Nugget the cat lived an adventurous nine lives, protecting and playing with his family. Until disaster brought an end to his family’s peace, and his own life.
Not all stories end at their death, however. This is the story of Nugget’s tenth life.
Note: Nugget’s Tenth Life can be downloaded as an ebook and added to your ereader of choice here.
There is a saying among humans that a cat has nine lives, but this is not entirely accurate. See, it is simply that cats are notoriously skilled at almost dying. It is only by the ninth time that the dying tends to stick. This is especially true about Nugget the Cat, though he wasn’t called this in his life. For the purpose of the following story, however, we will refer to him by this name.
Nugget was only a few days old the first time he almost died, at the hands of a young human boy, no older than three, who should not be blamed for this fact. Newly born—a traumatic experience for many, street cats being no exception—Nugget was weak, his eyes unable to open and view the world quite yet. The boy found him particularly cute, and while Nugget’s mother was busy nursing his sister, the miniature human snatched the kitten and ran.
I am not sure how much you know of human children but at the age of three (or so), many of the furless are unable to care for small animals. Especially newborns. In the boy’s clutches, Nugget wouldn’t have lasted another twenty-four hours. And so, it was lucky for Nugget that mother cats tend to be overly protective, with his being no exception. After a swift scuffle, the boy ran to his own mother with tears and scratches and hard lessons learned, and Nugget was carried back home to the abandoned and leaky house Mother had found for their small family.
His second near-death was more exciting. A young cat on the prowl, Nugget chased his siblings, Sister and Brother, through the streets and across rooftops. The city was a large place, with many nooks and crannies just wide enough for a cat to fit through. The three cats found them all and explored them all. Not many other creatures could navigate this part of the city like them.
There is a game nearly universal among living beings. It is meant to give the thrill of danger, without the chance of it. To be chased, and to give chase. Some furless call it “Tag.” The cats have no name for it, but they play it nonetheless. Sister was in the lead, Brother and Nugget chasing her up broken framing to a dilapidated roof. She ran for the plank that acted as a bridge between the two buildings. Little did she know that it had rotted through and fallen into the alley only hours before. She was trapped, cornered.
Nugget and Brother stalked forward, hackles raised, ready to leap in whichever direction Sister went. She hissed back, then looked at the gap. She ran. Sister had always been the strongest, the fastest, and oftentimes the smartest of the siblings. She hit the other side, claws grasping stone, and clambered up over the edge. She turned to her brothers and meowed, tail flipping back and forth happily.
Brother yowled and turned to race down the building, but Nugget was made of sterner stuff (that stuff being the brilliant stupidity of youthfulness). He followed Sister over the edge of the building. Where her claws had saved her from a fall, his failed. Nail bit stone and scraped. His mewls rang through the alley as he plummeted, bouncing off one ledge and then a wood post.
Had he hit the ground, he likely would have broken something. As it were, he hit a strange hairless man with a missing eye. They both clattered to the ground, one in a hiss, the other in a grunt. Then Nugget untangled himself and fled, bruised, but not beaten. He had a sister to catch.
The third time involved a rancid rat and a lot of vomit. More than you’d expect, and completely unnecessary to go into details about.
With the weight of a few years on his shoulders, Nugget matured. No longer did he spend all his days playing with his siblings, though that is not to say he didn’t spend any time with them. He just had responsibilities now. Some of the other cats had grown old, they weren’t as quick or nimble anymore. So, it was up to Nugget and his siblings to patrol their little area, to make sure no other animals tried to take over their territory. Their family numbered almost thirteen strong. Other street cats were jealous, not to mention the strange dumpster-diving animals that cared little for designated territories and wandered where they wanted.
The biggest threat came from the calicos, a large clan of multi-colored cats. They wanted Nugget’s home for their own, and one night they intended to take it. Four calicos cornered Nugget with grand plans to weaken their enemy by one.
Nugget fought back fiercely, but the odds were against him. Claws dug into flesh, and teeth sunk into skin. Tufts of fur were torn free, and blood was spilled. Nugget tired and fell to the ground exhausted.
The calicos would have pounced and finished the fight if not for Sister and Brother jumping in just then. Wearied from their battle with Nugget, the calicos ran away with their tails between their legs. Nugget returned home, and though he healed, some scars remained to remind him of the danger of his enemies.
Nugget was slow in the days after the calicos’ attack. His skin still burned, and his wounds still bled. Though he was healing and moving faster each day, he had misjudged his speed when a fishmonger’s cleaver nearly took off his head. The blade nicked a piece of his ear right off, and in his shock, Nugget dropped his fishy prize and ran.
Sister found him, licking one paw and rubbing at his newly sore ear. She dropped the fish at his paws and purred as she rubbed against him. Together they sat and feasted on the fish. Had the blade been truer of aim, perhaps Nugget would have lost his head on that occasion. Instead, he lost only a bit of his ear.
It was a stormy day when Sister gave birth to a litter of two cats, a male and a female. Booming thunder drowned the squeals of the newborns, and lightning crackled in the sky, bringing daylight in through the windows for a moment at a time. Then there was a terrible explosion, and the roof blew open to the winds and the rain. The wooden beams burst into flames, which soon spread and coated the inside of their little home.
Nugget hurried the other cats out into the rain, away from the all-consuming fire. It was only as Sister reached the alley, mewling in panic, that Nugget noticed one kitten was missing. She couldn’t leave the one for the other, and Nugget wouldn’t let her risk both. He raced back into the flames himself.
The heat pressed in on his sides, accompanied by the sound of hair sizzling when the flames brushed too closely. The kitten was in the center room, lit by the orange glow of the disaster. He squealed as tiny legs kicked out, and with a crack of the final supports, the roof collapsed inward.
Nugget raced as fast as he could, grabbing the kitten in his mouth as stone and flaming wood rained down around them. The fire scorched his side, as he raced upwards, through the flames and to the roof. Rain whipped against his agitated wound, as he balanced along the frame of the house. The flames below threatened to burn him and his nephew up, so he had no choice. Nugget ran hard and leapt the gap between the two buildings. He crashed into the other roof, claws digging into the side. This time, they stuck true, and he pulled himself up.
His family mewled in the alley as the building collapsed in a heap of flames. At least until they noticed his approach from behind them. That was the first time Nugget saved his nephew’s life, and it wouldn’t be the last. He brought the kitten to his worried mother, then lay down in the pooling water to soothe the wound on his side.
Homeless, Nugget and his family scattered across the city the next day, looking for a new home to fit their needs. It was while crossing one particular road that a horse drawing a carriage nearly stepped on the black cat with heavy metal feet. Nugget scrambled away, though the tip of his tail had become a little flatter than it once had been.
A great wooden bridge spanned the river that bisected the city. To one side was the market, and to the other was Nugget’s new home. During the Dry Days, the river was calm and clear. During the Wet Days, it pulsed with anger. Of course, it would be during the Wet Days when Nugget’s nephew fell into the river.
A thousand planks made the bridge, and nine hundred and ninety-nine of them were fine that day. One had cracked earlier in the week, and no one in the city had fixed it yet. It was too small a gap for the hardened feet of humans to notice. But for a tiny kitten?
Nephew played with his sister, weaving between the feet of the people. One moment they were bouncing off each other and rolling around. The next, he was gone, and Niece mewled in alarm. Nephew had slipped through the crack between the planks and was clinging desperately to the dangling wood. Sister pulled her daughter from the gap and cried out, trying to reach her son.
Nugget rushed to her side, reaching one paw down in hopes that Nephew could cling to it. He scraped and clawed, but in the end, the piece of wood broke free, and Nephew plummeted to the roaring depths below.
Sister cried out, but Nugget wasted no time. He leapt from the bridge and dove after the lost kitten. Sister grabbed her daughter, and the two raced off, trying to keep pace along the riverbanks as the two water-logged cats fought to stay afloat.
Nugget paddled swiftly to his nephew’s side just as the kitten’s strength began to falter. He snatched the kitten up within his jaws and desperately strained his legs to reach the riverbank. Sister ran along the edge, meowing, but Nugget could barely see her. Exhaustion battered him as hard as the waves did.
It was a relief when his paws hit the first of the stones at the river’s edge. Nugget climbed to the edge and dropped the tired kitten at Sister’s paws. She snatched him up and they were safe at—
The river swelled, sweeping up the edge of the bank in a rush, and Nugget felt his feet slip out from under him. He meowed as his head went beneath the water, and the edge slipped from his grasp. Powerful currents tugged him downward and away from the riverbank as he struggled to gather his breath before being sucked back under.
Nugget’s limbs paddled slower and slower until he had no more strength left. He was dragged down the river, unable to stay afloat, and when he hit the stone, darkness overtook him.
He had thought that was the end of him in the moments before he hit the rock. At least until he woke up coughing water out on the side of the riverbank. He pulled himself from a laundry basket on shaky limbs and looked over at a very wet old lady. She smiled down at him as relief washed across her face.
“Oh good,” she said. “Are you okay? Oh—”
Nugget ran off as some energy returned and he left the old lady behind. That was the eighth and final time Nugget almost died.
Nugget’s old home was not the only one to be destroyed in the fires that raged that night so long ago. Many other abandoned shelters were destroyed as well. That meant safety and a dry room was a rarity for street cats. The calicos didn’t much care for their own accommodations, not when the black cats’ new home looked so inviting.
The calicos attacked, not as a small group cornering a single cat like their first assault on Nugget. No, they came in full force. Before his family knew what had happened, calicos were storming the large living space, claws and teeth bared.
Sister pulled back, protecting her kittens and retreating. As did the elderly cats who were too old to defend their home. Nugget stayed behind with a few others, fighting them off tooth and nail. His brother was at his side as they pushed back the calicos’ attack.
But they were too few, and the calicos too many. He fought viciously, making them pay for each step they took. But it was all they could do to stay alive, let alone win. Nugget knew a lost battle when he saw one. So, he ordered a retreat. He told Brother and the others to run, find Sister and the elders, and protect them. He would make the calicos pay, then follow.
Nugget attacked in a flurry, breaking through the calicos and providing his family with a chance to escape. Before he knew it he was surrounded, one against ten. Their leader stepped forward, and Nugget turned to face her, hackles raised. When she pounced, Nugget dove away, circling to bite at her tail. As he did, however, one of her underlings bit at his own. Nugget jumped away from the new attack and landed within the leader’s range. She swiped her claws across his face, drawing deep gouges across one eye.
Nugget jumped back, only to be prodded forward again by the circle of calicos. Each maneuver away from the leader led him to be attacked by a follower, and each attack against the leader was too slow. Each moment that passed saw Nugget’s life dripping away more and more. The calicos viciously played with him, slashing at his ribs, nipping at his ears, bleeding him, and bruising him until he collapsed, too tired to fight on.
The calico took pride in her kill, a pathetic, hollow victory achieved by nothing more than letting her minions do the hard work. It angered Nugget as she bent down to finish his life. Angered him enough to push him, just one step further. With every last bit of energy, he jumped up at the leader, teeth biting down hard on the calico’s ear. He tore the skin free as she yowled in pain. The ring of cats hissed at him and rushed forward. He ran. Ignoring the pain, ignoring the attack and the other cats, he pushed his way to the edge of the room, and leapt through a window that had been broken since long before his family took up residence there.
A shard of glass sliced one leg as he crashed through into the alley outside. Calicos stared out after him, hissing as he slunk into the night. He was tired and drained. He didn’t know where his family had fled to. So, he walked until he couldn’t anymore, hoping to catch any scent of them out there somewhere. When it became too much, he curled up at the entrance to a street, and he laid his head down for the last time in his life.
The last thing he remembered was an old lady’s voice saying, “Oh dear.” Then Nugget died.
This is the tale of Nugget’s tenth life.
The first thing Nugget remembered was the bright light. It had just been dark, but the sun flowed through great stained-glass windows and painted the room in a dozen colors. He tried to blink away the painful light and failed to do so.
Several furless stood around the room, with Nugget lying on an elevated table. He stood and two others cheered. An old lady stared down at him with a large smile.
“Oh good, you’re back,” she said as she fiddled with something in her hands. Then she held it up, a collar, with a metal tag jangling at one end. Nugget’s hackles rose, but that didn’t feel right. “If you don’t like the name, we can always change it, but I thought ‘Nugget’ fit well. Don’t you think? You can call me Gam Gam.”
She wanted to chain him as some sort of pet. He would never be restrained by the furless, enslaved to be some fat, lazy thing. He preferred freedom, he preferred his family. She brought her hand forward, and Nugget nipped at it. Then he hissed. Then he hissed again. No noise released. He meowed, he yowled, he cried out. Nothing, nothing, nothing. The other furless were yelling at Gam Gam about something, but Nugget ignored them.
He clawed at his face and felt little except the sensation of where his paws rubbed. He looked down and saw white.
They shouldn’t be white. They should be… There should be fur! And there should be skin beneath that fur! But there was only bone where his legs should be.
Where was it? Where had this woman hidden his flesh? His blood should be leaking freely without it, but the table was unstained. Nugget prowled the table, sniffing, understanding the sensations that returned to him, but they felt wrong.
Gam Gam turned to him, cooing at him with a few noises that irked the cat. “If you just let me put it on you, I promise you’ll like the collar.”
Nugget mewled, his voice empty, and then he ran. Furless hands rushed forward to grab him, but he weaved between them, jumping from the table in a clatter. The old woman just watched as the other two chased, but they were too slow for him. All of Nugget’s energy had returned to him, his wounds no longer bothered him, even with the lack of flesh on his legs, and so he sprinted through the halls of the great building in which he found himself.
The halls were filled with panicked furless, screeching and diving to one side as Nugget passed. They were cowards, not like the furless of the streets who would ignore a cat running by. Streets. Home. He needed to find his family. He needed to make sure they were safe.
Something pulled at him, though no line or net snagged him. Something within, and yet not a part of him. Something the cat didn’t understand. He tugged back, feeling the old lady at the other end. It made no sense, she didn’t collar him, didn’t bind him with any ropes, yet she pulled on him all the same. Then the tug disappeared, and Nugget dove through a window into the courtyard beyond. He ran through lush gardens and into the streets of the city. He hadn’t been here before, but elevated as it was, he recognized the bridge near his home.
Where his home had been.
The calicos would pay for what they did.
Where once he had stalked the streets of the city, ignored amongst the crowds of furless, Nugget now saw fear everywhere he went. They stared at him wide-eyed with anger and terror. They chased him with brooms and knives, and even the men in their metal clothing drew their sharp weapons as he approached. They hunted him down alleys like a monster, and Nugget fled.
He scrambled through a small crack into a building, escaping out of reach from the furless, and exiting out the other end before they could circle around. He stuck to the shadows, away from the terrified people, until he could hide beneath one end of the great bridge. The sounds of the furless and their strange foot coverings echoed down to him as he curled in the mud, catching the breath he didn’t seem to be able to hold. Everything was strange, and he didn’t understand.
Not until he stepped up to the water’s edge and the cat that looked back at him wasn’t the one he had known.
He couldn’t blink, for he had no eyes. He couldn’t speak, for he had no tongue. Nugget had been stripped of his fur and his flesh. Of his blood, and his life. Not just along his legs, but across his head and body. A skeleton stared back at him. The people feared him like a monster because he was one.
Nugget retreated and returned to his spot in the cool mud. A coolness he now recognized he didn’t feel, but thought he felt. Everything was wrong because it wasn’t real. Yet he saw, and he heard, and he recognized the feeling against his bones. He didn’t understand, so instead he curled himself tight and hid away from a world that hated him as the sun dipped low in the sky.
His head perked up when the sound of a cat’s screech echoed through the darkened streets of the city. A familiar cat’s screech. He hurtled out from under the bridge, causing a man to jump and yell, spilling a crate of fish across the ground. Nugget ducked into unoccupied alleys, away from the furless, and chased after the cry.
Closer and closer, he approached his old home, now relinquished to the calicos. His hackles rose, or he imagined they did, at the mere thought of them. Of their cowardly leader, and even more cowardly followers. Closer and closer, he approached his sister’s screech.
He pounced from the alley as four calicos ganged up on Sister and her kittens, now nearly fully grown. How long had Nugget been asleep? How long had it taken that woman to strip him of everything he was? It had to be longer than the day he first thought it was.
The calicos whirled as he dug claws into their hides. They yowled as he bit hard into the tail of one of them. Their own attacks glided off of Nugget’s bones, never catching in what should have been flesh. They hissed and they retreated, terror at this new, foreign threat made them tuck their tails between their legs. Nugget hissed silently as they ran away.
Then he turned and found the kittens huddled behind Sister, shaking with fear. He looked at her and saw the defensiveness he had seen so many times before, except now it was focused on him instead of in defense of him. He meowed, and stepped closer, meaning to rub against her.
She hissed, and slapped his face with one claw, before leading her kittens away. Nugget watched as Sister disappeared around a corner, and once again, he lost his family. He laid down, then, and curled into a ball.
He was alone.
He was a monster.
“Oh good,” the old woman huffed as she staggered up to Nugget. “I was worried you’d run off when I got too close.”
Nugget had not moved in the time he had felt the woman’s approach, nothing mattered to him any longer. He had no home to run to. Instead, he just turned his head away from the woman who had done this to him. She studied him for a moment, then with a great “oof” she dropped to the ground. The sudden movement jolted Nugget up and he whipped around to study the old woman who now sat on her rump.
“I’m getting a bit too old to sit on the ground these days.” She sighed as she rubbed her hip, back propped against the alley wall. She watched Nugget for a moment, then pulled out a small ball of yarn, which she rolled to him. Nugget stared at it. “I heard cats like to play with yarn, I have plenty of it.”
Nugget stared at her.
She sighed. “I’m not sure how much you understand,” she said. “I hope it’s everything. I suspect you understand that something strange has happened to you, and I’m afraid to say that it began with your death.”
Gam Gam looked past Nugget, her gaze growing distant, her face becoming sad. Yet, here was the only person so far who hadn’t kicked, yelled at, or run away from him. She was also the reason he was this way, so he curled back into a ball and made sure to not look at her.
“I’m training at the mage’s academy to be a necromancer, that’s where you woke up today,” she continued. “I’m in the final year of my studies, and one of the lessons for my focus is raising a familiar. An undead creature that can act as a focus for a necromancer’s abilities. Supposedly, it creates a stronger tie between the dead and the living, but you probably don’t need to know the specifics.”
She smiled at Nugget who continued to ignore her.
“I tried to save your life,” she said. “I really wanted to, but you passed on even as I gathered you in my arms. You were in some sort of fight, weren’t you? You had a lot of wounds.” She fell silent for a long moment before continuing. “I did the next best thing I could, I raised you to be my familiar. Supposedly, it’s common for a necromancer to crush their familiar into servitude, to wash away any personality or individualism, so they can act always as the necromancer sees fit. It’s what they were demanding I do to you when you escaped. But I couldn’t do that. It seems so horrible. What purpose is there to bring souls into this world if they can’t be who they were?”
Something jangled in Gam Gam’s hand, and Nugget glared back at her. She stared down at the collar in her hand.
“I want you to choose,” she said. “You can come with me if you wish. It shouldn’t be a hard life, I have a small bit of business out west, but that’s about it. I can also return you to the dead if you dislike this form.” She looked up and smiled. “There’s a third option too, you can stay as you are, live your unlife as you wish, and I will let you be for as long as you want to be without me. You can live out your tenth life as you see fit. But either way, I have this as a gift for you.”
She held out the collar to Nugget, who shifted his glare to the sign of servitude. The symbol of the lazy cats who sit by windows and eat what they’re fed, acting as servants of cuteness to their masters. He would never stoop so low to serve a furless. Yet, she seemed to imply it wouldn’t be servitude. Was it a trap?
“If you hate it,” she said, “you can claw it right off. It doesn’t have to stay on, but I think you might like it.”
Nugget studied the woman. She was sincere, without a hint of deception, though Nugget wasn’t sure what he could trust of his senses anymore. Still, he had little else to do now, so he held his head up and let her gleefully attach the collar.
“I know it’s not perfect, but it’s as close as I could get it.” She pulled something from her pocket and held it in front of Nugget. The surface reflected his image like a still puddle. Nugget flinched back, but the skeletal cat no longer stared out. Instead, he saw himself. Perhaps younger, slightly different eyes. His ear was repaired, as was his tail when he flicked it behind him. He stared at himself, returned to flesh and fur, and jumped up with excitement.
“It’s just an illusion,” Gam Gam said as she passed a hand through the flesh in his neck with no resistance. “But it should let you be seen by others almost as you once were.”
Nugget looked up, and when she smiled, he knew that she could understand him as well as he understood her. Gratitude.
She pet him, past the illusion, along his skull. She never flinched as her fingers ran down the bone. “I understand there is something you must finish here before you’re ready to decide what you want to do,” she said. “If you want help, you can let me know. Otherwise, I’ll leave you to your business.” Gam Gam grunted as she pulled herself up from the ground, using a nearby dumpster to help her stand. With a huff and a reddened face, she looked back down at the newly-fleshed Nugget.
“Do you remember when you were washed down the river, and I fished you from it? I will be there tomorrow again, to do my laundry. If you wish to stay with me, or you wish to move on past the Veil of Death, you can come find me. Our bond should lead the way. If you wish to stay here, there is no need to find me, I will leave you to your new life.”
She smiled at Nugget, then waved farewell as she hobbled down the alley, one hand at her hip, and into the streets of the city. Night had fallen, and Nugget thought it was a great time for vengeance. But first, he needed to see his family once more, as he was now, so they wouldn’t be afraid.
Despite a lack of flesh, Nugget’s vision, smell, and hearing were all at their peak. He picked up Sister’s trail in moments and traced it through the alleys and streets. Where fear had hounded him not long before, he was once more ignored by the furless. For all their apparent intelligence, a simple change had shifted their view of him so completely. He had to hope the same could be said for his family.
The trail ended at a dilapidated, one-story hut with a large hole in the roof. Eyes stared out at him from the shadows as he approached, studying him as if trying to recognize him, and when they failed to do so, huddling together for protection. Brother stood out front, Sister nearby with her kittens behind her. Their hackles were raised, and they were hissing.
Nugget was a stranger to them, even in this form. It was not close enough to what he had once looked like. Especially, without his recognizable wounds. He sat at the edge of the home’s opening, a door long rotted to nothing, and watched his family prepare to defend themselves. He meowed, but of course, no sound left his lips. How was he to get them to understand who he was? He needed a way—
Sister stepped forward, sniffing the air. She meowed, then rushed forward. Nugget stepped back, but not fast enough, the cat reached him and began sniffing his collar. He carefully adjusted, making sure to not give away the illusion as she sniffed away. Then she backed up, cocked her head, and meowed a question.
Nugget’s tail whipped back and forth in excitement as he silently meowed a response. He hadn’t noticed it at first, but there was a scent he thought his mind had produced in its strange new state. A scent that had belonged wholly to himself. His collar smelled like it, and Sister recognized him.
Brother rushed forward, and Nugget cautiously backed away, swatting at him. He meowed again, and they both looked at him, heads cocked. Nugget lowered his tail, unable and unwilling to explain more, but they wagged their own, simply happy to see him again. Mother, old and frail these days, stepped forward with excitement in her tail. The kittens raced around and meowed joyfully. His family surrounded him and welcomed him home.
But it wasn’t their true home. It wasn’t where they belonged. Nugget worked his best to share his intentions with claw and head. They should wait for him to return so that he could bring them home.
Sister protested, begging him to stay, but as she grew close, Nugget bounded away. He had no choice, he had to make amends where once he failed. He had to get their home back.
It was the last thing he could do before leaving them forever. They wouldn’t accept him if they knew the truth. Couldn’t accept him. But that didn’t matter, for they accepted him now, and they would accept him until it was time to leave.
Nugget raced off into the night, claws clacking along a cobblestone street.
An eerie wind blew through the alley when Nugget arrived at the entrance of his old home. The sounds of purring and meowing echoed through the building. A sturdy, water-tight roof. Strong, robust walls. A wonderful home. Dry from the rain and safe against the wind. Not like the hut his family currently cowered in. They wouldn’t be there long.
He prowled around the building to find the small crack at the rear. He slid through, and weaved through a dusty room filled with rubbish, and up the central stairs to a large room on the second floor. He and his family had curled on the moth-eaten rug in comfort, huddling together when the nights grew cold, and looking out the windows at the stars and moon beyond. Now the calicos groomed themselves, stretching out in stolen comfort.
They hadn’t noticed him at first, the silence of his approach only broken when his claws clacked against the wooden floor within the room. Ears twitched and heads turned to watch him form from out of the shadows, a golden gaze sweeping the room. They stood with anticipation, hissing threats. Excitement and a bloodthirsty desire to kill bubbling within each of them.
But it was especially hard to kill that which was already dead.
He leapt at the first calico, taking her by surprise as they rolled in a tumble. She bit and clawed at Nugget, but her natural weapons never found purchase in his false flesh. Nugget’s did, and they drew blood when he pulled them free. The calico yowled in pain, and the others joined the tussle.
He untangled himself from the first cat, and slipped between two others, weaving around their grasps and ducking under their swats. Their cowardly leader stood back and watched, injured ear twitching where Nugget had torn a chunk of it free. Nugget watched her even as he ducked around more attacks, even as he bit the tip of one calico’s tail, and slashed at the ribs of another that grew too close. Their own attacks slid off his bones or slipped through the illusion harmlessly. They grew tired, and Nugget never wavered. Slowly, he bled the calicos even as they surrounded him and pushed him to a corner. It was nine on one, but this time he was winning.
They seemed to recognize it as well, no longer eager to put themselves in danger. As each calico approached, Nugget dove forward to strike and she would duck back out of the way. The leader stepped closer, anxiety twitching her ears as she watched for the killing blow.
She didn’t know her family was filled with cowards. Nugget did, and it started at the top.
He clawed his collar free, the buckle clicking as it released. The metal tag clattered to the floor, and Nugget let out a mighty hiss (or what would have been one if he had the vocal cords for it). The calicos jumped back, hissing in return, or running to cower beneath furniture. The leader’s tail stopped moving, her ears grew still. Every calico stared in horror at the undead cat. Nugget gave them no time to recover. He charged into the crowd, and they dove away, afraid of the skeletal monstrosity.
Only the leader didn’t move. Her hackles raised, hissing and spitting, she pounced at him as he pounced at her, murderous intent flashing between them. The two crashed into each other with full force and rolled across the floor in a flurry of teeth and claws. Scratching, and biting at anything they could find, which proved more effective for Nugget and his skeletal body. For the second time, a ring of calicos watched their leader battle Nugget to the death, but now there would be a new ending.
Leader bit onto Nugget’s bone and held, digging teeth into rib, but Nugget slashed across her side and she released her grip with a yowl. She jumped back, and Nugget chased. She swiped, and Nugget dipped around to attack her weakened side. Blood spilled from the calico’s wounds even as Leader slammed into Nugget. The two rolled across the room, their claws a tangled mess. Then Nugget howled as Leader pulled his leg free, tearing it away from whatever supernatural force held it in place.
She jumped back, bones trailing in her wake, as she held the leg bone in her mouth. Nugget hobbled up onto three legs and glared. Leader was exhausted, panting, but Nugget was growing slower too. Was it because of Gam Gam? Or because of the lost leg? Would she be able to replace it?
Nugget stepped forward, then collapsed to the ground. Leader spit out the bone and yelled for her minions to attack. She wouldn’t fall for the same trick again. The other calicos fell on Nugget, and he slashed at them all.
They were afraid of him, but still, they followed her. Which meant he only needed to remove that complication, and they would run. The skeletal cat burst from the mob of calicos, digging claws into the wood for stronger traction. Leader yowled as the bones slammed into her, dragging her to the edge of the room, and toward the window that Nugget had escaped through in a former life.
Nugget fought with fierce abandon, countering every one of Leader’s useless attacks with one of his own that drew blood. The other calicos stayed back, cowardly, unwilling to face the demon that had come into their stolen home. Her attacks grew wilder, angrier, and easier to dodge. Nugget struck in a flurry, claw and teeth and tail slamming into her and pushing her to that window. She yowled just before Nugget tossed her out into the alley beyond. She yowled as she fell. She did not yowl after the wet smack against the alley floor.
Nugget turned, stumbling with the missing leg, and he hissed, drawing his claw across the wood. The other calicos understood, and they ran. Better to be alive and without home, in their opinions. He hobbled to his scattered bones, and sat, looking at them. He felt something within him, some strange pull so similar to when he first escaped from Gam Gam. It seeped out from him and wrapped his loose bones in a strange, purple light. Then they shifted, and pulled back to him, arranging themselves into a workable leg, once more. His tail swished behind him as he stood to test it out, as perfect as—
He noticed her then, as he turned to retrieve his collar, standing in the shadows of the hallway beyond. Two golden eyes watched him closely, and his tail stopped moving. Then he sat and watched as Sister stepped into the room. Panic flooded Nugget’s non-existent body, as his eyeless sockets looked to the collar and back to Sister. He needed to retrieve it and leave.
Sister traced his own gaze to the strip of fabric and sniffed the air. Nugget ran to the collar and snatched it up. He would have escaped out the window had her meow not stopped him. Not the hiss of fear from when they first saw each other, but a questioning meow. Nugget turned back to his sister and meowed silently, the collar dropping at his feet.
She hopped forward, licked his face, and then rubbed against him purring happily. Nugget leaned into Sister as she welcomed him, as she acknowledged what he was and didn’t care. The kittens raced in next, running around Nugget excitedly, licking at his skull, and sliding against his ribs. Brother and Mother too. One by one his family returned, and one by one they welcomed him home. Nugget closed his empty eyes and felt their warm flesh flow across his cold bone, and he remembered what it had felt like in a previous life.
They spent the night there, curled together in one large group, Nugget at its heart. His family was safe, their home returned. When the sun rose, he didn’t want to leave. But welcome or not, his presence would eventually cause trouble.
Sister woke with him, a soft purr asking him to stay. Nugget picked up his collar and set it down at Sister’s feet. He rubbed his head against hers, and he meowed silently. This wasn’t his home anymore; it was the home of the cat who had lived before him. This wasn’t his family anymore; it was the family of his old life. But he would leave happy to know they were better off.
Nugget fled before the others rose, with Sister’s howls chasing him through the streets.
“Hello dear,” Gam Gam said as Nugget approached. “You seem to have lost your collar. Do you need a new one?”
Nugget sat and watched the woman as she pulled a dress from the river, then wrung out the excess water.
“Or have you made a different decision?” She paused in her wringing to look over. “Would you like to stay with me, Nugget?”
Nugget walked over to a recently cleaned knit blanket and curled up on it. Gam Gam reached down and scratched his skull, and Nugget slept peacefully.