[POV: David Wilson]

 

“Harry, it is going to start getting hotter soon, we have maybe three or four months left,” David said to the large man.

 

“Until what?” Harry said.

 

“Until it starts getting cold, then we have a month or two after that until the snow begins to fall,” David said.

 

The two were walking out of the workshop together, David had brought his poleaxe on his back, and Harry was carrying the mace with him. The large man seemed troubled as the two of them began walking towards a cluster of tents along the wall. These were large tents that some of the displaced survivors were forced to move into.

 

“These people won’t be able to survive the winter like this, and while our house is large it can’t fit fifty people,” David said.

 

Dane and his family had been moved into the house at almost five people a room and the living room filled. The only reason the attic had been open was that it was originally used for storage and was cleaned out for David and Lena. Since he was the son of the owner and she was the daughter they got their own room, but Lena’s old room had already been taken by Jasmin, with Harry sleeping in the large closet.

 

“We need to build a bigger wall and put housing inside of it, we also need to get farming and ranching again,” David said.

 

“We just used some of the last of the concrete burying that statue,” Harry said.

 

“That’s fine, we have the trailer, and tomorrow I want to go to the junkyard, Dane said it was filled with monsters,” David said.

 

Walking next to him was the small black and white cat with her box shrunken down around her neck with the bell attached at the bottom. Around the joints of her small paws, little red strings were attached that had smaller bells added with little Infernal runes carved in with her claws. She could move silently or make a little jingle with every step.

 

She looked just like a regular cat except for her jewelry, she even made the same sounds as one of them. She seemed completely out of place in a world where most of the animals had become monsters, as she was smaller than the monster rodents her race used to hunt. Her long tail always seemed to move to some unknown tune that seemed to be going through her head, and he would sometimes hear her bells lightly ring with an unknown rhythm.

 

Before long the pair came up to a small tent that was made for a pair, it was near the edge of the wall, close to the door going outside. David also noticed signs made from claws that were cut into the wall, signs of a beast climbing over it. He nodded several times in his mind as he watched Harry call through the flap.

 

“Billy, are you here?” Harry called.

 

“Harry, are you looking for my brother?” A little girl’s voice called.

 

The small tent door opened and a little girl’s head poked out, she appeared to be only 8 or 9. The moment David saw this, he felt some sympathy for the pair, that was because he could figure out their situation based on the lack of any parents. He was then drawn to the little cat who was staring at the little girl intently.

 

“Meow mew mow mrow.” The cat told him. 

 

The cat was staring at the little girl’s chest, she was wearing a black shirt that was too big for her. She had dark brown hair and hazel eyes, and she was looking at the little cat with wonder as it began to motion with its paws. Little did she know that what the cat was telling him was not anything positive for her, instead it could smell that she was dying.

 

David looked around and he could see that other people from other tents were looking out of the cloth windows to see what was happening. He could see several older people who were paying close attention to the scene but he didn’t mind any of it as he crouched down so he was close to the kid’s eye level. He would have done this even if he didn’t have any other reason to.

 

“Would you like a job?” He asked.

 

The girl was confused by the straight-faced man with black hair and blue eyes, on his back was a welded together weapon and he was wearing a t-shirt and was covered in grease stains. The emotion in his eyes was something she hadn’t seen since the apocalypse started over half a year ago, she could see pity. Something the teachers gave her when her mother had died and something her brother had given her when their father left to join the fanatics who attacked the small town.

 

“What do you want me to do?” She asked with caution, however, he could also hear some hope.

 

David could imagine where this hope came from, on her sleeves were small splatters of blood that had come from coughing, and it could also be seen on the sides of her face. She was pale, and from her slight shaking, he could tell that she was trying to hide her shaking. He suddenly realized how he had never seen this little girl, she probably couldn’t leave her tent.

 

David suddenly noticed the little girl was focused on something over his shoulder, and he could feel a hand pat his shoulder. Turning his head he could suddenly see the intruder, it was Lena with her usual flat expression, she was solely focused on the little girl. 

 

“Let’s raise her together,” Lena told him seriously.

 

“Huh?” David said.

 

Not only was he shocked by her sudden appearance, but this was the first time she had shown any interest in another person. With a flat expression and a slight blush, she explained why she wanted to do this.

 

“We can use her as practice for when we have our first child.” She told him quietly.

 

His jaw dropped as he turned and looked at her face, as usual, she didn’t have much of an expression, but she had a light blush. He realized that he was soon going to need to put his foot down, or she would keep testing boundaries. 

 

“I was more thinking that we would need someone to keep the workshop clean, it’s going to get cluttered if both me and my dad are using it.” David tried to tell her.

 

“Just like our future children, it’s okay, just let me handle it.” She told him, as she turned towards the young girl with her slight smile.

 

Looking over they could see the little girl had come out of the tent and was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants.  She was sitting on her knees and had her hands closed, imitating paws, as she moved them around imitating the little cat who was waving them in front of her. The two looked like they were dancing together, with the little girl on her knees and the cat standing in front of her on two legs.

 

“Mrow! Meow mow mew mrow!” Pandora called out, her long tail moving to correct the position of the little girl’s wrists.

 

Pandora was admonishing her and telling her about the greatness of the cat demon’s various ceremonial dances. She was telling the young girl to take these lessons very seriously as she might not be in the mood later to teach her. Slowly over a few minutes, her movements got closer and closer to the little cats, this caused Pandora to begin purring in pleasure.

 

David watched this with disbelief, mirroring the little girl's movements so that he was closer to the cat's movements, Harry was also a part of this small show. He could hear some clapping and other sounds being added like beating on plastic cans to make the sounds of drums. A lot of the children in the tents were mimicking the movements of the small black and white cat.

 

Looking around, he noticed that he had not seen some of these kids before. They also didn’t look like any of the people that he knew in the area, it caused him some confusion. Turning towards the little girl who had finished dancing, he kneeled back down to talk to her.

 

“Where are your parents?” He asked.

 

The little girl seemed like she wanted to clam up as Lena did, this caused David to feel some hesitation until he saw Lena reach forward and start stroking her head. This caused the little girl to look towards the ground, and she hesitantly began to speak, she also looked at some of the other tents.

 

“We came to the mine for a field trip, we were a part of a daycare group.” She said sadly. “When we tried to leave, the bus had disappeared, the teacher said someone stole it.”

 

What she didn’t say was that her mother had been on the bus, she worked at the daycare as an assistant. The daycare supervisor had blamed their mother for the bus’s disappearance that day and driven them away. They had then met Dane and Molly and stayed with them at the junkyard before everyone was forced over here when the animals in the junkyard started becoming monsters.

 

“If you come with us, you can play with the cat while you work,” Lena said.

 

This caused the little girl’s ears to perk up as she heard a word she was familiar with, her brother disappeared all day and claimed he had to work, and he brought her extra food and clothing. She looked up at the well-dressed blonde woman, and over at the cleanly washed cat who was now giving some of the other children pointers on proper cat yokai dance. Pandora was making serious “mews” and “Meows” all while using her long tail as a pointer.

 

***

 

[POV: William "Billy" Allen]

 

Billy began climbing the concrete wall using small cuts he had made in the concrete in his beast form and used them to scurry up the wall before he looked around the inside of the fence. He could see the tent below him that belonged to him and his sister, and around him, he could see some of the tents that belonged to the other kids. He could also see the large houses that were filled with people, the ones he was the angriest at were Molly and Dane.

 

Originally the two had taken care of the kids, but then they had all been forced out of the junkyard with whatever they could carry on their back. As a large group, everyone had come to this house, and along the way, more people had been added to that group. That was also around the time he had been bitten and infected with the lycan curse. 

 

After that first night, they had moved to tents placed inside of a concrete wall, he had chosen to accept it to take care of his sister who’s health began to decline. Seeing that no one was looking, the boy swung his leg over the wall and climbed inside of it, on his back was a large bag filled with supplies. What he felt the most hopeful of were several bottles of medication he had found inside of a cabinet.

 

Today had been the longest he had been transformed and like always the feeling was incredible, just the sheer feeling of freedom was incredible. The only thing that worried him was that it seemed to take longer each time he tried to reverse the changes and it seemed to get a little more painful. This caused a slight hesitation in him to change back to his human form, but he had his sister to care for. 

 

“Aubrey, I found a lot of good stuff!” He said excitedly as he pulled open the tent, inside of it he saw there were things piled in the corner but no sister.

 

He felt his breath hitch, and he suddenly assumed the worst, what he couldn’t see was a small piece of paper that he had brushed into a corner with horrible handwriting on it. Using his well-developed nose, he began to smell the air and soon located her scent on the ground. He dropped the large bag on the ground and turned to begin sprinting after the scent trail left by his little sister that was several hours old.

 

It didn’t take him long before he found his way to the workshop, and pushed against the solid wooden door. It was locked and he felt his heart beginning to beat quickly as he could smell his sister’s blood in the air. The panic and fear quickly turned into rage and his power grew explosively as he pushed forward with power much greater than a young teenager, and kicked the door in.

 

What he saw was a large circle that looked like something from some nightmarish ritual, and lying inside of it covered in blood was his sister. He could feel the energy and pressure rising in the room and he concluded his sister was being sacrificed to some evil being. Around the circle he could see Harry, a blonde woman, a black-haired man, a balding man with black hair, a woman with white hair, he could even see Molly and Dane, all in states of near unconsciousness around the circle that his sister was in the center of.

 

“Aubrey!” He cried out, standing a few paces away from here was a man wearing a dress holding a stuffed doll that looked like a dog into the air.

 

His mind instantly saw the person wearing the black dress as evil, even though the stuffed animal would have completely contradicted this. Billy was further convinced of this when he saw the serious look on the person’s face who was conducting the ritual. In his mind, that stuffed corgi was a sacrificial blade.

 

“I am coming!” He called out!

 

“Hey, Da fuck you doing, huh?!” He heard a young female voice say to him.

 

Looking around he didn’t realize where this voice was coming from, then she talked again in annoyance from around his feet.

 

“You broke my door, you gonna pay for that?” It said this caused him to look down and see a small black and white cat looking up at him.

 

He could understand warning growls, he could even differentiate if a monster was in heat or not, and the distance away it was, but he had never heard one speak to him this way before. The first thing that popped into his mind was that it was a lycan, but he could suddenly smell something wrong with the little cat. Then he realized it reminded him of the smell in the church and the little creature that abducted the people who entered.

 

Seeing the clothes that must have come from the same church, the image of his sister being sacrificed to summon some demon appeared in his mind. He could feel his heart pounding, and his body began to heat up. He knew that he was on the boundary of change, and he just needed a final push.

 

“This little cat is not playing around! You best just sit down and not make me show you my paws! Look, look at what they can make you do!” The female cat said in annoyance, she did not like that he was ignoring her. 

 

Hearing a ringing noise, he looked down and saw the little cat was sitting on its haunches, as it moved its paws around and used to create various shapes in the air. At first, it seemed like boxing, then it slowly began to evolve into dance, at least this is what Billy thought. He realized he had no time for this, but he realized that he just couldn’t move his eyes away from the cat.

 

“See that! You already got trapped by them!” She said proudly. “Respect da paws!”

 

Billy suddenly realized that he was mirroring the cat's movements and dancing around with her, at some point he had gone from just being unable to look away to mirroring the cat's movements. At first, he felt disbelief, how could he be busy dancing when his sister was being killed, this feeling only grew when he looked over and saw her coughing up blood and black chunks of tissue from her lungs, her teeth were stained with blood. The pressure in the room seemed to be growing rapidly, and the man pretending to be a woman in the middle of the room had a fanatical grin on his face as he looked to the ceiling holding the doll in the air.

 

This caused his anger to break out of his control, and his body began to grow and his clothes began to tear. Thick fur began to spread on his body, it was white and he could feel strength filling his body. In response to this, the cat sitting on the ground merely stood up and began to resume her dance using all four paws.

 

“You gonna feel stupid in a minute! This little cat keeps telling ya! Just sit down and shut up!” The little cat said.

 

The boy began to panic, he felt like he had only a few moments until the ritual would be concluded and his sister would be killed. His transformation had been completed and he was covered in thick white fur and bulging muscles with razor-sharp claws and a mouth filled with sharp teeth. Two pointed ears stood in the air, they were a dark color along with the fur on his arms and legs.

 

The creature that had bitten him was also a cat, this was the werebeast that he was and currently the larger cat was being forced to dance along with the little cat. Even when he was using his full power, he found that he just couldn’t turn his attention away from the little cat, and he was continuing to hop around and make a fool of himself. He roared in anger, and tried to put all of his feelings of hatred into it, he hated this dance so much! 

 

“How dare you!” The little cat said, then it suddenly seemed to get bigger.

 

It quickly went from being a foot(~30.5CM) tall to standing over 8 feet tall(~2.5M) and the small trinket on its neck became the size of a shoebox. A feeling of confusion overwhelmed him, as he tried to figure out if the cat grew or if he shrank and the cat seemed to revel in it. A large smile filled with teeth greeted the werecat who looked similar in coloration to a siamese, he was still stuck dancing before it.

 

“See, da paws! Now you get the butt, I will help you sits!” The female said and began laughing as it walked forward and turned around. 

 

Billy felt his head get trapped under a furry backside and he was soon pressed into the ground by its bulk. The worst part was that he could feel it shift around on top of him and rub itself in. Suddenly he felt not only angry but deeply embarrassed, he could imagine the cat rubbing its ass on him to get comfortable, probably with that large shit-eating grin on its face!

 

Just as he was about to burst out with everything he had, he could feel the mood in the room change to a deeply somber one. This was not somber for any reason he expected, instead, it just wanted them to stop fighting and instead focus on being friends with the powerful being. It felt like it just wanted everyone to get along!

 

Looking forward, he could see the large circle his sister was lying in was glowing a soft white color. The mood in the room had changed and he could feel a powerful being, one filled with endless love and affection. It felt like if you even looked in his direction he would come running to help you because he was the best pupper in the universe! 

 

His sister’s breathing was getting easier and he could see the silhouette of a creature flying through the air. It looked like a small dog with its little legs frantically kicking in the air and it had small wings on its back that were flapping constantly. Its little face showed a look that was filled with devotion.

 

“Shit! It used all our mana!” David said, exhausted. “I bet you feel great, don’t you Rollo? Drink it all in, why don’t you!” 

 

David’s head was pounding, he had just overused his mana, all of them did to cast this healing spell. The only one who didn’t was Jasmin, she had a huge smile on her face to see Rollo so close to being able to manifest, she could hear him so clearly. She also began to mutter to herself.

 

“If I can get strong enough, you can make my wish come true.” She said in wonder. 

 

This caused her to look down at her waist shakily, and a look of disgust appeared on her face when she thought of what was hiding in her underwear. That 9 inch(~22CM) monster had ruined her life and dictated how she had to live her life. Why couldn’t she be pretty and why couldn’t she wear the dresses that she liked?