Archive of Our Own

As he walks, Matthew peers up into the thinly dispersed trees that line the nearby forest.

His mid-morning patrol has him on the north side of his territory today and so far, he hasn’t found anything edible. He stops at a tree that bears his weeks-old claw marks in its bark. His scent is still there, faintly; he looks up into its canopy.

These trees grow fruit in the summer, though their yield in recent years has been increasingly awful. He wasn’t expecting to find anything as its autumn now. He’s more likely to find nuts than fruits in this area, anyway. Though expected, Matthew breathes out a disappointed sigh when he sees nothing there.

He refreshes his scent by scratching into the trunk of the tree over his old marks and moves onward into the forest.

Many of the trees and plants in their territory are failing lately and it’s only one more cause for concern to add to the pile. The two of them barely made it through last winter, yet their stores are smaller than they’ve ever been.

Outside sources don’t seem to be an option either as they haven’t seen a friendly face in over two years. Matthew grimaces. Or any faces if you don’t count all the monsters lurking around. This is the most concerning. The pathways leading to their hidden home must have gotten complicated somehow. He can only hope that they haven’t closed off all together.

Matthew traverses the familiar forest floor and comes to a stop before a tall tree. He sighs again as he rests a hand against it and looks up into the much denser canopy of the forest.

He has rarely ventured farther than his territory’s boundaries, has never known any home but the one he grew up in with his twin, but it’s looking more and more like the forest — the Void — is pushing them out of it. The Void crawls slowly, engulfing the flora and fauna little by little, rendering the land uninhabitable by cats. It was discovered over a decade ago, but no one knows why or how it originated. Matthew has heard rumors of it being a curse meant to rid the world of libyca, of all cats, as punishment for some sin or other, but the story sounds pretty apocryphal.

Matthew has encountered the Void only once before. The look on his twin’s face as Matthew spontaneously began to bleed and shriek in agony after walking into a patch of tall grass… Well. They were still very young and the whole experience was rather traumatic.

He’s told it’s only a matter of time before his home, and then all Erstwen is swallowed up by it.

Shuddering, Matthew hooks his claws into bark and begins climbing. Anyway, hopefully this year’s autumn yield will make up for the failed summer harvest.

Luckily, after some thorough foraging, Matthew has one full satchel and a pocket full of nuts.

He sits on a branch and takes a break, cracking open a few nuts to eat for lunch. It barely stops the rumbling in his stomach.

This is the point at which they had learned to go hungry and conserve rations. His twin found it much harder to manage but a disastrous event last winter set this rule in stone.

A brisk breeze wafts by and he extends his neck and tail to catch it and cool himself. The long, thick fur on his tail and ears makes the warm months inconvenient. They might starve but they won’t likely freeze to death, at least. Thanks for small consolations…

Something rustling in the bushes below has his ears swiveling and his body stills reflexively. The sound is small enough, it must be an animal. Matthew’s hand immediately finds the hilt of the dagger sheathed on his belt. It’s been so long since he’s seen any animals in his territory, so long since he’d tasted meat, he is practically drooling already.

Sure enough, after a moment of patient observation, Matthew sees a rabbit dash from one bush to another, just under his tree. Matthew takes his hand off the dagger; his claws will be more than enough for a rabbit. He readies his position and waits, eyes locked on his prey.

It emerges. Just a little farther… a little more… and… now! Matthew slips silently from the branch and makes a direct hit, landing in a crouch with his hands around the rabbit’s neck. Immediately he can tell that something is wrong. Very wrong. He dives forward into a roll to break the momentum of his fall then looks down at his hands.

“Fuckin’— Holy Mother Lybica, SHIT!!” He had expected to see blood, but it’s not supposed to be his. His hand stings unnaturally and where there should have been a rabbit grasped in his claws was instead a long gash across his right palm. Matthew looks up but the rabbit has already scampered off into the forest. He hadn’t crushed it with his weight; he hadn’t even been able to touch it. That can only mean—

Matthew looks up into the forest in the direction the rabbit had come from.

There is little difference between land that is safe and land that is infected with the Void. Many cats don’t realize they’ve stepped into it until they’re already bleeding out.

As he pulls out bandages from the emergency aid pouch on his belt, he looks closely at the forest around him and eventually he can see the subtle variances in color between the trees behind him and those before him. The slightly vibrant, sickly hue the Void trees take on is hard to miss now.

It’s too close, Matthew realizes. He bandages his hand quickly, attempting to keep his panic to a minimum as he sorts through options and priorities.

Before he can calm himself, though, a loud, sharp noise reaches his ears from somewhere in the distance. A sound like metal on metal. A battle. That could only mean another cat has entered their territory… and they must have found…