Beyond

^{I bit down on my coat as the breeze threw dust onto me. The window was opened slightly course, this wouldn’t do. Not today. Not any day. A fox is only as good as his coat. Only as good as the fluff on his tail. Only as good as his muzzle of teeth. As my tongue was licking the dust from my coat, I could hear Master upstairs. Every memory I ever had of master sent glee through me, up to my tail, which swayed most of my life. From childhood to adulthood, Master was my only father - the only man who had loved me as if I were a human child. I couldn’t make him mad. I’ll just go see him. His feet hit the ground harder than they usually did. I can’t mess up again. He’s gonna be mad at me, again. At the sound of creaking upstairs, my feet scuttled along the hardwood floor. The stairs seemed unending, but I smiled as I saw the light from upstairs shining in the dark stairwell. Sliding into his room, my ears turned away to the window. The angry rain drenched him in tears. Ah. He’s so cute. The bird cried out in song, but I couldn’t do anything anyway. Besides, Master doesn’t like birds. He doesn’t fancy my kind, either, but he says he ‘can’t resist me’. He’s so sweet when he’s not angry. It’s very rare for him to be nice to me anymore, though. I know I make him upset, but I don’t do it on purpose. I can’t stand to see him like that. As I thought to myself, I heard the familiar tapping of shoes on the floor. I looked up happily, but the door was open for nothing but the light. Master? I was quick to get to the door, but he wasn’t there. Even when I checked at the end of the hallway, he still wasn’t there. A rumble sounded from down the hall. My feet were snowballs on the carpet. It was fluffy. I liked it. My eyes scanned around the corner. A door was open in Master’s office. A thin beam covered the dark office, a sun in the sky of dark December. My mind went to the cold night that Master let me sleep in his room. It was too frigid for me to sleep in the living room. Bright pulses beamed from the room, taloned hands brushing their claws across the wall. “Master?” I asked, gently striding over to the doorway. Though the lights dimmed, their effects were obvious. The door led into a smaller, darker room. Shattering the quiet, a voice spoke, muffled by the distance. Step-by-step, my curiosity overtook me - enthralled me with the necessity to know what was happening. My paws trounced the floor loudly as I skipped through the room, eager to find the noise. “Here,” I discerned through the wall. “There’s….” The voice quieted. The knob was small, but it was manageable, I assumed. The sound was being distorted, every word mangled from what it was. My head was pressed firmly against the secretive door. The words were like a river that couldn’t - wouldn’t - stop. Though Master never cared before, I’m sure he would care now. Being up late was a singular matter, but being in his office was different. I thought for a short while once more. Who’s voice is that? Why is it coming from the wall? My ears twitched. I looked to the door, my paw reaching up to turn the knob. I couldn’t quite describe how it felt. It was an unsure mix of chaos and excitement but had an undertone of doubt. Maybe I could call it scary? That seemed to fit nicely. For, above all, it was like reaching into a tub of spiders. I knew that something bad was going to happen. I just had no idea when it would happen. When I opened the door? When I saw what was inside?}

^{As I nudged the door forward, it was smooth, gliding inward without struggle. Walking through, my claw taps sounded as raindrops on the floor. Hardwood, maybe? My eyes traced the room, but nothing unusual appeared. Bookshelves. A television. It seemed like a door to another house. Maybe a smaller apartment of some sort. As I turned to hurry back to my room, the unmistakable thunder of footsteps sounded through a hallway. From where, I wasn’t sure. The only thing I was sure about is that I needed to leave. I was backed up against a strange wall in the home of somebody I didn’t know. Footsteps clambered by the door beside me. Under the door, I would see feet standing behind the door, but they didn’t move. Soon, there was nothing I could hear besides breathing from behind the door. I did the only thing my mind thought of: run. I practically slid when I got to the hardwood floor again, but I made it into a different room. Nestled beside a wooden desk, a grey couch sat beside a large window on the left wall. It stuck with me because I’d never seen a window that big before. It was immense. Before hearing the door open down the hall, I noticed something else particularly strange. Eyeing a litterbox in the corner of the room, I saw two doors - right beside each other - in the middle of the right wall. Thinking that it couldn’t have gotten more strange, I turned to leave. The crimson in my fur faded to white as an older man stood in the doorway. My paws were stuck to the floor. His hand trailed along the light switch, flicking it on. The entire room lightened, and I could see him more clearly. He smiled, laughing darkly. “Just a cute one, aren’t we?” he asked, looking down at me. Never in my life had I ever felt more alone. The world itself had been sectioned into two. My life, which was fraught with amusement and happiness, had been bathed in ice with his words. It was as if his breath exuded icy vapor. “So small are those with the biggest hearts, are they not?” He stepped forward, but I was statuesque before him. “So cute. So small.” My eyes watered as his footsteps carried him closer. Soon, he was inches from me. “You do have the choice of which entrance to go through.” He sighed. His hand curved, pointing upward towards the right wall, two doors standing tall beside each other. Tears threatened to fall. What door? His eyes came back to me. “Are we not going to speak?” he asked. Stuck between answering him and fearing him, I was silent. “Well. Remember, Red. The world can only go so far. It extends beyond what you can see, but where is the end of existence?” My head cocked instinctively, tilting sideways. Curiosity coming through me in waves, I opened my mouth to speak, but words never came out. He had a smile as I was going to speak, but it left his face instantaneously. “Red. You never speak to me anymore. A man without his cat is a man without a purpose. What truly is a man beyond his years but lost to the world?” I raised my head to look at him. “If a man is beyond what is known, is he still gone? Does he still know himself, then?” His voice echoed softly off of the walls. “But I’m not a cat, and you’re definitely not Master,” I spoke abruptly, surprising us both. He glanced down slowly. “So you do want to talk to your old man after all these years. I’ve missed you, Red.” I wanted to take it all back. Wishing the word never left my mouth, my heart beat like a moth’s wings. He knelt down, but his charismatic personality seemed to wear down my fear. I was more entranced with the way he spoke - the way he acted. He seemed like a character from a movie, perhaps Science Fiction. “ ‘If you’re going to change, then move the moon. If not, then don’t extinguish the sun and bring darkness into the lives of those around you.’ My father always told me that. I find it a very important lesson in life. Always do what you can in the world. If you can’t, don’t let yourself ruin the lives of others. That’s what I always took from that, anyway.” What a random thing to say. I liked it, though. Master would always say things like that to me. Albeit, in a less humourous way, but he still instilled knowledge into me -things I would never forget. So suddenly, the world had changed. Change was constant, though, wasn’t it? Still, Master would be furious if he knew I disobeyed him. I didn’t know that I would end up there. It all happened so quickly. “So yes, young Red. You have the choice, though this you know already.” His footsteps rattled the floorboards. With every creak, my heart was quick to beat. A low rumble in my chest as he turned himself around. His arm fell down like the petals of a rose, bringing my attention to the doors on both sides of him. “Here, you’ll find what you’ve been missing. Though, there never was a time when I could live without you, my dearest Red. We shall all get through this life apart, but knowing that our heart are joined.” My whiskers twitched. “Who are you?” I asked. His head dipped down to me. He smiled, huffing out a breath. “The sweet tune of my cute, little Red. I always did love your voice.” My paws crept my body over to the doors, though my mind was still processing everything thus far. “But I’m not Red,” my lips quivered. His gaze never broke from me. Eyes dreaming softly as he stood awake. “A man that destroys the moon takes the light from his own times of darkness. Does that desire lie within my Red?” My heart throbbed painfully in my body. “Have you the will to take joy from me? From us?” As he leaned down to me, the door on the left began to shake. His head quickly darted to it. “For choices are of things we make. Chances are of things we take.” His expression left his face. “I do hope you make the best one.” The doors growled. Soft thunder purred behind them as they drifted forward. I couldn’t see the door on the left, but standing where I was, the door on the right was visible. My maw closed. Every doubt that waned in and out in my mind was withdrawn. The door opened up to a large field of savanna grass. I had been taught by Master about ferrets and servals, but the true sight of it was new. A picturesque, yet foreign, place. His eyes saw where the right door led, but his expression was plain. He looked into the moon-lit field as if it were ordinary. Looking back to me, he feigned a smile. “Before you go,” he said, “You need to know a few things.” My head retracted. “Where am I going? Where am I? These questions have reason to be answered.” He forced a smile. “I’m not to say more than I’ve said already.” He turned to look into the right door, eyes opening slightly. “I will say no more than….you being here is not a mistake.” The wind spat leaves against the foggy glass. My breath wasn’t much more than frost. “Though..there…is where you belong. The world. A better world,” he paused, “this world…is not for your kind.” My muzzle lifted up to him. “But what about Master?” Within the second that it took my eyes to shutter, the eyes that looked back into mine where gone. Left behind were two doors. It was more frightening in the fact that I was alone. Yet behind the unknown was surely either death or pain. A chasmic dark surrounded all but the doorways, a lulling trill echoing through them. My ears arose as I entered the right door, the savanna grass that my eyes were fixed on becoming more crisp in my view. Prickling between my toes, the blades were soft. Along the edge of what I could see, a dropoff fell down to a body of water. Teeth protruded from the surface. Beasts of bone lining the edge of the rocky cliff. A marula sang alone in under the moon, whispering in the wind. My fur, which was cipped with the air, trailed along my tail. Arching my back, I stretched, watching the firebugs ease through the wind. But it was the voice that caught me. The lulling tone which came not from an direction, but from the wind itself. “A fox which lies beside himself has no lover Lonliness.” The voice of feathers trailed across my ear. My head turned to all directions, but the only thing visible past the moon-lit marshgrass was the heavenly lavender in the horizon, subverted by tangerine under the violet sun. The wildflowers were shimmering, but they weren’t attracting. The petals swayed, hissing out dream dust into the wind. “They never wake,” the voice said. It was a very distinct tone. The voice of youth, but of a brumal heart. The voice ached its thought, wounded by every word. “They rely on the sun to live. Though it shines upon the joyous moments, it turns away, leaving them to starve.” My snout lowered to the lavender petals sinking in the dirt. “They breathe their last words to God, then die in the frigid shadows.” My back tensed. Somebody was near me. My eyes drifted slowly to the sky, but were caught by orbs that returned by glare. A slender form blocked the violet moon. It poured over her face like water, splashing its light upon my fur. Her face was lifeless, though I wasn’t focused on her. “Where’s Master?” I questioned, my words breaking off as shards of ice. I had only a few words left before my emotions crawled from the warm depths of my heart. “Master is gone. Whether Michael explained it to you, or you are unbeknownst to the truth, you have no master, now.” The heart pulsating in my body, slowing to a faint murmer. “Here, there is no Time. There is no Life or Death.” The talons of Darkness drew themselves across the grass, fingers thrashing under the moon. “Beyond what you see, there is no Color or Darkness. This is everything. You are nothing but a voice in the wind. Beyond. Beyond.” Her lips curved upward. “I dreamed that one day I would find you. Not you, specifically, but somebody that would think to step out into the same moonlight, and drink the moon itself. Let the flavor drift across their aching tongue, and savor the nectar of Selene.” The subtle tapping from inside me weakened to dormancy. My throat inhaled a searing breath, but the world was still before me. “Why am I here?” I asked with a silent heart. The young woman held a whisker in her hand, extending it for me to see. “Red. You aren’t to stay here forever. This is a place with no Tomorrow. You can’t live here. Nothing exists here. You just are here.” The world itself was repetitious in its brisk dance around my head. My teeth were bared. “Why isn’t anybody answering my questions?” My head fell down to the earth, but my paws struggled against the course wheat. Rising up to the best of my ability, I looked to her eyes, but she was beyond sight. Beyond the ability of my eyes to see her. Beyond the distance where my nose could smell her. Just beyond. Etheral voices sounded from the distance. As the stars moved in the sky, the flash blinded me, and my head sank to the ground. A world that was so strange had become distant again in the dark. Weeping trills slipped softly like waves through the void. My nose twitching at the scent of cinammon, I rose myself again. Weakly turning to look into the depths, the door shimmered - a lavender haze danced around the doorway, gleaming like a cloud of comsic dust. Through narrowed eyes, I looked to the ground. The floor of Reality itself began to shatter. A monstrous cry crackled through the black depths on which I stood. My heart beating faster than hummingbird’s, my life was at the mercy of the doorway. As if an angel was looking upon my every move, the doorway became closer. Inch-by-inch, the sights beyond the entrance blurred, the world twisting to kaleidoscope vision. Light blue glowing birds soared around the abyss. Their beaks were twisted slightly, their bodies the size of dolphins. As their tails dragged across the gasious floor, contrails of ghostly dust casted thin clouds behind them. My paws, pressing down on the dust that comprised the floor, propelled me into the doorway. One paw pushing against hardwood floor, my other pulled myself up. My tail just narrowly missed a “bird” flying by the outer side of the doorway.I rolled myself over, crawling to the center of the room. As I looked around with dread, the world felt different. Bookshelves stood by the lights. Beside the lamp, in the corner of the room, Master sat looking to me. I flipped my entire body, paws thudding against the floor. Leaning upward, I thundered across the room, rubbing on his legs. Relief bathed me in itself. Intially, his expression was vague, uninterested. But as he reached out to pet me, he spoke. “How do you like it here, Red?” My blood cold at his words, I stiffened. “You’re such a good kitty. You’ve always been such a good kitty.”}