they shouldn't be alive and talking to me. What was I doing now? Mere heartbeats since I had arrived in this seemingly separate dimension, and I was already "captured." "Woah." The tom quickly swung his sheathed claws around my head and attempted to lock me down in a pose that would immobilize me but not hurt me physically. But I knew the move too well, what with my past frequent skirmishes with rogues of all kinds. Letting out a menacing hiss, I immediately swung around and sank my teeth into the stranger's paw. "Ow!" The tom yelped. He backed away, as if saying he'd had enough. But apparently I didn't. I leaped at him, jaws bared, and raked them across his face. He flipped over in an attempt to throw me off, but I simply detached myself from the tom's spine and waited until his belly was exposed. I seized the opportunity and attacked the vulnerable cat, holding my claws menacingly above his throat. But I didn't kill him. Maybe I'm over-the-top angry. But I'm not bloodthirsty. I simply waited for him to respond in some way. Instead, he went limp in my paws. Shocked, and frightened, of what I'd done, I loosened my grip and stared at the cat, hoping that I was wrong. I hadn't harmed him. But he didn't breath or utter a single sound. Horror pulsed through my veins, but just when I was about to give up, I saw his chest twist. But the damage was done. The cat flipped me over and had me pinned down, his greater weight crushing me. I yowled and struggled mightily, but he held strong. "Why you little - " "Shh. Don't say a word." The tom tightened his grip on me. "I'm a warrior of the Aphyix kingdom, which means at any moment I can alert the other troops. I have hundreds of cats for reinforcements, you see. Thousands. And can a small...female...cat like you stand up to us? I think not." "But you - " I began miserably. "You can call me Keyes." With that, he turned and stalked off. A warrior of the Aphyix? I was almost tempted to laugh. But something in the warrior's keen gaze told me more of it was truth than not. Moreover, this mysterious cat Keyes looked in the strangest way like Lazuli. The face, the round eyes, it was all the same, take away the color of the fur. And stranger, he acted even more like the beautiful gray she cat. Taking in a deep breath, I decided to follow Keyes. That was the first mistake I had made since my arrival at Aphyix. Where is Keyes? I wondered. The tom had been here just a moment ago. It seemed he had led me to the first structure I had seen since I had been generated in the woods, closely resembling the buildings I had seen in my vision. It was small, and had a tiny hole for the entrance. But the bigger question was, where had the mysterious tom disappeared to? "So you followed me, eh? Curious cat, you are." I gasped and looked up. There was Keyes, staring down at me with equal intensity from a tree branch. "Welcome to Aphyix, I suppose." "So that's it? A warm welcome from the friendly cat who tried to kill me past sunhigh ago?" My eyes flashed. "I'll be off. I am looking for something. And you daren't intercept me again." "Fiesty words from a fiesty cat." Keyes clawed his way down and stalked toward me, tail high. I noticed that he stood a head taller than me. This only deepened my annoyance toward the tom. "I'm sure you'll enjoy Aphyix, you know." "Thanks," I murmured. Maybe Keyes didn't mean any harm after all. Keyes slid out his claws on the ground. "Guards, arrest her." It took me a moment to register what he had said, and by that time two large cats had slithered out from the copse of trees behind him and surrounded me, hackles raised. "W-what?" Keyes tossed a long cord to each of his fellow guards and they, in turn, looped it around my paws, pulling tight until I squealed in pain. "Take them to the Central," Keyes ordered. He flashed a glance at me, seeming competent. I stormed at him and struggled out of the binds. "Don't once loosen your grip. She's a different one, that's for sure." "Stop struggling," growled one of the burly guards. "You'll only make it worse for yourself, cat." My eyes met Keyes' one last time before I was shoved roughly forward. It seemed to relay me a message I couldn't quite comprehend. I shook my head unbelievably. I can't believe I trusted him. Sighing, I let my body be jostled by the guards. Today had not been a very good day.
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