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When the girl-thing finds you in the forest, you are chilled down to your bones, and hungry.
She smells like crimson. She is not safe. You understand this from the second you see her. She is sitting on top of a bear she has slaughtered, her teeth sharp, her skin dirty. Everything about her is blood. She is not safe. She is not even a human—and sometimes the humans take care of your kind, but all these devil-creatures know is to consume.
You are hungry, yes, and so is she. But—she is also patient. You are surprised when she feeds you milk. You are startled when she dunks you in a river and wipes the grime from your fur. But suddenly your limbs are a little less brittle, your stomach is a little more full.
When the sky grows dark, she still does not kill you. Instead, she digs her dirty fingers into your newly cleaned fur and pulls you close. She is not safe, you know, but she is warm, and you are tired, and so you curl up on her chest and you close your eyes.
If you die tomorrow at least you slept well, and your bones don’t feel so cold anymore.
—
The days pass and she still does not kill you.
She feeds you the meat she drains of blood, tears it into chunks you can eat easily. You learn to perch on her shoulder and curl around her neck. She doesn’t flinch when you dig your claws into her flesh.
She still smells like crimson, feral and dangerous, but you are no longer afraid.
You’re both on the roof when you’re snatched from her. It’s cold again so far from solid ground. You watch her turn tail and run. You wonder if she will come back.
—
It is dark inside the bat-monster.
You think you’ll be alone forever this time but she follows you down its throat, and you are together again. The smell of death clings to you both, slick and heavy, deep purple like poison. For a moment it is suffocating, and then it is sliced to ribbons and you can see the sky.
You are alive, and you are held, both of you, and death retracts its claws for a little while longer.
—
And then it isn’t just you and her anymore. It isn’t the forest anymore. You live inside buildings, now, both of you, with two more beings. A human, and another human-thing, a little like her but not exactly.
The boy-creature reminds you of the kinds of plants that grow from dead things. He is as rough as her, prickly as her, serrated nails and teeth. He is loud, too, but kind. You can hear his heart thump when you leap on top of his lap in the evening. It is a good heart. It is strong.
The human is also kind. Quieter, sterner. Colder than the other two; his hands always feel icy. But he never forgets to feed you, or clean out your little box, or close the windows so you don’t wander onto the fire escape. He lets you stretch out in the kitchen while he cooks and slips you extra pieces of salmon and mackerel, but never tuna, even when you yowl for it. You can be just as demanding as her when it comes to food, but tuna makes you sick. He knows that.
He runs like a river: cool and dependable and transparent. Keeps the other two afloat, while they keep him from running dry. They all grow into each other, around each other, the same way you grew into your skin when she showed up and helped you to do it.
These days, you are always warm. You sleep pressed between three thrumming bodies, all slightly different. You can hardly remember the forest.
—
It is good for a while. They leave for a few days, drop you off with an even older human who you are surprised is still alive. He smells acrid, like poison. Death has been at his heels for years.
He looks down at you with apathy and you tilt your head back up at him. Humans who do not treat you with adoration confuse you; your family has made you expect nothing but the best. This man is beneath you. Nothing more than a scratching post. You make sure he knows as much.
But he doesn’t reprimand you for vomiting in the sink a few hours later. And he is good at giving pets, and he speaks to you quietly, his voice gruff but gentle.
He’s soft at the core, you realise. You have a nose for these things.
You decide you like him. You still use him as a scratching post but you also jump onto his shoulders now, and crawl into his lap. He has earned such privileges. It is not so bad.
That doesn’t mean you don’t miss them. This place is too quiet. But the food is good, and the time passes quickly, and then you are back home again, to the riot, to the riot.
—
The phone is ringing. It’s louder than usual, and it wakes you up.
Someone knocks at the door. He answers and she draws you closer to her chest.
It only takes a moment for your home to be destroyed. Your family follows soon after. Everything is torn to shreds.
The river runs red. The water freezes up.
—
There’s only two of them now with you. The house is quieter, even though it’s the loudest two that remain. You chirp to fill the silence but they do not hear you.
He leaves, one day, and she sits with you in her arms.
Then she leaves, too, a little later, but not after making a mess of the kitchen and getting flour in your fur. She rubs your head firmly before she goes, and measures you out extra food.
(Be good, Nyako. You’re the boss of this house when I’m gone.)
You eat and then wait. You scratch at the door. You eat some more. Neither of them come back.
The heating in the building is cranked up, but you feel cold. A few days later, you start to get hungry too. But there is no point in wailing. No one will hear you.
You curl up on the futon, in the spot where you used to when all three of them were still here, and you sleep.
—
When the boy-creature returns, he is drenched in blood, but not blood you recognise. This blood is packaged in boxes and still living somehow.
He also brings dogs. You are not happy. But you are less happy about the gaping hole where the others used to be. The dogs make it seem smaller, so you let them stay. You are still, of course, the boss of this household, but sometimes you need a little help managing the members.
He is the only thing you have left of her. But even the smell of crimson on him is dwindling. Soon there will be nothing left.
That night, there are more bodies than ever on the futon. It has never felt emptier.
—
You don’t smell crimson again after that. But there are new scents now—the boy-creature stays, yes, but also dogs, and soon after that another girl-devil-thing.
They may be gone, but the boy has learnt to build things from the ground with his own hands. You stick to him like glue in the beginning, hanging around his shoulder like you did with her.
He is the one who remembers to clean your litter box these days. He is the one that slips you sardines when the dogs are asleep, and never tuna.
You feel the other two in him, still. It is a good thing. His heart is still strong; it has grown three sizes smaller and then bigger again. You know he misses her the same way you do.
But you are alive, both of you, and you are warm. She would be happy about that much.
Family can change. The building changed and it is still warm. Family can change and still feel warm.
So you curl up between the dogs and the boy and the new devil-creature, and you sleep. It is comfortable. And you are not hungry. And you are still loved.
—
They are both in and out of the house all the time, leaving you with the dogs. They are never, though, gone long enough for you to become restless. Never long enough for you to wonder if they’re coming home that day, if you’ll ever smell them again.
—
Until—
—
It is too hot in the house. Not gentle-warm like an embrace, not the heat of the summer tempered by a breeze, but red-hot, raging. Like fire.
She killed many beings to keep you alive. You will not forget that. He kept you even after she was gone. You will not forget that either.
You remember their scents. You will find each other again, you know. You always do. For now, you need to make it out alive.
Fire licks from the bottom up. Heat rises. There is still time. You smell smoke and you run.