Beyond The Fog

There was no moon that night. It seemed that the stars had been swallowed up by some cosmic creature and that the same future awaited mankind, but that damn cat wouldn't stop meowing.

Of course there would be cats in the city cemetery, why wouldn't there be? People often take pity on these street animals, giving them food and sometimes even affection.

Oscar couldn't understand how anyone could care for something like that. The damn cat wouldn't stop meowing and stared at him with those yellow eyes as if it knew his innermost secrets. The ones it hid even from himself.

— Get out of here! – He shouts, whispering to the animal and threatening it with a shovel full of dirt. – Go find somewhere else to stay, this one's taken!

He was so close to getting those bones and couldn't let some stupid cat ruin everything.

It was just an animal, after all.

The thunder made the situation worse. At any moment it would start to rain and the earth he had dug would turn to mud. There was so little left.

As if his life depended on it, he started digging again. With all the strength he had, with all the anger he had.

— Do you think you're going to beat me? You won't fucking win! You son of a bitch! – The cat meowed louder. – Shut up, you bastard! – There was no reason to keep quiet any longer.

Either he got that body back or everything would go to shit, it would be the end of him.

The cat jumps out of the grave from where it had been watching Oscar dig up the soft earth for a few hours. They still haven't put up the headstone “Mariana Albuquerque – Beloved daughter and friend”, everything was still easy.

When the shovel touched the coffin, the world began to make sense again. Now all he had to do was take the body back home and give it a proper ending.

Nothing like last time, he would be careful. He knew he should have gagged the girl before he started, but he thought he was safe.

He was an idiot. He had to kill her in a hurry and without getting what he wanted. Thinking like that, the only reason he wasn't arrested was because he didn't do it.

The first drops began to fall and the earth was already giving off an intoxicating aroma.

With his shovel, he broke open the coffin and saw the girl's face. She was still as beautiful as the day before.

— It's a shame you made me finish early. I'll never forgive myself.

His eyes were focused on the girl's face. She was paler than ever. Even whiter than the day before, when she saw him coming out from behind the wall and realized there was no escape. All the joy of the child fading from her eyes and giving way to the dull colors of the prey.

The sound reached Oscar's ears and anger filled him once again. That animal was still circling him with those yellow eyes that judged him as if it had some power over him.

No one had any power over him.

His hands gripped the handle of the shovel and his heart almost leapt out of his chest.

The cool night air wasn't enough to calm the heat he felt. He needed that, that relief that comes after a deed well done. And the last time wasn't like that.

The movement was quick. So fast that the cat almost didn't manage to escape, but only lost the tip of its tail and let out a horrible scream that made Oscar rejoice.

— Don't you want a hug, you miserable kitten? Come closer!

For the cat, it was as if its entire equilibrium had been knocked off by the tip of its tail.

It staggered from side to side, leaving a trail of blood in its way. But it kept meowing as it stared at Oscar with those yellow eyes.

— You're going to die. – Oscar's voice was calm. As calm as it could have been. In his body pulsed only desire and hatred. Hatred for the girl who prevented him from finishing his ritual, for the cat that kept judging him as if it understood him, for the people who came for the girl's screams, for himself for just killing her and running to hide, and for the pain that corrupts him and only eases when his life becomes more important than anyone else's.

And the desire to kill everyone he hates.

He'd start with the cat.

The rain was already heavy and all that earth had turned to mud. He looked down at the grave where Mariana's body lay and the water was pooling at the bottom of the coffin, pouring in through the hole he had made. His sweet face from yesterday was now paralyzed in the damp terror of that night.

But the cat had to die.

There he was. Standing on a gravestone licking his bloody tail and mocking Oscar with his piercing eyes and low meows.

A single swift, sharp movement with the shovel was all it took to slit the animal's throat. It fell to the ground with its neck only half attached to its body. There were still a few meows, but Oscar knew they were pleas for forgiveness. Forgiveness for having believed it was bigger than him.

Oscar only lent himself to smiling. A smile that was followed by a laugh with pleasure flowing through his veins. Peace almost touched his mind, until he remembered Mariana lying in the grave. This wasn't how it was supposed to end.

He stared at the cat for a few more seconds, enjoying the mixture of blood and flesh and desperation that came from the animal. The rain even seemed to enhance the aromas. How he loved that smell.

Back at the grave, he began to pull the young woman's body out of the coffin and lay it on the mud. She was really beautiful for a girl her age. As beautiful as she was annoying.

The sound of yesterday's screams came back to his ears and hatred rushed through his body once again. All the yellow-eyed cats in the world couldn't cure that. It had to be her. The damn girl who ruined his life.

Thunder roared across the sky and cold water lashed her back. It was then that those yellow eyes appeared on the girl's face right in front of him. As if she had never been dead, she opens her eyes and reveals that they are just as judgmental as the cat's. No, even worse. She knew what he would do to her.

That's why she screamed, why she allowed Oscar to kill her. In the brief game they played, she defeated him definitively.

He didn't get what he wanted and he lost what he had. His pride was destroyed by some little girl. The cat's moans came back to Oscar.

— But how...?

He was standing with his head down by his mutilated neck. It was meowing and its yellow eyes were brighter than ever. It mocked him, humiliated him. You did all that and it was no use?

Oscar was just a joke. A cat and a child defeated him in the game he had proposed. A disgrace.

Fear only touched him when, in the thunder, he felt cold hands grab him by the neck.

His eyes meet those of the girl's corpse and he has never seen such hatred. She tightens her fingers around his neck and the air starts to run out. He was paralyzed.

Even after plummeting to the ground, he couldn't breathe. He was drowning in the air, in the rain, in terror. He mustered all his strength to stand up while suffocating, but to no avail.

With the same shovel that brought her back to the surface, he is hit on the head and falls into the grave. Pieces of broken wood from the coffin penetrate his skin, loose stones hit him on the head and he feels the blood flowing and mixing with the water.

There was no strength left in his body when he managed to turn his eyes to the sky.

There was no corpse there, human or animal. But in the background, in the sky, he could see the full moon coming out from behind a cloud. Full of light and splendor. It was the last moon he had ever seen in his life and never more yellow than that night.