Hoarfrost stumbled on the unsteady rocks, glancing back at the group of cats he called family. They were a motley crew of the worst rogues and loners the island had managed to produce and were hardly worth being called cats.
Dusk was settling in, turning the sky the color of blood and gold. The mountainous area where they were currently camped was coated with frost and mist, scaring off any prey and making bones creaky. Leaf-fall had made the air crisp and cold, though Hoarfrost wasn’t bothered by it. His mother had been from the tundra, or so the others said. He’d gotten his thick fur from her.
What was her name again? Hoarfrost couldn’t recall, nor could he remember what his mother looked like or how she smelled. She had succumbed to the deathly fever that had almost taken him mere days after he was born.
That’s a cursed kit, I tell you. The others had said. They ignored the fact that his brothers, Starling and Juniper, were also born that day. It was always about Hoarfrost being strange.
Humming sounded in the tom’s ears, insistent and angry.
They’ll burn. Hoarfrost watched the cats with hazy eyes, aware that the cloud of madness was hovering on the edges of his mind again. It had been like this ever since he was young: move too much or become too emotional and a fire-rimmed fog of insanity descended upon him. Starling egged him on, trying to get Hoarfrost to go over the edge, while Juniper just called him a monster and snickered when he asked for help.
“Not that I need it,” Hoarfrost said calmly to the night air as he settled down on a tall rock. “But it would be nice for someone to feed me occasionally.” He hadn’t been allowed to play with the other kits when he was young and never learned hunting skills. The adults refused to teach him and said if he didn’t know by now, he wouldn’t learn and would be better off starving to death. Currently, Hoarfrost lived off crowfood and the occasional extra prey that the various queens wouldn’t be able to feed their kits.
The tom watched the group from his perch, aware that they were shooting him distrustful looks. It was no secret that many hated him for his strangeness. More than once Hoarfrost awoke to find that the group was gone, shuffled off in the night to try and lose him.
It takes more than that. Hoarfrost wasn’t sure if it was his own inner voice saying it or if it was a stray piece of the clamoring madness. He decided he didn’t care and took a deep breath, closing his eyes. Come on, then. You can have my body. Take care not to wake my mind.
When Hoarfrost opened his eyes again, dawn was unfurling in the sky like a flower’s bloom. Birds chirped in the sparse elm trees and shook the air with their delicate song. It was a close to idyllic morning, with just one problem.
Blood coated Hoarfrost’s paws and filled his mouth. It was dried, but not unfamiliar or unwelcome. His stomach was heavy with meat and, as the tom followed the trail of bloody pawsteps, he saw the ragged corpse of a cat.
It was Frog, one of Hound’s kits. The little tom was only about four moons old and his stomach was torn open, the innards seemingly scraped clean. He deserved it. The voices whispered in Hoarfrost’s head as he moved rocks and branches to hide the body. Frog’s father was Nettle, and Nettle was one of the cats who tried to kill Hoarfrost. He felt no remorse now.
Something in Hoarfrost’s mind told him to swim in the river, and he had no reason to complain. The icy water was a balm on his sore muscles and soon he found himself wondering if drowning would be so bad. Immediately, the buzzing in his head turned angry.
“Okay, okay,” Hoarfrost mumbled. “Whatever.” He clambered out of the water and shook off, just in time to hear the panicked cries of cats. A pair of cats, Reed and Shine, appeared over the crest of the valley.
“Hoarfrost, what have you done now?!” Reed demanded.
“I’ve gone for a swim.” Hoarfrost blinked up at the pair.
Shine bounded down, her fangs peeled back in a snarl. “Frog and Petal are missing. What did you do to them?”
“I haven’t done anything to them.” The lie was acrid on Hoarfrost’s tongue.
Not a lie, whispered the voices humming in between Hoarfrost’s ears. You didn’t. We did. That made him feel better.
“Where did they go?” Hoarfrost asked, sitting down as he groomed the remaining water out of his fur. “I thought Hound and Bristle would have been watching them.”
Reed eyed Hoarfrost suspiciously until he blurted out, “What could I have done with them? Given them to the Clancats like Shred-Ear did?”
Shine sneered but shook her head. “Come on, Reed. He’s too stupid to have done anything with them. We should head back and see what Wheezer has to say.”
With another sharp glare, Reed turned and disappeared over the hill. Hoarfrost counted silently to ten, then got up and followed them. He could tell the she-cats had broken into a sprint to try and lose him, but his legs were longer and he was used to this game. It was no problem to follow and run them down.
The cats were milling around anxiously around a tall rock where Wheezer sat. Fat and ungainly, the tom was their leader by proxy alone. He would bully others into doing what he wanted and didn’t hesitate to “put cats in their place,” which meant send one of his lackeys to beat up anyone he didn’t like.
Hoarfrost perched at the edge of the crowd, squinting in the harsh sunlight. Starling peeled away from the others and sat down beside him. “Oh, you’re back. Where were you last night?”
“Sleeping away,” Hoarfrost said, shifting his paws.
“Are you lying?” Starling whispered, shifting closer. The tom knew that was one of the things Hoarfrost hated being accused of.
With a shudder, Hoarfrost shook his head adamantly. It wasn’t a lie, not really. His mind was sleeping.
Starling fixed Hoarfrost with that sharp, uncanny gaze that he hated. “… okay. I believe you.”
The gray tom relaxed again.
Wheezer finally got to his paws and caused every cat to silence. “Okay. It’s time to go.”
Nettle shoved his way to the front. “But Petal and Frog-”
“It doesn’t matter.” Wheezer snapped. “We have a schedule to keep. Do you want to be kicked out?”
After a moment of hesitation, Nettle lowered his head and went silent. Hound wailed, wrapped tightly around her remaining two kits.
Hoarfrost shuffled his paws, wondering if she would be alright.
They don’t care if you’re alright. The terrible buzzing in Hoarfrost’s head increased. She still has Swallow and Gorse. She’ll be alright. You don’t have anyone.
“I have Starling,” Hoarfrost mumbled. His brother glanced over but said nothing. The voices hummed and went quiet again.
The group gathered themselves up once more – Shine and Reed comforting a sobbing Hound – and started on their way. Starling walked silently beside Hoarfrost, but would occasionally ask questions like “are you lying” or “do you think they’re talking about you?” It made Hoarfrost’s head buzz more and more.
By the time the group stopped for dusk, Hoarfrost could barely keep his eyes open. The whispers had risen to a roar that drowned out everything. He barely could make out that Wheezer was ordering to… attack something…
Hoarfrost wandered off, staggering as he tried to find something to drink. That usually made the whispers recede, even if just for a little while. He found his relief in a small icy pond. The water was cool and crisp and drove the murmurs back until they were bearable again.
Taking a deep breath, Hoarfrost trotted back to the others. They were gone. Typical. Shaking his head, he began sniffing at the ground to catch their scent. To his surprise, Shine, Brindle, and Burr were entertaining the rest of the dozen-odd kits.
Hoarfrost watched them for a long moment, taking care to see how Swallow and Gorse acted. They seemed completely fine despite their missing littermates. Good. He sighed in relief and went off to find the rest of the group.
The sound of a battle graced Hoarfrost’s ears before too long. Another fight? Go, go! Let’s go watch! He snorted, hoping the scent of blood wouldn’t awaken the whispers, and followed to see if he could be useful. The scene he found was chaotic and very one-sided: Wheezer’s well-muscled and violent group against some oldies and sickly cats.
Hoarfrost watched distantly as Starling pounced on a kit no older than Frog and Petal had been. Its neck snapped instantly. He shook his head and turned away.
Not too far to Hoarfrost’s left was Nettle, venting his rage on an elderly cat. With one violent movement, he’d torn the throat out of the old cat. Blood spurted everywhere, making Hoarfrost’s heart heave, but then a strange she-cat appeared out of nowhere to attack. Her fangs sank into Nettle’s neck and ripped it open.
A fitting death. Hoarfrost thought idly. Hound raced over and began fighting, but he wasn’t interested anymore. He wandered off down a rocky path, below the battle, and watched as Reed plunged over the edge and hit the ground hard. The sound of crunching bones made Hoarfrost’s heart skip a beat.
“Help…” Hoarfrost blinked in surprise – Reed was still alive! She was bleeding from her ears and nose and her breath rattled like bones against rock, but she was still alive somehow. “Please…”
Intrigued, Hoarfrost approached the she-cat’s dying body and sniffed at it. The scent of blood and approaching death was overwhelming, making his heart tremble with excitement. Her eyes were straining out from the impact, almost… looking like… Go ahead. The voices whispered excitedly. Sate your curiosity.
Hoarfrost reached a paw out and put his paw on Reed’s head. His claws slid out and impaled her eyes, causing her to scream, but he ignored it and tugged. Her eyes popped out with a bloody squelch. He dangled them off his claws for a moment, quickly becoming bored with it, and dropped the squishy things. After wiping his paws on the she-cat’s body, he wandered off again.
As the whispers grew louder in Hoarfrost’s ears, excited by the bloodlust and carnage, he found it was getting harder to focus. “Is it already time?” The tom yawned and tried to fight it, but the voices were insistent. He was close to something, apparently, that they wanted.
“Just be careful, then. For real this time. Cat meat makes me sick, you know.” The voices hummed reassurance and Hoarfrost faded from consciousness.
Flames burst from a ruptured crack in the frozen rocks, licking at the cat’s paws. He giggled at the pain, letting his claws crackle and burn, but retreated when he knew he could die if he stayed. But what was wrong with dying again? … oh right. He had a job to do. With much effort, the cat tore away from his beloved fire and trudged through the snowy landscape.
A glacier-like monument appeared in the dim white world. It hissed and snarled at the tom’s approach, denouncing him as vile and disgusting. He didn’t care. He entered the sacred obelisk without care, feeling the way the air blistered and burned as the grew closer to the fire.
Soon, a massive spire of flame appeared. It raged at the tom and ordered him to leave, but he had already made it this far. He wouldn’t turn back now.
Taking a deep breath, the tom crouched next to the flames… then lunged inside. The pain exploded across his body and threatened to awaken the sleeping soul that flickered so weakly…
When the tom opened his eyes, everything was different. The flame no longer hissed and snarled – it crackled and burned like normal. “So.” He murmured as he stood. “I’ve finally escaped.” It was a thrilling feeling, to be back in a normal body. Those desert cats were so worthless… it almost made him want to go and kill them all.
The soul in the cat’s chest stirred, worried about entering the desert. He didn’t like it, it made him sick. “Sleep now,” the cat said briskly, “I won’t go there for now. You like the snow, yeah? Let’s make a home here.” He needed to appease the little soul, though that was terribly easy to do.
Home… The soul whispered, making the cat roll his eyes. “Back to the others? We’ve come so far.” Quiet. Then, New home.
“A new home?” The cat made his way out of the stone obelisk and squinted in the snow-amplified light. “I can work with that. Let’s see if we can find a rogue group out here.”
It didn’t take too long in the end. After a few close encounters in which the cat was forced to kill a couple of stray Clancats, he found a little group of rogues who seemed like they would care for him. All he had to do was show off a few herbs, which thankfully the weak little soul knew a decent amount about.
The big cat in charge, Bee, was showing the cat around the strange two-leg camp when they came to a large area in which a fire blazed. Immediately the cat’s heart started pounding with excitement. “Fire?”
“Fire.” Bee agreed. “It keeps us warm.”
“… fire.” The cat approached and sat in front of it, staring intently into the red and yellow flame. He could see the shapes of cats, both good and bad, who raged at him for escaping. Some were pleased, others were hateful.
“You have a name, stranger?” Bee asked, sitting beside him. He seemed amused more than anything, utterly unbothered by the newcomer’s clear oddity.
“My name?” The tom asked, his tail flicking. Hoarfrost came the weak reply. “Ah, yes, Hoarfrost. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
Bee snorted softly. “A pleasure indeed. I hope you prove yourself useful, Hoarfrost. You’re interesting.”
Hoarfrost glanced over, feeling the little soul wax with satisfaction. “Oh, I’ll prove myself Bee. Just trust in me and everything will be alright.”