Ch. 23 A Cat’s Hardship (2)

Hwig!

My world turned upside-down.

“Got you!” a man yelled.

“Myaong?!” (What is this?!)

I was taken by surprise. My vision was a tangled blur of netting before I realized that I had been caught.

“Come on, it’s time to leave!”

They were animal catchers from the shelter. They seemed satisfied to have caught another one on time before returning.

From my standpoint, it had come completely out of nowhere.

“Nyak!” (No!)

“I don’t think we caught the one that was reported,” one of the men observed.

“I heard it was kitten.”

“Well, where did it hide?”

Perhaps that was why this village was so quiet—the people around here reported any stray animals to the animal catchers. There were surprisingly many people in the world who had never seen a dog or cat passing by the front of their house. It was pure bad luck that I entered this neighborhood and was caught.

I knew that my instinct and ability to defend myself from other animals had started to awaken, but my awareness against humans had not yet been realized. I straddled the line between cat and human, but it was obviously my human self that was deceived.

“How many do we have to catch today?”

The animal catchers had no problem getting me off the street as I didn’t have a name tag. I was also injured, as if I had been left unattended for a long time.

“Mya mya.” (Please leave me.)

I tried crying out to them, even though I knew it would be in vain. They lifted the net, and I tumbled and rolled within the plastic mesh.

I could not be captured like this. If I was taken to the shelter, the best I could hope for was to be neutered and then have a part of my ear cut off as proof. If I was unlucky…then euthanization might be my fate.

That is, of course, if they didn’t realize that I wasn’t a normal cat first. My body stiffened as I imagined the horrible future waiting for me.

“There’s twenty-seven, but I think this neighborhood is mostly clear now.”

“What’s the next town?”

Click.

The man holding the net smiled at me as he opened a gray carrier. He tried to push me in, but I desperately scrabbled against him with all my might.

The man grunted when he realized that I was stronger and more stubborn than expected despite my small size, and instead he skillfully shook the net into the waiting entrance of the carrier.

I stumbled out the net, but I persistently managed to cling to the entrance of the carrier. Another moment of struggle when—

Pak!

“Kyaang!”

I was struck on the face, and I bodily rolled into the rectangular prison. I tumbled around again when the man lifted the plastic carrier and placed it in the back of a truck.

My panic started to mount when I heard the sound of an engine turning on and felt the vehicle start to move. My whole body trembled as if I were crushed by a terrible weight.

I pressed my face against the metal bars of the carrier, and saw that the eyes of the other animals in the carriers looked just as frightened as mine.

“Wo-wo-awooo~!”

“Myaong! Myayong!”

“Wo-wooo…”

The cries of other captive animals sounded like a song from the dead.

This was horror. Help me, Mom, Dad. Sister! My ears were assaulted by helpless cries of animals wanting to find the owner who abandoned them, or wanting to be returned where they came from.

There was nothing worse than understanding an animal’s speech at this moment.

I felt like I was slowly losing my mind as the anxiety and fear of the other animals pressed down on my mind. Without my human side to keep me sane, I would have collapsed into madness.

After many long minutes of agony, I managed to gather my senses. I put my intelligent brain to work, and squeezed my paw through the gaps of the metal cage door. The gaps were so narrow that it pushed back the fur on my foot.

Kkigak.

Kkig…

“Yes.”

I twisted and maneuvered my paw, and it didn’t take too much trouble or time to open the cage door. My paw ached from the effort to slide the lock.

I crawled out of the carrier on three legs. My exhaustion from being on the streets threatened to black me out, but I knew that if I gave up here I would die.

I closed my eyes, and my body began to glow. The animals in the other carriers fell into stunned silence as my body grew bigger in front of them.

I sat on my pale, skinny knees, and I looked around the back of the truck. There were about fifteen or so carriers, half of them full.

“…I’m sorry,” I said regretfully. Unfortunately, I couldn’t let the other animals go. I gave a small apology and waited for the truck to slow down.

When the vehicle finally stopped, I took a deep breath. To my relief, I found out that I could open the truck door from the inside.

I listened for any noise and then pulled the handle.

Kkiiig.

My eyes peeked between the gap of the open door. It looked like we were still on the road. I opened the door wider and shook my head vigorously. My dark hair fluttered, and a moment later, I was back in the form of a black cat.

Freedom! I jumped out of the open door and found myself in the middle of the road. It was congested with vehicles, so it must be rush hour.

The cars loomed threateningly over me like huge metal monsters. Any one of them could crush me underneath their wheels and leave me as chunks of meat.

“Mom! There’s a cat!” A child pointed at me and stuck his head out of an open window.

I glanced at the child, then dashed away right before the green light.