[Author]

Hmmm...whats that smell? It smells like a new story!

[/Author]

It was the year 3000, and an alien race known only as the greater beings had taken over earth after a brutal subjugation war that lasted 400 years and ended with the enslavement of humanity, now a slither of their previous numbers, along with the total domination of their previous mighty space empire. But all Arty wanted was to find his cat.

The population of the animal breeds that humans had domesticated during their long voyage through space had been many, yet the cat remained the number one choice for young men of Artys age. For Arty, that cat was the most important friend he had.

He looked around his house. He looked around the empty rock-paved paths. He even dared to look around Xi’gorths place of stay, he doubted the alien had eaten him, but there were still many things he couldn’t understand about his alien masters and he wasn’t going to rule out that they ate cats.

“What are you doing young one?” Arty turned around to Xi’gorth, his ruler/master/overlord, he wasn’t so sure about the title, so he called him master. Xi’gorth had a perfectly normal human voice, the calmness in its tone always put Arty on edge, but Arty learned to ignore it.

“I’m looking for my cat, did you see it anywhere?”

“The young Sapien- I mean catus? No. I have not seen it anywhere around here. Were you looking everywhere?” Xi’gorth put its human hands against its chin, a custom it had observed in the sapiens, and bounced its breast several times, a custom it did more for pleasure than observation.

“Yes.”

“Maybe it will come back. The catus is a species that enjoys having its time in the wild.”

“But what if it doesn’t come back…”

“Young one if it doesn’t come back” Xi’gorth put his hand on Arty's shoulder. ”then it was never meant to be.”

Arty’s anxiety suddenly smoothed over at his master's brilliant saying. His master always knew the correct words to ease his pain. “Okay.”

“Now come. Class is about to begin.”

He followed Xi’gorth away from his place of stay to the small schoolhouse placed in the middle of town. The schoolhouses had an appearance of an old rickety building that had not been maintained for years. When one looked inside the wooden floor, white window drapes, clean chalkboard, three tables, and immaculate podium all proved the outside looks deceiving.

Everyone was in the classroom when arty took his seat. Mia had a smirk on as she gloated at Arty’s lateness, while Rai wore her indifference on her blank face. Arty took his seat in between both of them, ready for what would be a day of great learning and experience.

Only. He was still worried about his cat. Fluffy had spent most of his days indoors with him and did not belong to the bread of animals that would go around outdoors. Despite what his master had said, he still worried that his cat was trekking a wild and dangerous journey.

Xi’gorth behind its podium, let its brown hair flow down to its waist, a move consider risque, and looked at his three pupils with a very unusual look, it was so unusual that Arty completely forgot about his cat.

“Today pupils…we are at the end of your studies. We will start our main course soon. But first, Pupil #1 can you enlighten me on why you are here?”

“Yes, sir!” Mia shot up her body jiggling with excitement. “We were placed here as lab animals, as experiments to see whether the human race was worthy enough to continue living!”

“Correct!” Xi’gorth placed its human arms against its chest and lifted them up. It was a sign of pride among humans that Xi’gorth had adopted with great gusto. “Now, pupil #2, what have we done so far?”

Rai stayed sitting on her chair and looked at the trees outside, she thought the wind was blowing on one of the leaves a little too harshly. “We have been learning the history of humanity, the history of science, the history of survival, and the long history of the war between masters race and the humans.”

“Correct! Correct!” Xi’gorths breasts jumped up and down at each word, its entire body orgasmic with pride. “Now…pupil #3, what would you think is the next step?”

Arty looked around. How was he supposed to know? “A fight to the death?”

“Wrong! Pupil #3….despite your numerical order I had hopes that you would be the smartest of the three. No. We are not going to make you fight to the death, instead….we are going to….let you do whatever you want! Congratulations!” It took out a confetti popper from its podium and released it into the air. Scraps of paper scattered into the air and unto the floor. “However you could decide to fight to the death, so you are also correct pupil #3. I don’t know how you’ve managed to outwit another one of my questions.”

“You’re leaving?!” Mia, again, jumped out of her chair, this time with a shocked face.

“Yes, pupil #1” It’s sad human voice was indeed very sad. “I do have to say with a heavy and lead-filled heart that today will be my last day here. From now on you three will have to survive as a family, in this plot of land, creating new generations of humans that will fill this world once more with, in the future, more slaves. A great and admirable task that I will not be able to follow you on. Anyway, goodbye.”

With a flash of light Xi’gorth disappeared into nothingness, leaving a befuddled Mia, an ambivalent Rai, and an Arty still too worried about his cat. It didn’t take long for Arty to figure out his next move.

“I have to find my cat.” He mumbled. “No wonder master was so unwilling to help me find him, he wanted to leave as soon as possible…”

“Cat!” Mia said in a way that Rai found overly dramatic. “What about survival?! Where do we even get food from? That stupid alien left us here to die a slow and painful death!”

Rai chooses her words carefully. “Isn’t there still food in the cafeteria?”

“That's right!” Mia concluded with an exuberance that made Rai regret speaking. “We have to count what food we have.” Mia ran out of the schoolhouse to the outhouse commonly named ‘cafeteria’ that contained all the food.

Arty and Rai remained in the schoolhouse. Rai stared out of the window. Arty, his hand on his chin, tried to think as a cat would.

“Meow,” Arty spoke.

“I think your cat is dead. There aren’t any animals for it to eat and cats aren’t vegetarians.”

Horror broke through Arty's face. “Tha-that can’t be! Fluffy would never die, he has to be somewhere around here…”

“Whatever, look” She coughed and looked down before continuing. Her short hair covered her eyes. With her cheeks a strange shade of red she looked down at Arty's chest and spoke. “Now that it's…the three of us…we have to…you know…repopulate…”

“Ah.”

“It's totally fine if you want to start now, I can…I can take it all off? Or maybe we should get more comfortable? You’re right, it wouldn’t…it wouldn’t be decent to do it on Mia’s desk while she's away…or…”

“Maybe my cat went in there….”

Arty stood up, completely unaware that he had missed, what would be considered by a male conditioned with a 2020 societal upbringing, the chance of a lifetime, and walked out.

Rai wasn’t shocked, it was another day, another disappointment. She sighed. Maybe she should take a nap.

Arty had in fact not remembered exactly where his cat was, but he did remember the general direction he had last seen it go, and the various places he could have gone, all of which he had searched, except for one last place his cat mind had taken him.

In front of him stood Xi’gorths staying place. A location he would normally have been forbidden from searching. But now with his master gone he had nobody stopping him from searching through the entire shack. He opened the door to a house the size of his living room. A single bed occupied most of the space in the middle of the house along with a tv and computer on the edge of the room, there was also a closet. Arty rummaged through the room, and the closet, but he found nothing except old films and pictures of naked ladies.

Arty threw all the pictures on the floor in frustration. If his cat wasn’t here, then, maybe, it had truly died?

Arty slept walk back to the classroom. He felt on the edge of sanity like a single push would take him out of reality and down a hole of darkness. He slumped back to his chair. The class wouldn’t end until 5pm so he would wait here for Xi’Gorth to return.

Mia threw the door open, a pen and clipboard in her hand. She stood on the empty podium and started to write various numbers on the board.

When she finished she turned around to a depressed Arty and a ruffled Rai. “As you can see by my calculations, and my long-term projections, we have 300 years of supplies for 3 people, we can probably stretch that to 400 if we really need to. I think now that we have enough food to last us forever we should all make plans to leave as soon as possible.”

“So we are fine?” Rai asked.

“Yes. As I said, we must gather as much food as possible and leave this planet as soon as we can.”

“I guess that leaves one…thing…for us to do…” she looked at Arty.

Mia also looked at Arty. “What? Why are you looking at Arty? We have to start packing.”

“We…have…to…re-pop-u-late~.”

Mia blushed fire red. “No. No! NO! That's a no from me. We have to leave, gather more people, then we can come back and we can all freely choose or choose not to repopulate.”

“Arty~” Rai spoke with a sweet voice.

“Stop it with the nonsense, Rai,” Arty spoke like a broken man. “I..can’t do it, my cat died. Alone. Hungry. How could a man ever repopulate the human race when his best friend died?”

“We need more people to be safe traveling. We need to…re-pop-u-late~.”

“Stop saying that in such a disgusting way! Never, I won’t ever bear that mans child.”

Suddenly a human laugh came from outside the door. With a woosh, the door opened to a cat with a fluffy white tail and one ear half cut. An aura of majesty followed its clean white fur as it took its first step into the classroom.

“Fluffy!” Arty jumped at the cat only for the cat to dexterously avoid him. “Where have you been! And you can laugh?”

“Do not touch me human! For I am not your cat fluffy, and I hate to be touched. I am your Saviour!” the cat spoke in a very human voice despite his lips moving awkwardly and not at all in tune with what he was saying. “Get out of my podium girl!”

Once again the students found themselves in their seats this time with a cute fluffy cat arrogantly looking down on all of them.

“Where were you Fluffy?” Arty asked

“I…I am not your Fluffy young human. I am…actually…a rival alien species to the greater beings! We are known as the lesser beings and are to bring the destruction of the greater beings' injustice and cruelty!”

There was a silence in the room. Arty was glad that his companion had managed to survive while gaining the ability to talk.

Mia and Rai were dumbfounded. They hadn’t been taught that there was a third species in this war against the greater beings. Could this have been some hidden knowledge that the greater beings had kept from them to stop any hope of freedom? The questions all poured into their heads at the introduction of this new, antagonist, species.

The cat continued once it saw the implications of his statement in their eyes. “We are here to bring all the species the greater beings have enslaved to freedom and peace.”

“But what happened to my cat?” Arty interrupted.

The cat thought the interruption was rude, but his feelings would never get in the way of his ultimate mission. “I have been deceiving you young child, the greater beings renowned for their ability to find aliens among them. As such, I had to place my personality into hibernation inside this cat until the day when your classes would be over. I’m sorry.”

“So…you’re my cat?”

“In a way, you can say that but truly I can not be said to be the same being.”

“Cool. I’m fine with that.”

The cat covered a cough with one of its paws, although cats cannot cough, it thought that would be an appropriate way to end the conversation. “Now, We will destroy the greater beings on earth! We will make it so that they will retreat back to the hell place they call home and we will regain all of our freedoms.”

“How?” Mia asked.

“The specifics are needed to know young one, sorry. If one of you were to be captured by those conniving and evil greater beings then I cannot have you spilling your metaphorical beans to the enemy!”

“What about repopulation?” Rai asked

“Repopulation would be one of our central plans, although” the cat looked at Mia. “Arty will not be the only male available in such a case. There are many humans, smart, strong, and good-looking, that you will have a chance with. So repopulation will be a choice you have, if you want, you are free to choose. What kind of villains would we be if we forced you to copulate with someone you disliked!”

The cat was ready to seal the deal when Arty spoke one more time. “I always called you fluffy but did you ever have a name?”

“A name?” the cat asked.

“Yea, something I can call you. I mean I was using fluffy because you are fluffy, but if you have a name then why don’t I use that?”

“My name…I…you can call me…Gorth’Xi.”

[Author]

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