Just Another Day

Update 1 – There's Murder in the Air

	You are Anon, and you really want to die. No, you're not just some mopey sadsack who wants to escape some problems in life. You feel that you are perfectly justified in wanting to end your problems once and for all, as they are rather relentless. The painful monotony of the last however many days is just really getting to you and- oh fuck you can feel her sneaking up behind you. You break into a sprint and trample over light brush and twigs. The trees become more sparse and you find yourself at a clearing. Some yards out of the forest's edge there is a cluster of rather ramshackle looking huts, and as you close the distance you peek over your shoulder to chance a glance at your pursuer. You see nothing that betrays your pursuer. How disconcerting. Was it better to see pain coming or have it be a surprise? 

	You muse about that under your breath as you make your way into the center of the array of huts. They're rather small and squat things made out of an ugly sort of daub with straw roofs. The huts are all arranged radially around what seems to be a fire pit ringed in irregular stones. You round the nearest one and peek inside. Nobody's home. You swivel your head and make note of the shoddy wicker baskets and clay pots, as well as the small lump of bedding on the hut's far end. You creep in and overturn everything in the hope of finding something sharp, but to no avail. Damn it, still nothing you could use to defend yourself. Sure, there were sticks in the forest, and maybe you could have sharpened one with a rock or knapped some shard of flint into a point, but you didn't have any time. A readily made stabby implement would have made your week. You move back and settle into the bedding, which seems to be mainly some sort of rather fluffy dried moss and other vegetation set over a rough animal skin used as a rug. Seems like it was once some sort of deer. You allow yourself a moment of rest in the surprisingly comfortable lump of vegetable matter and stare at the hut's entrance. It seems to be nearing midday, as the outside is pretty bright. You'll see that pain coming pretty clearly now.  

	A minute passes, and you stare at the ceiling. The hut has a few wooden support beams for its mass of straw that counts as a roof. Moments of silence and peace like this feel pretty nice. Sure beats the feelings of impending doom that have been much too common for you as of late. You close your eyes. The wind beats at the distant treetops. How soothing. You soak in the whistling and rustling coming from the hut's roof and the faraway trees, but are interrupted by a low thump that feels nearer than you'd want. There could be only one source of that: her. She is the only other living thing that you've seen ever since you've been brought into this living hell. Explains the lack of bird calls, too. Damn, some pretty chirping would complete these nature noises. You stretch your neck a bit as you stand up from your sort of comfy seating – wait... she might hear you. You halt your ascent. No new noises. That means nothing, as she has been eerily silent aside from a few stumbles like the one you just heard. You creep into a standing position and reach for a clay pot. As quietly as you can, you inch your way just left of the dirty domicile's entrance with the pot clutched over your head in your slightly shaky hands. You look out the side of the doorway opposite of you to see the other huts. You count three. You hear nothing but the wind working its way through leaf, branch, and straw. 

	Your arms are getting sort of tired. Before this you had sort of neglected your physique, and now why did you do that? You should have expected something dumb like this to happen eventually, and neglecting to prepare for this scenario was your own damn fault. Heh, that kind of thinking would get you nowhere. You tense up. Did you just audibly “heh”? God damn it, Anon, this is the kind of shit that would get you killed someday. Hopefully today. Even after your little outburst, you still hear nothing. You watch for a minute, and the stillness is sort of disturbing. The wind dies down. No motion, no sound, no input aside from the sight of brown dirt and bright sunlight through the hut's aperture. Patience, Anon. You blink slowly, and as your eyes reopen you catch a fleeting glance of brown-gray speckled in black disappearing behind the second hut from yours. This is it: zero hour. 

	She could either go around the huts and behind you or just chance an assault from the front. She seems to like attacking from out of sight, so she'll likely go for the former. You lower the pot and take one hand off of it as you pivot around the doorway and end up with your back to the exterior wall of the hut. You inch along the perimeter of the hut into the sort of alleyway between the adjacent huts. She would move slowly until she knows she has you, so you know she hasn't made it all the way around the three huts yet. You look back over your right shoulder and back towards the firepit, making sure she hasn't pulled a fast one on you. A cursory glance reveals no hunter, and you look back over your left. You hear an extremely light thump around the back of the hut. Here goes nothing. You charge around the corner, brandishing your improvised clay bludgeon with a truly mighty yell! Fuck, she wasn't there, however, a rock was. Was that the real oldest trick in the book? Probably. Wait, where the hell could that rock have come from? It landed directly behind the hut, so it was either thrown from from directly opposite of where you had just stood, or- 

	WHUMP!

	Above you.... Fuck. You're now face down in the dirt behind some shitty hut, with your hunter right on top of you and your clay pot just out of reach. You feel a low purr of satisfaction emanate from her as she straddles your back, and a soft hand caresses the back of your neck; tinges of fur at its edges tickling you. Your huntress is fairly weighty, and you strain to push yourself up slightly as you crane your neck to look at her face. Your gaze goes upwards from her fuzzy off-white belly and chest (which seems to lack breasts, though she is assuredly a she) to her face. She seems smug. A line of black that conforms to her lips is twisted in a light smile under her whiskers and wet, brown nose. Her cheeks are puffy with thick fur that runs down to her neck and fluffy chest. Her eyes are searing dots of amber that meet your own and pin your very soul to the back of your head. It takes a monumental effort to break that intense gaze and go further up to her perky ears. They each have a little tuft of black fur pointing straight up. Seeing those silly little points on the beast-woman that had assaulted you forces a smile out of your lips and another tiny gasp of amusement out of your lungs.

	“Heh”

	“Got you!” Her face is aglow with happiness.

	She laughs as lines of pain burn on your throat. The ground below you grows wet and you sink into darkness with your predator's contentment rumbling through you. Your vision narrows until you see nothing but brown dirt as your neck slacks, and you feel as if you are falling from a great height. You keep falling as your vision grows infinitesimally smaller. You see nothing as you continue to fall; your thoughts dissolving into the nothingness that you can't see. This is peaceful. Just as you finally surrender yourself to oblivion, something tugs at your mind. 

	WHUMP!

	You hit the ground. Fuck. Your eyes open to a sky of pure blue. Double fuck. So it begins again. Fuck this shit. 

Update 2 – Dreaming Again

	You groan and push yourself into a seated position. Nothing was broken, as usual. That fall still felt pretty damn awful: sort of like those dreams where you're falling and wake up with a start. Yeah, just like that but you hit the ground and actively have to wonder whether or not you've been mashed into paste. You shake your head and focus. Alright, where are you today?

	You are currently staring out to sea from a beach of immaculate white sand. The sea is endless and serene. Gentle waves and cool blue fill you with peace. You stare for a while. You had an hour or two before she would make her entrance, so you had time to reminisce. You've “died” thirteen times now. Lucky number, huh? Maybe this time something would change. Probably not. The last thirteen iterations had followed the same formula: you fall into some new locale, wander around for a bit, see her once, run like hell, and then get brutally murdered. Well, not murdered exactly. Would it have been aggravated assault? Maybe if you went into law you'd have dodged this whole situation. You run your hands through the warm sand. This place is perfect. You'd been taken to a beach for maybe your sixth or seventh slaughter. Yeah, it was the seventh, and it was a shitty, rocky beach set against a rough, gray-green body of water broken up by rocky crags and distant islands. You lay back and soak in the sun. Laying your head back, you roll over onto your belly and gaze back up the beach. It slopes upwards slightly and stops abruptly maybe 50 feet away from you, where a treeline starts. Vines, trees, bushes, and oh so many other places for that furry psycho to hide and ambush you. You're not going in there. 

	After a few more minutes of catching rays, you push yourself up to stand. You clasp your hands together and stretch all the way up. Feels good. You look back at the water. Could she swim? Most cats don't like to, and she is certainly feline. You could certainly swim, and so you jog down to the shore to meet the lapping waves. Warm water washes over your feet. Several biomes have made you miss your clothes, most notably that chilly steppe where you met your tenth death and that absolutely hellish endeavor that was your fourth death. Fuck spiky plants. You don't need clothes here. The temperature is perfect. You wade further into the water and it practically embraces you. Eventually, it's deep enough for you to swim in and you not-so-gracefully flop into the shallows. You crawl along the seabed and make your way out until your fingertips only barely brush against the sand. You leisurely begin to swim out into the infinite azure. Could you escape her this way? Just keep swimming forever? You've noticed that you don't really tire, get hungry, or get thirsty, so could you theoretically just drift off in this cool water indefinitely. Now that's a happy thought. Purgatory here doesn't seem that bad. 

	You turn back for a second to gauge your distance. You notice that you're not as far out as you though you would be. Whatever, if you just keep swimming and it'll all be okay. You settle into a nice rhythm of strokes and make your way towards the horizon. Time passes and you grow curious. You look back. Wait, what the fuck? You're almost exactly where you pushed off. There really is no escape. You stop and begin to tread water while glaring at the shore. This is some serious bullshit. The shore seems to be getting a bit closer. You continue to tread water and indeed, you're getting pulled back in by a current. You drift forwards little by little until your toes drift against grit. The water level drops slightly and you are pulled back. Uh oh. You quickly look back and there it is, the biggest wave you've seen in this normally serene ocean. Not that big compared to some you've seen elsewhere, but still quite substantial. Before you can think much else, you are swept on the wave's crest. The wave reaches its peak with you carried on top, and then breaks in a rush of spray.

	“ACK!” you sputter, tumbling end over end in the violent water. You roll and twist out of control, your fate at the mercy of this unfeeling brine. You hit the ground on your shoulder, slide a few feet across the abrasive  wet sand, and come to a stop on your back just out of the water. Ow. Of course this would happen. You gingerly feel the now slightly raw patch of skin ranging from your upper right arm to your middle back. This sucks. You pry yourself off of your highly exfoliated back and onto your butt. How much time did you just waste with that stunt? Did you even have time to run? Wait... what happens if you don't run? Might as well test it out. You've been running since this whole ordeal began. You knew that you had to run from the first time you saw her, but where had that feeling come from? She wasn't threatening in that first encounter, in fact she seemed more curious than anything. That being said, as soon as she caught you she promptly gutted you and left your viscera in a neat pile on that calm spring glade. That first time had been quite confusing. You might as well think about that unpleasantness as you wait for her to come after you.

	You felt pretty fucking bad the day you ended up in this purgatory. Life hadn't really been repetitive for you as much as it had been repetitively chaotic. Things were constantly going wrong for you: a death of someone close to you, a financial disaster, a natural disaster, a personal disaster, whatever. It had gotten worse and worse until it reached a crescendo of awful eventualities that involved someone close to you dying in what could only be described as “suspicious” circumstances that lead the police (and some very spooky men wearing suits) to start bothering you, a tree falling and crushing your car, something dying in the walls of your house and leaving a stench as a farewell present, having to deal with some sort of HR nightmare that converged with you in the focal point of a scandal at work that you didn't even participate in, and some sort of itchy rash. You cried for the first time in years as events culminated with you stubbing your toe while receiving a phone call from someone claiming that they were going to sue you in some sort of far-fetched case that would nevertheless require some sort of expensive lawyer to represent you. After that you just decided to go to bed and deal with everything in the morning. It was hard to get to sleep when you'd reflexively sob or scratch an inflamed region of your body, but you eventually made it out of your waking nightmare and into a sleeping one.
	
	That night you dreamed of shadowy figures that wound around you and laughed. Whenever you tried to confront them they just laughed harder and slunk back a bit before creeping back towards you. More and more streamed in from nothing until your vision was completely occluded by shifting shadows, each snickering at you as it slithered around and around. After what felt like hours, you snapped. A scream escaped your lips, and the shadows instantly scattered. 

	In the absence of the shadows, you found yourself in what could only be described as “spring.” A rolling meadow of lush grass studded with blooming wildflowers. A light scattering of trees covered in budding new growth. A sweet wind redolent of childhood memories and happiness. You could hardly believe your eyes. You pinched yourself. Nope, not a dream. Where were your clothes? Eh, it didn't matter. You explored this wondrous new reality with hope, and almost giddily pranced about until you rounded a tree that she was behind. You were taken aback by her initially. Who wouldn't be at least surprised to see a cat standing upright? Well not just a cat, she (you decided that immediately) had some human traits in the curve of her torso, the scale of her head, the amused smirk that was definitely more defined than any you'd seen on any cat. You stared at her for a second, lingering on her generous coat of fur, pointy ears, and beautiful spots. After taking a mental inventory of her features, a thought entered your mind: you should run. And so you did. You scrambled away from this feline siren as fast as you could, but it was too little and too late. Barely fifteen feet away from your start, your shoulder felt an impact and you were forced to the ground. You skidded to the ground on your face, plowing up a trail of grass with your chin. Ow. Your shoulder was gripped in a soft vice and you were pulled back up onto your knees. You felt the panic in your face as she stepped in front of you. For a moment your terror faltered as you noticed the somehow sweet smile on her face. Your frown turned itself back right-side-up almost immediately as she crouched to meet your gaze with her own intense stare, with her left hand trailing down your body from your shoulder as she did. The hand (paw?) felt its way just below your navel, and in a lightning-quick flash of motion it made its way up just below your sternum. She withdrew her hand, and as it met her side you noticed your stomach opening itself like one of the meadow's fresh spring flowers. Out of this new aperture slid your organs and a whole lot of blood, which was not a pretty sight. You looked back up to her more pleasant face, and that eerily happy and beautiful feline framed in the spring's glory was etched into your memory forever.

	Back in the present, you find yourself rocking back and forth to this memory. This one above any other, whether from your life before or after you began this hellish cycle, had been playing and replaying itself over and over. It was as inescapable as she was at this point. You shake your head in a vain attempt to clear the memory of the rush of your first non-death. By your figure, it had been the normal amount of time between your appearance and hers, meaning she had to be around somewhere. 

	“COME ON OUT, YOU FURRY PSYCHO!” you yell. 

	There is no response. Your eye twitches.

	“I SAID GET ON OUT HERE, I'M TIRED OF WAITING.” 

	Still nothing. You resign yourself to silence. Did she not come into your little world if you didn't run away from the start? Maybe there was something else at play that put her in here only if certain conditions were met, or maybe- oh wait, you can see her gray against the bright tropical green of the island jungle. Huh, she's not as stealthy as she is normally, or maybe she's getting herself caught. Well if so, congratulations to her, you guess.  

	“Hey, I can see you!”

	The bit of gray disappears into the shadows. Does she want you to follow her? That would be pretty stupid for you to do. You stand your ground. If she wants to kill you she needs to do it herself rather than have you deliver yourself on a silver platter. 

	“Fine, then I'm just gonna wait.” You say, your voice softer and more uncertain.

	And so you wait. And wait. And wait. And wait. The sun never moves. You briefly consider walking into the forest just for the change in scenery after she kills you again. This sun isn't as nice as you thought it would be, but at least you aren't burning. You wait some more. You haven't had much spare time to just think. Where the fuck are you, anyways? This is obviously something that's at least sort of paranormal. Were those shadows some sort of spirit? This whole thing is as real as you could believe. If it feels like life, is it life? Eh, fuck it. An explanation doesn't mean shit without something you can do with it. Speculation did nothing for you. You wait more. A bit of gray and brown slides over the sunlit outer edges of the forest. Alright, progress. The colors and spots slowly shift closer to you until there's only the barest edge of foliage separating her from you. You can barely make out her silhouette against some tall grasses and twisted trees. She is slim, but has very well proportioned hips. Not too wide, and definitely not too narrow. Wait, why are you fixating on her hips? Moments pass and neither of you move. You blink slowly. She's still in the exact same place. Huh, so much for that.

	You decide to put a bit more confidence into your voice. “That's good, but I'm still not moving.” 

	An angry hiss greets you ears. Perfect, she's getting frustrated. She steps out of the brush with great poise. She bores straight into your eyes, and for the first time you feel definite malice leaking out of her, even as you are fairly far away. Hoo boy, she's definitely pretty frustrated. Her gait is graceful, yet curt, as she walks towards you. She stops ten feet away from you and stands tall, looking down at you over her snout. You stand up taller and mirror the gesture. 

	“Well, I'm glad you de-”

	“Why didn't you run?” she interrupts, a frown on her face for the first time in all of your fourteen encounters. Her voice is slightly accented, but it's not one you recognize.

	“What point is there in me running?” 

	Her tightly knit brow melts away. “There is nothing fun about it if you do not run.” Her eyes are almost pleading.

	“This is fun to you? Stalking and killing me over and over again, no, watching me die after you gut me or slit my throat is fun to you? What the fuck is your problem?”

	The tension in her brow is back with a vengeance, and it brought the aura of hate with it. “Well, if you refuse to run....” 

	“What? You'll attack me again? I die, but not really, and this whole thing happens again? What do I gain from running?”

	Despite putting on a tough facade, her threat is still getting to you. What the fuck will she do that's even worse than what she's done already? Whatever it is, it's gonna suck for sure. Better stick it out anyways, no matter if it is extremely painful. She creeps closer to you without breaking eye contact, her hands at her side.

	Defiance didn't work, so how about smarm? “Wait, before you torture or kill me again, can I at least get the name of the beauty that's been killing me so intimately?” You finish with a grin and a wiggle of your eyebrows.
	
	Her ears pull back flush against her head and she emanates a low growl. Maybe teasing her was a really bad idea. A few minutes later when you're missing an eye, several fingers, a chunk of odd-looking flesh that you think is your spleen, part of your scalp, and some tendons from your arms, you realize that it was a seriously fucking bad idea. You lie in what is possibly the worst pain since your stubbed toe so many days ago and silently shudder. She stands back up to admire her gristly handiwork and grins. Her ears are back to being perky. How cute.

	“I can keep it quick if you let me give chase. Otherwise, you get that.” 

	You groan as she crouches over your chest to come face to face.

	Her grin grows wider. “Oh, I almost forgot: my name is Faerla.” 

	What kind of name is that? Faerla softly strokes your face from your good eye to your throat. Moments later, you start to slip into darkness when you realize she's holding your trachea at eye level. Ow. As you fall back into the abyss, you feel your missing parts flawlessly regrow. This bath of darkness is quite pleasant. 

	WHUMP!

	You groan a bit. That was seriously dire, and you never wanted to have your tendons pulled out that way again. At least you got her name. Hey, that's progress.

Update 3 – A Place in the Stars

	Your eyes open to thousands of stars. They're beautiful. You don't see the moon. You soak in the sights for a minute and gently feel around the ground. It's hard and slightly sandy. One of your arms meets a rock, and the other makes contact with a bush. You pull yourself slightly across the ground to that rock and get onto your feet. You're on top of a sharp and craggy hill that's surrounded by many more that stand just a bit shorter. They're all still pretty huge for hills, almost bordering on small mountains. The stars provide ample light, surprisingly, but everything is nearly monochrome. It might hard to see Faerla. You survey the area as you turn around. One side of the hill is relatively bare and dotted with a few scraggly bushes, while the other is significantly more lush with grasses and trees. As the lush side of the hill leads into a ravine, the plant life grows thicker and thicker. There isn't another hill close to the base of the barren hillside. The hilltop you're on is more of a ridge, and offers plenty of places to hide. The top of the hill across the forested valley looks flat, and seems close enough to reach before Faerla can get you. You'll make a stand there. You plod along the ridge and look for a place to descend.

	After a few minutes of pathfinding, you've found what appears to be a suitable means of descent. It still doesn't look that safe, so you've got to be careful. Your first steps are uneasy, and you nearly trip as a bit of earth crumbles beneath your feet. You steady yourself with a hand as you pick through a patch of brush. One foot slips. Oh shit. You slide forwards and stop yourself by clinging to two woody bushes. Your other foot is barely clinging to a flat piece of rock. You pull back on one of the plants and are able to put your free foot onto the rock. Whew, that was close. The rock slides a bit. Of course. Your weight pulls the rock right out of the hillside, and you with it. You bail from the rock and fall down the hill with a death grip on the shrub. You hit the ground below the bush, and you find yourself leaning back over a more steep portion of the hill. The shrub uproots itself under your weight, and you fall over the ridge.

	You tumble down the hill and collect quite an impressive amount of bumps and scrapes from the rough plants and sharp shards of rocks. You come to a stop when you collide with a large sagebrush. Hey, at least you're near the bottom of the hill. Nothing is broken, as usual. You've suffered no real bodily harm from anything but Faerla. You untangle yourself from the bush and stand. Crushing the plant left a subtle fragrance in the air.   You're surrounded by squat bushes like the one you just trampled, and downhill they disappear in favor of some taller and more fleshy trees and dense grasses. Plenty of places for a certain cat to hide. You grimace as you break through the treeline. 

	The forest isn't that dense, actually. The trees aren't too tall and they're spaced out pretty far from each other. The unnaturally bright stars can still shine in quite well. The ground is just a bit softer than on the hill. There's maybe a bit of moss or something that feels heavenly under your feet compared to the hard rock and crumbly dirt. You catch a glimpse of something shiny as you pick your way through the trees. You come closer, and find a pool of miraculously pure and reflective water. It is completely still. You peer into the pool, and your reflection stares back. You look different. Good different, even. The stress of the last few weeks of your life had been awful, and had definitely took its toll on your body but now that seems to have vanished. Sort of weird since getting repeatedly mutilated wasn't all that relaxing. Beyond that, you don't quite look how you remembered. In fact, you look better. You quickly scrub your face to get rid of some of the dirt you had accumulated from your tumble. You stand and level your gaze, deliberately avoiding the pool.

	You break through to the base of the other hill. This one is a lot less steep, so you're probably not going to fuck up as badly as last time. You're going up the arid side of the hill this time, and you notice some cacti. Good thing you didn't fall on any of those. In practically no time you're at the top of the hill. It got steep near the top, but it was quite manageable. It's about time for Faerla to make her appearance. You say that name a few times. Doesn't really roll of the tongue, does it? You look over the relatively flat hilltop. There are a few rocks that look just too big to wield without issue. Where does that name come from? Where does she come from? Things like her only existed on the internet where you came from. You sit down on a rock and look up at the stars. Did they just dim when you looked at them? Odd. You didn't even like furshit, so Faerla wasn't put here as a fitting punishment by some absolutely devilish demon or anything. Why a lynx over something like a tiger or a leopard? Eh, fuck it. These stars are really damn beautiful. The pinpricks of light twinkle and are broken up by a glorious streak of interstellar dust. Seeing more of the night sky in your life would have been nice. City living was shitty for stargazing. 

	Faerla should be making her appearance soon; it's definitely been long enough. She can't really sneak up on you from here if you're vigilant. She probably will try, though. You go to the center of the hilltop, and it's wide enough for most of the hillside to be out of sight. You turn around and feel the sandy dirt of the hilltop shift beneath your feet. You grab a handful of it. A bit coarse, but it'll do. Faerla could come in from any side of the hill. It isn't long before you hear something roll down the hill. She's here. The sound came from the side nearer the valley, and you creep towards it. All of the stones on the hills have been pretty big, so it would take some effort to dislodge one. Faerla couldn't have gone far. You stalk to the edge of the hill and look over. There's a freshly moved rock partway down, but no cat. She's circling around. Fuck, alright, she won't just let herself get caught. You'll need to put in some effort if you're going on the offensive. You start to jog clockwise around the hilltop, looking over the edge as you go. No dice. You've never been able to see Faerla except when she's wanted you to. Wait. You slow down for a second. She can definitely hear your footfalls when you're running. You quickly pivot around and break into a sprint. Thump. You push off the ground and dust flies from your footfall. You've never ran this fast, and you're able to almost instantaneously retrace the path you just jogged. You see a patch of something speckled glistening in the starlight. There she is. Faerla stops dead once she sees you round the hill. Got her. 

	Faerla is slightly down the hill and crouched on her haunches. It looks like she was going to pursue you as you jogged around the perimeter and then pounce on you, but she's now frozen in shock. You sprint directly at her. She looks right at you and sinks lower. You're close to her now. Wait, how are you going to attack her? Fuck it, slide tackle. You slide onto your legs as you near Faerla, with the crumbling hillside and the natural slope granting you some extra speed. Right before you slam into her, Faerla leaps, her powerful, coiled legs launching her right over you. You slide right by and manage to stop yourself by twisting onto your arms and your other leg. You're now staring up at her from partway down the hill. Faerla stands silently, evaluating you with her bright eyes. You're still holding your sand as you cautiously walk uphill. You can see the barest tension form under the fur of Faerla's lithe body as you draw nearer. By the time you're roughly fifteen feet from her, she is completely taut.

	You grin. “I'm guessing you're satisfied with the pursuit” 

	She doesn't visibly react. You frown. The hell is she going to do? She's poised to pounce and yet she hasn't done anything. You lightly shift your weight to your back foot. Faerla pounces. Oh. Faerla is coming right at you claws first and too fast to dodge, so you throw up your arm and release the sand. The grit scatters in a perfect arc that takes it right into Faerla's eyes. Bullseye. Her eyes immediately clamp shut around the irritating grains and she hisses with a grimace. Thank Gribble that her third eyelid doesn't seem to work that well. She slams into you, her claws digging into your shoulder and ribs. 

	Both of you tumble down the hill in each other's grasp: Faerla blindly grabbing and slashing at you and you holding on to her fur to try and get some sort of restraining hold. The two of you alternately slam into the ground until Faerla screams as she hits something that stops both of you. You take a quick peek. A patch of cacti, nice. Faerla is still blind as she growls and lashes out with her deadly claws, rending your flesh. Your arms and chest are severely lacerated at this point, but you press on and secure your grasp on Faerla's arms. She's strong, but you're able to slowly overpower her once her wrists are in your hands. You push back and Faerla's snarl grows. Her eyes open, still stinging with sand. Her pupils are slits, her irises furnaces. Her eyes are brimming with tears. A surge of energy shoots through her and she twists out of your grip to grab your shoulders. She levers under your shoulders with her arms and under your hip with one of her legs and pulls you across her side and right on top of the bed of cacti. Ouch. The dozens of spines that embed themselves in your back hurt; each is a white hot lance of pain that glows brighter whenever you twitch or are jostled in the scuffle. Funnily enough, the pain isn't that bad. Your last encounter with Faerla must have made some sort of mental callus. You still shrieked when the cactus embraced you, though. 

	Faerla pushes herself up to stand and backs up a few steps, breathing heavily. You attempt to push yourself off of the cacti, but it's too painful. You resign yourself to your new, very uncomfortable bed. The shine of the stars mocks you from above. You look at Faerla out of the corner of your eye. The starlight has her draped in a veil of silvery light that makes her coat shine with a newfound radiance through the dusting of ochre she picked up from the scuffle. She looks upwards contemplatively. You join her. 

	“Beautiful, aren't they?” Faerla asks.

	“Yeah.” You agree. “Never got to see this much of the stars.”

	“That's a shame.” 

	Faerla breaks away from the stars and walks around to the far side of you and the cacti.

	“Come to finish me off?” You can't muster any acid through your pain, and so it sounds genuine. 

	Faerla leans over you and frowns. She lightly touches both of her hands to your chest. Her hands separate: one going to your far shoulder and the other resting on your near hip. Her fingers reach over the ridge of your torso and grip in firmly. Faerla adjusts her standing position a bit and breathes deeply a few times. In one fluid motion she heaves you up and off of the cacti. Motherfucker! That hurt more than getting thrown on there! You and Faerla fall backwards onto the hill. Luckily, you don't slide very far and end up lying separately on the hillside. Faerla stands up and rolls you onto your back. There were a few needles still stuck in you that get punched in further. You exhale sharply and the stars momentarily melt into each other. Faerla sits down next to you. Both of you look at the stars while the dust greedily drinks your blood. Faerla makes a small and sudden hiss, and you turn your head to her. She looks back at you.

	Faerla tilts her head. “I took you off of the bush to look at the stars, not at me.”

	“You made a noise.”

	“I am hurt, too.”

	Faerla looks back to the stars, and after a few lingering glances you follow suit. You get lost in the sheer infinity of the cosmos and the stars within. Faerla is probably doing the same. You're losing less blood than you thought you were from the cuts on your arms and body, not enough to die without some external assistance, anyways. A shooting star blazes across the center of the sky.

	You break the silence. “You see that?”

	“Yes.” Her voice is faint.

	“What'd you wish for?”

	Faerla turns from the stars to you.

	“Wish?”

	“Yeah, when you see a shooting star you get a wish, right?”

	“I have never heard that.” 

	“It's a thing for kids where I come from.” You let out a grim chuckle. “Wishing never really did me any good.”

	There's another moment of silence.

	“Where do you come from, anyways?”

	Faerla gives you a brief, sidelong glance and a hint of a smirk, but says nothing. Sheesh.

	“Why won't you tell me?”

	“I do not need to.” The smirk is now full-fledged. 

	“That's not a real reason.”

	Faerla rolls onto her side, facing you with her arms in front of her.. “And why do you want to know?”

	“I guess I want to know the woman who keeps killing me.” You turn your head to Faerla and marvel at her. “One minute I'm living my life, and the next I'm getting stalked and killed by some bizarre half-cat lady.”

	Faerla is amused. “Bizarre?”

	“Well, yeah, things - I mean people - like you don't exist where I come from.”

	Faerla's ears twitch. “Hm.” She closes her eyes. 

	You admire Faerla while she can't see you. Her catlike facial features are quite striking. Those little black lines of fur, the tufts, and the fluff are all adorable, yet still intimidating. Her face holds a quality of wildness within it. She definitely isn't fully domesticated. Her fluffy body is enticing. You really want to just run your fingers through her soft fur. You must be losing more blood than you thought. Your gaze wanders lower and her eyes snap open, trapping you in them. Faerla's smirk is now more of a soft grin. She crawls next to you on all fours. She is inches away from you as she lies on her side again. You're nearly face to face, and you can feel her breath on you. 

	“Rest.” Faerla commands. 

	Good idea, you're feeling tired already. Your eyelids droop down to cover your eyes. Something soft moves across your chest. Her hand. She slowly strokes your chest, avoiding your cuts. Her fingers dance upwards to your face, and she brushes across your cheek.

	“Now sleep.”

	Her hand gently strokes your face, and you feel some something very sharp flit across your throat as you sink into darkness. Bliss. You float, no longer supported by the ground. 

	WHUMP!

	Nothing good lasts forever. You could maybe still imagine it if you keep your eyes closed.

Update 4 – Into Smoke

	You lie still as the sensations of your last life fade into the new. The air here feels damp and heavy against your skin, pressing you into dirt. It's just cool enough to be irritating, but the ground at least feels pretty soft. You turn over and sit, noticing the imprint that your prone body left. Alright, where are you today? Any attempt to really get a feel for your surroundings is thwarted by a dense fog that limits your view to maybe twenty feet. What a nuisance. Well, you might as well explore a bit to avoid something like that beachside butchery you'd been privy to. Then again, your last bout with the psychotic cat had landed you right on top of a cactus, which was also pretty messed up. You stand up fully and feel your feet sink into the ground slightly. You'd gotten more information than she'd allowed you before by leading her on a bit of a chase and surprising her, so doing something like that seems prudent. A trail of furrows is left behind you as you set off. 

	This place has a disconcerting emptiness to it. It's weirdly flat for a place with so much fog, and you haven't found any sort of slope that would imply the presence of hills that could catch mist in their folds. There's nothing to see here; you haven't ran into anything besides more fog and further expanses of loose earth. You pause from your trek into the unknown and crouch to touch the ground with your hand. You press down lightly and it compresses, retaining your handprint when you withdraw. You dig your fingers into an unmolested patch and scoop out a handful. The clod holds its shape as you bring it up to your eyes, not crumbling apart at all. The hell is this stuff? You peer closer and can't really pick out anything in particular; the lump of “dirt” looks rather indeterminate and strangely regular. You've never seen anything quite like it, as it's too light and dry to be clay. You pop off a chunk with your other hand and roll it between your fingers, and it smooths into a little ball. A small grin forms on your face as you mush the ball back into the original clump and start squishing it a bit. Soon enough, you've formed a cheerful little figurine of a man. A fingernail scoops out a smile and a pair of little eyes. What fun. You set the sculpture down in front of you, but as you bend over you notice your footprints. Those would lead Faerla to you without much of a chase at all, which wouldn't be very fair. Then again, you didn't really know how she tracked you that well in the first place. Places where you could make footprints or leave a trail through foliage were a gimme, but then there were places like that one odd crag of huge, flat slabs of rock where you couldn't leave much of a visual marker (but nevertheless were tracked and subsequently suffered your ninth death). She could probably smell you or hear you really well or something. That's besides the point in this place, though. Maybe your easy-to-track trail could be an advantage. You stand your little clay man looking forwards up in front of your footprints and begin to carefully walk backwards, stepping inside of your existing prints.

	You had been walking for quite a while before you stopped, and so you didn't really know how far your retreading had taken you along the path you previously forged. The spot you stopped in still had your footprints going off behind you into the dense mist, but that means almost nothing. Here goes. You start a new path going in a different direction. While you walk, you look upwards. A soft light behind the fog washes down on you completely evenly; there's no bright spot of a sun. The light is oddly cold and sterile, and looking at it chills you almost as much as the mist itself. Time passes as you walk into nothingness. You stop once more. So, even if Faerla follows the wrong trail, what happens if she just follows the other fork? You're just losing time if you continue to backtrack and create new trails. Looping the trails together would just lead to an awkward chase, so that's also out of the question. There's only one other real option. The fog looks somehow denser than it did earlier, and when you really squint you can only make out the ground somewhere around fifteen feet in front of you. You stretch your legs and trunk, making sure that your feet don't move out of place and disrupt your tracks. Here goes. Your feet tear out deep gouges in the ground as you sprint into the mist. Each stride propels your body faster and faster through the fog until you feel you've pushed your body to its new limit. One last footfall craters the dirt, but strikes flat. You push off from the spongy earth and soar into the air.

	Time stretches to an excruciatingly slow pace while you're airborne. The mist is even more oppressive up here; there's nothing beneath your feet to remind you that you're actually somewhere. You are just floating through something completely empty, with no tethers to the material. The only thing here is you, and you can feel yourself start to tilt forwards slightly. Oh God, why didn't you watch the track events during the Olympics? You'd only paid much attention to women's beach volleyball. Your arms raise from your sides and settle over your head, which seems to slow your rotation. What the hell? You glide through the air with the fog caressing you all the while. Something shifts ever so slightly in your stomach, and your trailing leg pulls forward to meet the lead as your arms fall forwards and then down. Your head tilts forward slightly, and you see the ground rushing up towards you. WHUMP! Your feet dig into the ground and you fall forwards into a tumble. The ground's newest indent cradles you while you lay still

	 Fuck, that was weird. Your body seemed to know how to move in the air, but you definitely didn't have any conscious knowledge of anything like that. You could worry about that later, since now you need to worry about how well you've broken from your trail. You wrest yourself out of your crevice and move to inspect your landing site. Odd, nothing was thrown up by your impact and there's just a rather smooth crater that leads into your final position. You scuff at the ground with a foot, and nothing is scattered, and instead it just depresses from the impact. From here you definitely can't see your other footprints. How far did you just jump? Well, it's best to not look a gift horse in the mouth, or something. Might as well make a bit more distance. You tromp off away from your landing site, making sure to go somewhere unexplored.

	After a lot more walking, you're ready to stop. This place is just intensely, oppressively boring. That fog  strangles anything that would compel you to move. There's nothing to see, nothing to explore, nothing clear to run towards. There's just that fucking fog and this damned dirt. The dirt isn't even dirt, it's some kind of weird and highly fucked up... well, it's something. You plop yourself down. One of your hands runs across the slightly irregular surface of the “dirt.” It isn't wet, but it also doesn't feel that dry. Your fingers press some of it down, and then you scrape some up. The scrapings are flattened between your thumb and forefinger as you rub them together. It lacks any noticeable grit. You sniff it. Smells like dirt, at least. You bring it right up to your mouth, but stop right before you can taste it. You're not doing that. You flick the scrap of dirt away and stand back up. Know what? It doesn't matter what the hell this stuff is; it just matters that it sort of sucks to walk through. You restart your march into nothingness once more.

	Walking brings you nothing. It feels like it's been hours out here, and you haven't seen Faerla. That's worrying. You usually at least got some sort of feeling of dread after lasting this long. What would happen if Faerla didn't find you? She could just wander off endlessly in one direction and not ever cross paths with you. Now that's worrying. What would happen if she wasn't able to kill you? Would you just wander forever in this place? A truly endless amount of nothing like this might actually be worse than the endless slayings. At least those had some associated sensations, even if they did suck pretty hard. Well, wandering is pointless here. You lie down as softly as you can, but the ground still gives way ever so slightly. Your eyes close and you lie completely still. 

	She still hasn't found you. You had counted to roughly ten thousand, and she still hadn't found you. You had mentally drafted an outline of your memoirs, and she still hadn't found you. You mused aloud to yourself about completely random shit just to hear something, and she still hadn't found you. Did she even exist here? Are you getting punished for attacking her? She didn't seem that mad after you slammed her into that cactus. You open your eyes. It's just as bright as it was earlier. It's just as foggy, just as still, just as empty. You stare into the light. What did you do to deserve all of this?

	The light from above doesn't waver, flicker, or dim. The fog is similarly static. You inhale deeply and hold it in. Your heart pulses, and you can feel your blood rush through your body. You let the pressure build inside of you, and you exhale. Once more you suck in the mist-tainted air and trap it within you, but this time you let it out in a scream. Your yell is greedily consumed by the surrounding fog, and silence sets back in. A small swirl barely disrupts the fog in your peripheral vision. You turn your head, and it looks just as still has it did before you yelled. Wait, it's a bit darker near the ground. You flip over onto your belly and really focus on that little spot of slightly darker fog hugging the ground. Something new! You eagerly scramble towards the anomaly, but freeze up when you come close to it. It's the figurine that you made earlier. You rise a bit taller to look above it, and it is backed up by indistinct footprints. A groan of pure frustration escapes you. You trudge up to the little clay man and pick it up. Its little face leers at you, and you toss it back down in disgust. You squish it underfoot as you go to inspect the footprints. Bending over at the waist lets you see the footprints quite clearly, and they look pretty similar to the ones you left earlier. You take a step parallel to one of the prints, and compare the two impressions. They look pretty similar, and you can't really pick out anything in particular that makes them different. Still, there's something not quite right about the older print. You crouch and put your head almost directly above them. Yeah, the old one doesn't look quite like your foot. Oh shit. Your heart shifts into a frenzied beat and you shoot back away from the footprints. Faerla can't be very far away. 

	Following Faerla's replica of your own dead end is sort of odd. There's a lot of detail put into it, and not a trace of a pawprint or something in any of the footprints. Must have taken a while to make, but then again, you were lazing about for a long time. Damn, this is really long. You've been walking for a pretty long time now, and it's still going. The trail seems to curve more harshly than any you made. It eventually straightens and the space between the footprints you're following widens ever so slightly. You continue to walk undisturbed. Where the hell is Faerla, anyways? She had that opportunity to ambush you, but she didn't take it? There's also the issue of her retracing her own path faster than you could cover it. Well, you might as well see where this whole thing leads. You take a few more steps, and another set of footprints comes into view. Wait, a fork? 

	“OH, GOD. FUCKING. DAMN IT!”

	No God damned way. This is not your fucking fork. In your anger, you actually trip over yourself getting to the fork. You come down hard on your hands and knees and madly scramble up to the diverging footprints. You pull yourself up to the closest footprint in the fork and put your face right on top of it. No, that can't be right. You shakily clamber to your feet and stomp next to it. They look pretty similar, but they can't. Inspecting them on your belly doesn't lead to much. They still look the same. Well, they're a little different, but that is your foot. You fucking circled back onto yourself. No damn way. You have to close the loop to be sure. 

	Running down the fork didn't help your state of mind much. Now you know this was your path. As you come to the end, you see the marks you left from sprinting. There's no more of the fire that was sparked within you. This just sort of hurts in a dead way. You tricked yourself into looping all the way around just to have something to do. You walk from the grooves you left from running into a flat patch of undisturbed dirt. Even if Faerla was somewhere around here, she didn't walk past here, at least. You continue to where you landed your jump. That was some impressive distance, hot dang. The figurine and trail aren't much further. Hey, there's the comparison footprint you made. You give a cursory glance at it and move in over a different footprint in the trail. Huh, this one is a little bit different in shape. Wait, there's something else. You pull a short, gray hair from the bed of the footprint. Not yours, for sure. You laugh and hold the hair aloft. She's here! Wait, she's here? Mirth sours into trepidation. Where the hell had she been earlier? Where is she now? Your eyes widen and you peek over your shoulder. Whew, not there. So now she's just messing with you, is that right? Well, let's see who messes wi- 

	“WHAM!”

	You're tackled to the ground and plow a new furrow in it face first. Now you know that this stuff tastes like dirt, at least. Faerla's body warms you in a stark contrast to the chill grip of the fog that you'd been feeling for hours. Even under the harsh grip she has on your shoulders, you can still feel the softness of her fur brush against your exposed skin. Faerla's hands move out along your arms from your shoulders, and she lowers her body to meet your back. Pure, hot motion washes over your neck and then your ear. Her satisfaction rumbles through you. You meekly twist and writhe in her grip, but this position grants you no leverage. 

	“You were fairly cunning.” Faerla's voice bleeds condescension. 

	You grunt and try to break her grasp on a wrist. “Really, now?”

	Faerla seems more amused. “Yes, actually. Jumping like that to break your trail was rather clever.” She breathes a chuckle onto your neck. “Not clever enough, though. It was easy to see what you had did.”

	Oh right, looking back on the footprints you left before you jumped it was pretty easy to see how she could have figured out where you went. 

	“So why didn't you just jump me then and there?”

	“I wanted more out of the chase, for one.” You can feel her withdraw her head a bit. “I also wanted to see where your other path went.”

	She hadn't even been duped by you forking your path? Jeez. 

	“When I reached the end, I was disappointed to see that you had found nothing. Was that another clever diversionary tactic?” That last bit bites at you. “I lingered at that dead end for a moment, and my patience was rewarded.” Faerla shifts her weight a bit to tighten down your lower back. “I heard something, and knew it to be you. What I do not understand is why you were seemingly so distressed; you and I were only in this place for several hours when you started to mutter and scream.” 

	Would that have hurt more if she didn't sound genuinely curious?

	“It seemed like you needed a bit of something interesting, so I decided to make it.” Ugh, you can practically hear her smirk. “When I followed you back to where you jumped, you seemed frustrated until you found something in one of those footprints. You looked so happy right then that I knew you had enough fun here.”

	Wait, what? Faerla presses herself back down onto you, and her whiskers tickle at your neck. You can't vocalize anything as she smothers your body with hers. Her whiskers dance upon you once more, and then are gone. You can still feel her breath. 

	You muster the strength to talk. “What do you mean by 'fun'?”

	Faerla's breathing stops for a moment. “What?” 

	“This,” you struggle to form the words, “whole thing with you killing me isn't 'fun' at all. It's just pain and fear and....” You can't muster any more right now.

	Faerla's purr ratchets up another notch. “But isn't this fun?” Words flow with a sultry timbre. “You know how you felt when you were alone without me here. I heard that much. I saw that much when you clutched the proof that I was here for you.” Her mouth moves right next to your ear. “I can feel it now in the tension in your body. The sinews poised to escape and lead me on another grand chase that culminates in your death and rebirth. You crave that ecstasy.” Her voice lowers to a mere whisper. “Anon.”

	Energy courses through you and you whip your head into hers, any pain on your end dulled by shock.

	“HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW MY NAME?”

	Faerla laughs as she reestablishes her hold on you through your newly riled bucking. Something drips onto your upper back. For all your struggling, you are powerless against her as her muzzle creeps to your neck. Her breath envelops you one more time, and you are soon back to being one with nothing. 

	Your sheer anger and confusion keep you from enjoying the peace of falling. Or at least for a while. Your emotions are squeezed out of you in the comforting vice of this rebirth, and you dull into peace.

	WHUMP!

	You grin into the ground. Now you can be angry again. 

END OF UPDATE