Chapter 6: Forgotten

  The dream comes in fragments. Bright lights overhead, so white they burn even through closed eyelids. The smell of something sharp and astringent, the same chemical tang from the dreams before. I am lying on cold stone, and there are hands on my arms, my legs, my head. Not rough. Clinical. Holding me still with practiced efficiency.

  Something presses against my chest, right where the pendant rests now. A voice counts in the darkness behind the lights. "Three... four... five..." Each number accompanied by a sensation I cannot name, something being drawn out of me that is not blood. Something deeper. Something that leaves hollow spaces behind.

  I try to speak, to ask what they are doing, but my voice will not come. My body will not move. I am trapped in flesh that does not respond, watching from somewhere inside while strangers do things I cannot understand.

  Then something new. A woman at the edge of my vision. Nekojin, like me, but with fur the color of autumn—russet and gold, warm even in this cold place. She is small, smaller even than I am now, her frame carrying the particular thinness of long deprivation. She is fighting against someone, struggling, her mouth open in a scream I cannot hear. Gray-robed figures are dragging her away, their gloved hands gripping arms that look like they have been gripped many times before. She reaches for me, claws extended, and for one moment our eyes meet. Green-gold eyes, the same shade as my pendant's glow, holding depths that speak of years—decades—of captivity. Hers are full of something I recognize even without memory.

  Grief. Fury. Love.

  And beneath those, something else. Recognition. As if she knows me. As if she has been waiting for me across distances I cannot measure.

  A word forms on her lips. Not my name—I do not have a name to give her. But something that might be sister, or perhaps daughter, or perhaps a word in a language I have forgotten how to understand.

  Then darkness swallows everything, and I am falling through nothing, and—

  Cold wakes me before dawn. Not the bone-deep cold of the river, but the steady, creeping chill of a forest night without proper shelter or warmth. I am curled tight in my hollow, my tail wrapped around myself like a futile blanket, but the dry leaves provide little insulation and my clothes do even less.

  My body aches. Every muscle from yesterday's climb and flight protests as I slowly uncurl. My shoulder where I hit the rocks throbs with a dull, persistent pain. My hands are scraped raw from climbing bark and stone walls. Even my tail is sore from constantly adjusting for balance, muscles I never knew existed now making themselves known through sharp twinges of discomfort.

  But worse than the pain is the hunger.

  It is not the normal empty feeling of missing a meal. This is something deeper, more urgent. My stomach feels like it is eating itself, cramping so hard I have to wrap my arms around my middle and rock forward, gasping. My head spins when I try to sit up, black spots dancing at the edges of my vision. My limbs feel weak, trembling with more than just cold.

  How long has it been since I ate? The small breakfast at Marta's was yesterday morning. Before that, dinner the night before. Two small meals to fuel a body that burns through energy like a wildfire through dry grass. And yesterday I ran for hours, climbed buildings and trees, survived guards and cold river water, scaled a sheer wall with just my claws.

  I need food. Today. Now. Or I will not have the strength to keep going.

  The thought terrifies me because I have no idea how to get food. I cannot walk into a town and buy bread because I am a wanted fugitive. I have no provisions, no supplies. The bundle Marta packed is somewhere at the bottom of the river, soaked and ruined. I do not know what plants are safe to eat, and my instincts do not seem to extend to foraging. The forest around me is full of life, but I do not know how to access it.

  Except for one way.

  I will need to hunt.

  The word sits heavy in my mind as I carefully climb down from my hollow. My muscles protest every movement, stiff and sore and screaming at me to stop. But I force myself to keep going, hand over hand, claws finding purchase in the bark. My arms shake with the effort. By the time my feet touch the forest floor, I am breathing hard, my heart racing from the exertion that should have been easy.

  I am weaker than I thought. Weaker than I can afford to be.

  The sun is just beginning to rise, painting the eastern sky in shades of pink and gold that hurt to look at. The forest is waking around me. Birds calling to each other, their songs sharp and clear to my sensitive ears. Insects buzzing, a low drone that I can feel as much as hear. The rustle of small creatures beginning their day, moving through undergrowth, climbing trees, starting their own desperate search for food.

  All of them are potential food if I can figure out how to catch them.

  I have no idea where to start.

  My instincts whisper suggestions, impulses that rise up from somewhere deep and primal. Move quietly. Stay downwind. Watch for movement. Wait for the right moment. But knowing what to do and actually doing it are completely different things. I have never hunted before. Never stalked prey. Never killed anything larger than an insect.

  The thought makes my stomach clench again, this time with something other than hunger. Can I really do this? Can I kill something, tear into it with my claws and teeth, eat it raw?

  My body answers before my mind can object. Yes. I can. I have to.

  I spot a squirrel almost immediately, its gray form moving along a fallen log maybe twenty feet away. It pauses, sitting up on its haunches, tiny paws holding something, probably an acorn, and nibbles at it with quick, efficient movements. Its tail flicks once, twice, a banner of fur that catches the morning light.

  Something in me locks onto it. My pupils dilate so suddenly the world brightens, and I can see every detail. Every hair on its body. The way its whiskers twitch as it tests the air. The small movements of its jaw as it chews. The way its sides expand and contract with each breath.

  The word echoes in my mind, instinctual and undeniable: prey.

  I crouch low without thinking about it, the movement feeling natural even though I have never done it before. My body knows what to do, muscles moving into positions I did not consciously choose. My tail goes still behind me, no longer swishing. My breathing slows and quiets. My ears rotate forward, pinpointing the squirrel's exact location even when I blink.

  I take a step forward, placing my foot carefully on the forest floor. Testing the ground before committing my weight, searching for anything that might make noise.

  The twig snaps under my foot with a sound like a gunshot in the quiet forest.

  The squirrel vanishes. One moment it is there, solid and real and within reach. The next it is gone, disappeared into the canopy so fast I barely see it move, leaving only a scattered pile of acorn shells to prove it existed at all.

  I curse under my breath, frustration flooding through me. Too loud. Too clumsy. Too human.

  I try again. A bird this time, hopping on the ground, pecking at something in the leaves. Some kind of thrush, brown and speckled, completely unaware of me. I approach more carefully this time, remembering the twig. I test each step before putting my weight down, moving slowly, watching where I place my feet.

  But I am moving too directly, too obviously. Following a straight line from me to the bird. There is no cover, no stealth, just me walking toward it in plain sight.

  The bird takes flight long before I get close enough to do anything, its wings beating hard as it rises into the branches. A scolding call echoes down, as if it is mocking my failure.

  Hours pass. The sun climbs higher, the morning warming from cold to merely cool. My hunger grows from painful to debilitating. I am shaking now, whether from low blood sugar or exhaustion or cold, I do not know. Maybe all three. My body is burning through what little reserves I have left, consuming itself to keep functioning, and I have not caught anything.

  I try for a mouse I spot near some roots. It is too small, too fast, disappearing into a hole before I can even get close. I attempt to catch a fat wood pigeon that lands on a low branch. It sees me coming and flies away with lazy wing beats, almost mocking in its lack of concern.

  I am doing this wrong. Everything about my approach is wrong. Too human. Too civilized. Too caught up in my own head, thinking instead of acting. I need to think like a predator, move like one, be one.

  But I do not know how.

  The frustration builds with each failed attempt. Not just at the prey that keeps escaping, but at myself. At this body that should know how to do this. At the instincts that whisper instructions I cannot seem to follow. At the growing certainty that I am going to die out here, not because the forest is cruel, but because I am incompetent.

  What kind of predator cannot catch a single squirrel?

  I slam my fist against a tree trunk, the bark rough against my palm. The impact sends pain shooting up my arm, but I welcome it. At least pain is something I can understand. Something that makes sense. Unlike this body, unlike this situation, unlike everything about my existence since I woke up transformed and alone.

  A scream builds in my throat, rage and terror and helplessness all tangled together. I choke it back. Screaming would scare away every creature within earshot. Would announce my location to anyone searching. Would accomplish nothing except proving that I am as pathetic as I feel.

  Instead, I press my forehead against the rough bark and force myself to breathe. In and out. In and out. The bark smells of moss and age and indifferent permanence. This tree has stood here for a century, maybe longer. It does not care about my problems. Does not care if I live or die. Will keep standing long after my bones have rotted into the soil.

  The thought should be depressing. Somehow it is almost comforting. The universe does not owe me survival. Does not owe me fairness or justice or easy solutions. It simply is, and I either figure out how to exist within it or I do not.

  Fine. If the universe will not help me, I will help myself.

  By what I guess is midday, with the sun somewhere overhead though the thick canopy makes it hard to tell, I am sitting against a tree, my head spinning, my vision blurring at the edges. I have caught nothing. I am weaker now than when I started, having burned energy in failed attempts. If I do not eat soon, I will not have the energy to hunt at all.

  This is how people die in the wilderness, I think distantly. Not from dramatic dangers like bear attacks or falling off cliffs. From simple starvation and exposure. From making mistakes and not knowing enough and being too slow to learn.

  I close my eyes, trying to gather strength, trying to think of what to do differently. And that is when I hear it.

  A sound. Faint rustling in the undergrowth, maybe fifteen feet away. Not the wind because the air is still. Not falling leaves because the sound is too rhythmic, too purposeful. Something alive, moving, unaware of me.

  I freeze, turning my head slowly toward the sound. My ears swivel automatically, pinpointing the location with precision that still surprises me. My eyes scan the undergrowth, searching.

  There. Near a fallen log, partially hidden by ferns. A rabbit, brown and plump, its nose twitching as it nibbles on some low vegetation. Its ears are up but relaxed, turning occasionally to catch sounds. Its body is compact, muscular under soft fur. Its eyes are dark and alert, but not looking in my direction.

  My heart starts pounding. This might be my only chance. If I fail again, I do not know if I will have the strength to try once more.

  Forcing myself to breathe slowly, quietly. To think. To plan. Every other attempt failed because I was too direct, too rushed. I moved like prey trying to approach another prey animal, uncertain, obvious, broadcasting my intentions with every step. This time, I need to be different. This time, I need to be what I am.

  A predator.

  The thought sends a shiver through me that is not entirely from fear.

  I lower myself into a crouch, my body pressed close to the ground. The rabbit has not seen me yet. Its attention is on the plants in front of it, ears up but relaxed. It takes a bite, chews, swallows. Takes another bite. The rhythm is steady, predictable.

  I move forward. Slowly. So slowly that each inch takes several seconds. When the rabbit's head is up, I freeze completely, not even breathing. When it goes back to eating, I advance. One hand. Then the other. Then a knee. Then a foot. Using the undergrowth for cover, staying low, moving with the wind so my scent does not carry.

  The ferns brush against my face and I resist the urge to push them away. The damp earth soaks into my breeches at the knees. A small stone digs into my palm. None of it matters. Nothing matters except the rabbit and the distance between us.

  Twelve feet. Ten. Eight.

  My muscles scream at me to rush, to pounce now while I have the chance, to end this terrible suspense. But I force myself to wait. Closer. I need to get closer. One failed pounce and the rabbit will disappear, and I will have wasted my last reserves of energy for nothing.

  The rabbit lifts its head, testing the air. I freeze completely, not even breathing, my body locked in place mid-reach. Its nose twitches. For a terrible moment, I think it has caught my scent, that despite my caution I am upwind, that it is going to bolt.

  But after a few heartbeats that feel like hours, it goes back to eating.

  Six feet. Five.

  I can see the texture of its fur now, the way different lengths create patterns of light and shadow. I can see the small movements of its jaw as it chews, the way its whiskers bend when it turns its head. I can see the pulse in its neck, fast and steady, blood pumping through vessels just under the skin.

  Four feet.

  My body coils without conscious thought. Every muscle tensing, ready. My claws extend slowly, silently, sliding out of their sheaths with barely a whisper of sound. My tail goes absolutely still. Even my breathing stops.

  The rabbit's head goes down one more time, focusing on a particularly appealing shoot.

  I pounce.

  Everything happens in a blur of motion that feels both faster than thought and stretched out into crystal clarity. My legs propel me forward with explosive force, muscles releasing like coiled springs. The distance collapses in an instant. The rabbit senses movement, maybe sees it peripherally, maybe feels the vibration through the ground, maybe just has that prey animal sense that something is wrong.

  It tries to flee, powerful hind legs pushing off the ground in a leap that would normally carry it to safety. But my reflexes are faster. My hands are already reaching, already grasping. My claws sink into soft fur and warm flesh, and I feel the rabbit's body twist in my grip, powerful and desperate.

  It struggles. It struggles so hard. Powerful legs kicking at my hands, trying to break free. Its body writhing with frantic strength born of terror. And the sound it makes, a high-pitched squeal of fear and pain that pierces right through me, raw and desperate and so terribly, undeniably alive.

  My human mind recoils in horror. This is wrong. This is cruel. I am hurting it. I can feel it suffering in my hands, feel its terror as a physical thing. I should let go. I should stop. I should not be doing this.

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  But my body knows what to do. My grip tightens, claws sinking deeper, holding firm against the struggling. My other hand comes around, and before I can think about what I am doing, before I can question or hesitate or let my human morality interfere, my hands twist and there is a sharp movement and a wet crack.

  The struggling stops.

  I am holding a dead rabbit.

  Realization hits me like a physical blow. I killed this. Me. My hands, my claws, my speed, my strength. I am a predator. A hunter. A killer. I took a life to sustain my own.

  I stare at the rabbit in my hands, this creature that was alive moments ago. Its fur is soft, still warm. Its eyes are open but unseeing. Its body is limp, yielding, all that frantic energy and desperate will to live now gone. Ended by me.

  My stomach heaves. For a moment I think I am going to vomit, going to drop the rabbit and run and pretend this never happened. My human mind is screaming that this is wrong, that I am a monster, that killing should be harder than this, should require more hesitation, more guilt, more something.

  But my stomach growls so loudly it is almost painful, and I know with absolute certainty that I have no choice. I need to eat. I need to survive. And this rabbit died so I could do that.

  The rabbit is still warm in my hands. I stare at it, at the soft brown fur, the closed eyes, the small body that was alive moments ago and now is not. I have never prepared any kind of meat before. Never skinned anything, cleaned anything, cooked anything from an actual animal. My memories of my old life are hazy, but I am certain of this. I have never done this.

  And I have no way to cook it. No fire, no tools, nothing but my claws and my desperate hunger.

  Just my claws.

  I look at my hands, at the extended claws still sunk into the rabbit's body. They are curved and sharp, designed for exactly this. For hunting. For killing. For preparing prey. The thought makes me sick, but it is undeniable. This body was built for this purpose.

  I have seen diagrams before, vague memories of learning how animals are butchered. Or maybe I have not and I am just making up memories to justify what I am about to do. Skin first, then the rest. How it works. That is how it has to work.

  I position the rabbit and extend my claws fully, bringing them to where the fur meets the flesh at the belly. My hands are shaking. My breath comes in short gasps. This is desecration. This is wrong. This is crossing a line I can never uncross.

  The first cut is the hardest. Not physically, because my claws slice through easily, parting fur and skin with surgical precision. But mentally. Emotionally. I am violating this creature that I killed. Taking it apart piece by piece. Reducing a living being to meat.

  But once I start, my hands seem to know what to do. It is almost like muscle memory, except I have never done this before. The claws work at just the right angle, separating skin from flesh with surprising efficiency. The fur comes away in my grip, peeling back to reveal pink meat beneath.

  The smell hits me. Blood and meat and something wild. It should be repulsive. My human mind says it should make me sick. But my body responds differently. My mouth waters. My pupils dilate. Deep in my chest, a purr starts that I cannot suppress.

  No. I am not going to purr over a dead animal I just killed. I am not going to let myself.

  But I cannot stop it. The purr continues, low and steady, as I work. As I strip skin from meat, as I remove parts I know not to eat, as I reduce the rabbit to something that could pass for food.

  When I finally take the first bite, I expect to gag. Expect to fight my own body to swallow raw meat, bloody and warm and so fundamentally wrong to everything I thought I knew about myself.

  Instead, my body responds with overwhelming relief. The meat is rich and satisfying in a way nothing else has been since I woke up in this form. My teeth, sharper than human teeth, tear through the flesh easily. The taste is intense, metallic, alive somehow even though the rabbit is not.

  I eat faster than I mean to, tearing chunks of meat, swallowing almost without chewing. The hunger that has been clawing at my insides finally begins to ease. My body purrs louder, a rumble of satisfaction that I cannot control and eventually stop trying to.

  I eat until there is nothing left worth eating. Bones and fur and things I instinctively know not to consume. The rabbit that was alive thirty minutes ago, reduced to scraps.

  And I feel better. Stronger. More myself, whatever that means anymore.

  I clean my hands and face in a small stream, watching the pink-tinged water flow away. My reflection stares back at me from the surface, spotted fur and cat-like eyes and blood still staining the corners of my mouth.

  I do not recognize myself. Not just physically, but fundamentally. The person who woke up in that inn room a few days ago would have been horrified at what I just did. Would have refused. Would have starved first.

  But that person did not have this body. Did not have these instincts. Did not understand what survival actually means.

  I am changing. Every day in this form, I am becoming something different. Something less human and more nekojin. And I am not sure if that is a bad thing anymore.

  With food in my belly and strength returning to my limbs, I decide to explore. The forest stretches in every direction, ancient and unknown, and somewhere out there is the eastern road, or Thornhaven, or something that can help me figure out what to do next.

  I pick a direction that feels vaguely north based on where the sun seems to be and start walking. Not fast, not pushing myself. Just moving, covering ground, looking for anything that might tell me where I am.

  Hours pass. The forest remains unchanged, endless trees and undergrowth and the occasional stream or clearing. I see more animals, file away their locations in my mind for future hunting. The hunger will come back, I know. This body burns through fuel fast.

  I am thinking about finding a place to shelter for the night when I notice something strange.

  The trees ahead are different. Not species, but shape. They are growing around something, their trunks bent and twisted to accommodate obstacles that should not be there. Straight lines in a world of curves. Regular shapes in the organic chaos of the forest.

  Walls.

  I approach slowly, my heart beating faster. The vegetation is thick here, vines and moss covering everything, but underneath I can see it now. Stone. Cut stone, shaped and fitted, covered by centuries of growth but still unmistakably artificial.

  Buildings. Or what remains of them.

  My pulse quickens as I push through the undergrowth. More walls emerge from the green, some standing only a few feet high, others reaching above my head. The layout suggests streets, intersections, a planned community overgrown and forgotten.

  Ruins. Ruins of something that was here long before the forest reclaimed it.

  I move deeper, fascination overwhelming caution. The architecture becomes clearer as I learn to look past the vegetation. Doorways designed for my height. Window openings positioned perfectly for my eye level. Steps with risers that match my stride exactly.

  This was not built by humans.

  Realization settles into my bones like ice water. The doorways are smaller than they should be for human construction. Lower. I can walk through them easily, my head clearing the lintels with room to spare. But a full-grown human would have to duck. The ceilings, where I can still see them through collapsed roofs, are lower too. Maybe seven feet at most. Comfortable for me. Claustrophobic for anyone taller.

  Everything is scaled for people about my size.

  Nekojin size.

  My heart beats faster as the implications sink in. This was a nekojin settlement. My people, or at least people like me, built this place. Lived here. Created a community in the deep forest, far from human towns and human rules.

  And someone destroyed it utterly.

  I can see the evidence of violence now that I know to look for it. Scorch marks on stone. Not the gradual darkening of smoke from cooking fires, but blackened areas where intense heat struck suddenly, violently. Walls that were broken outward in explosive patterns, not collapsed inward from age and neglect. Rubble scattered in ways that suggest violence rather than gradual decay, stones thrown, not fallen. And everywhere, fragments of worked stone that were deliberately smashed, edges sharp rather than worn, surfaces showing tool marks that are too recent to be from the original construction.

  This place was attacked. Destroyed. Then abandoned to the forest.

  Realization makes my skin prickle, the fur on my arms and neck standing up in response to danger long past but still heavy in the air. Who would do this? And why? What was this place that it deserved such thorough destruction?

  I continue deeper, drawn by curiosity and something else I cannot quite name. A feeling of connection, of recognition, though I have never been here before. The architecture becomes more apparent as I learn what to look for beneath the vegetation.

  I find carvings on the walls as I explore, weathered but still visible where the vines and moss have been pulled away by falling debris. Scenes of daily life, rendered in simple but effective strokes. Nekojin figures with distinctive tails and ears, gathering food from the forest. Celebrations with nekojin dancing in circles, tails raised in joy. Children playing games I can almost recognize, chasing each other, climbing, jumping. Adults working together, raising a building's frame.

  The scenes make it real in a way that empty buildings do not. These were people. They lived and worked and celebrated together. They raised children. They built things. They had culture and art and joy.

  But nearly all of the carvings have been defaced.

  Faces scratched out with systematic brutality, the stone gouged deep by metal tools. Not random damage from falling stones or weather. Deliberate targeting. Every face removed, every individual erased. Entire figures chiseled away, leaving rough patches where nekojin once stood carved in stone.

  The destruction is precise, targeted, methodical. Someone took the time after the attack to find and destroy these images. While buildings burned and people died or fled, someone was scratching out faces, destroying art, erasing culture. This was not just violence in the heat of battle. This was methodical elimination of memory.

  Somehow I getting angry. Really, deeply angry in a way I have not felt since this whole nightmare began. These people, my people, they just wanted to live. They built homes. They created art. They raised children. And someone decided that was not acceptable. Someone decided they needed to be destroyed so thoroughly that even their memory would be erased.

  Who does that? What kind of hatred drives someone to not just kill, but to erase?

  At the center of the settlement stands what must have been a temple.

  I know it is a temple the moment I see it, even in its ruined state. Something about its position, its size, the way the other buildings orient toward it. This was the heart of the community. The center of their spiritual and social world.

  It is also the most damaged structure I have seen. Its walls are partially collapsed, great chunks of stone lying scattered around it like broken teeth. The roof is completely gone, open to the sky where trees now grow through the interior. Whatever beauty it once had has been thoroughly, viciously destroyed.

  Inside, the temple is dark despite the missing roof. The massive tree growing through the center creates deep shadows with its trunk and branches. At what must have been the heart of the temple, at the far end opposite the entrance, I find an altar.

  It is broken, split down the middle by massive roots. The top surface is cracked and tilted at an angle. But the front face is still largely intact, and carved there, deep into the stone, is a symbol.

  A crescent moon embracing a star.

  I stop breathing. My hand goes to my chest, to the pendant hanging beneath my tunic. With trembling fingers, I pull it out and hold it up.

  They match exactly.

  The curve of the moon is identical, the position of the star precise. Every detail, every line, perfectly replicated. My pendant, the one Merchant Tallen left me with cryptic words about the Goddess guiding my path, bears the sacred symbol of this destroyed nekojin temple.

  This is not coincidence. It cannot be coincidence.

  Questions flood my mind so fast I can barely process them. What does this mean? Why do I have this symbol? Did Tallen know what it was? Is my transformation connected to this place? How? Were these ruins here when I was changed, or is this ancient history from before I existed? Who were these people? What did they believe? Why were they destroyed?

  And most importantly, why do I have their sacred symbol hanging around my neck?

  I run my fingers over the carved stone, feeling the grooves worn by time and weather. This symbol was important enough to be carved into the altar of what was clearly the most important building in the settlement. It meant something sacred, something central to whatever belief system these nekojin held. Something worth preserving in stone, worth making the focal point of their spiritual life.

  And now I wear it. Connected to them in ways I do not understand.

  I look around the ruined temple with new eyes. This is not just an interesting historical site. This is connected to me somehow. The pendant, the symbol, the fact that I was transformed into a nekojin and then given this specific piece of jewelry. The fact that I fled into the wilderness and found these ruins. The fact that I am standing here right now, in the heart of a destroyed nekojin settlement, wearing their sacred symbol.

  The universe is trying to tell me something. Or fate is. Or whatever force transformed me in the first place. But I do not speak the language yet. I do not understand the message.

  I sink down to sit on the broken altar, my tail curling around my waist, my hand clutching the pendant. The afternoon light is starting to fade, the shadows growing longer, the temple getting darker as the sun moves across the sky.

  I came into this forest lost and alone, just trying to survive day to day. Running from guards, learning to hunt, sleeping in trees. No plan beyond staying alive and hoping to find Merchant Tallen eventually.

  And somehow, I have found the ruins of my people, destroyed and forgotten by the world, bearing the same symbol that hangs around my neck.

  I am not just a transformed human trying to survive anymore. I am connected to something older, something that was here long before me. A history that someone tried very hard to erase. A people who lived and died and left only ruins behind.

  The anger returns, burning hot in my chest. These people were destroyed. Killed or scattered. Their homes burned. Their art defaced. Their memory erased. And the world forgot they ever existed.

  But I found them. I am here, witnessing what is left, seeing what someone tried to hide. And I am wearing their symbol, marked by their faith or their culture or whatever this moon and star means.

  I will not let them be forgotten. I cannot bring them back. I cannot undo what was done to them. But I can remember. I can bear witness. I can refuse to let this place disappear completely.

  The thought feels important, weighty. Like I have stumbled into a purpose beyond just surviving. Like maybe I was meant to find this place. Meant to see what happened here. Meant to remember when everyone else has forgotten.

  The sun is setting. I can see it through the gaps in the canopy and the holes in the temple roof, the light shifting from gold to orange to deep red. Shadows are lengthening across the ruins, and the temperature is dropping as evening approaches.

  I need to find shelter for the night. The hollow tree worked yesterday, but these ruins might offer something better. More protection from wind and weather. Walls, even broken ones, provide more shelter than open air.

  But I cannot bring myself to leave the temple yet. I stand before the altar, my pendant in one hand, staring at the carved symbol that matches it exactly. This is the most important discovery I have made since waking up in that inn room. This means something. I just do not know what.

  The pendant feels heavier in my hand. Not physically heavier, but weighted with significance. With connection to something larger than myself.

  As darkness falls and the temperature drops, I tuck the pendant back beneath my tunic and turn to explore the rest of the ruins. I need shelter. I need to understand this place. And tomorrow, I need to figure out what to do with what I have found.

  But tonight, I am going to sleep in the ruins of my people's temple. In the heart of their destroyed sanctuary. Connected to them in ways I do not understand but cannot deny.

  The moon rises as I search the ruins for the best shelter. Its light filters through the canopy, silver and cold, illuminating the stones with an ethereal glow. The crescent moon, like the one carved in the altar, like the one on my pendant. Watching over the ruins of a people who worshipped it.

  I find a building that is relatively intact, with three walls still standing and part of the roof preserved by a tree that has grown up beside it rather than through it. The floor inside is covered in moss and leaves, but it is dry and protected from wind.

  As I settle in for the night, wrapping my tail around myself for warmth, I think about the day. I learned to hunt. I killed and ate and survived. I found ruins of my people, destroyed and forgotten. I discovered that the symbol I wear is sacred, significant, connected to something larger than I understand.

  So much has changed in just one day. So much has been revealed and yet remains mysterious.

  I close my eyes and try to sleep, but my mind will not quiet. Questions chase each other in circles. Who were these people? What happened to them? Why do I have their symbol? What does it mean that I found this place?

  And underlying all of it, the bigger question that burns hotter than all the others: Who did this?

  I killed today. Hunted and killed without hesitation once I had the opportunity. My body knew what to do even though I had never done it before. I ate raw meat and my body purred with satisfaction even as my mind recoiled.

  I am changing. Not just adapting to this body, but becoming something different. Something more nekojin and less human with each passing day.

  But that is not what keeps me awake. That is not what makes my claws extend involuntarily, digging into the mossy floor of my shelter.

  Someone destroyed these people.

  The thought crystallizes into something hard and sharp, lodging in my chest like a splinter of ice. Someone came here with weapons and fire and hatred. Someone killed the nekojin who built this settlement, who carved that altar, who created that symbol I wear around my neck. Someone murdered them so thoroughly that the world forgot they ever existed.

  And the world let it happen.

  No, that is not quite right. The world did not just let it happen. The world helped. The world erased the evidence, burned the records, silenced the survivors until there was no one left to remember. The world decided that an entire people deserved to be forgotten, and then it forgot them.

  My hands are shaking. Not from cold, not from hunger, not from exhaustion. From rage. Pure, burning rage that fills my chest and claws at my throat, demanding release.

  All those people. All those lives. All that history and culture and art and love and hope. Gone. Wiped away like they never mattered. Like they were nothing.

  And I am supposed to just accept that? Supposed to find shelter in their ruins and eat and sleep and survive as if that is enough? As if survival is victory when everyone else is dead?

  I think about Millhaven. About Captain Aldric and his generous employers. About Harlon and his friends who wanted me gone because my existence offended them. About the bounty Lyra mentioned, five silver for a healthy nekojin, seven for one young enough to train.

  That is what my people are worth to the world. Coin. Labor. Property to be bought and sold.

  And if I am caught, if I am taken, I will disappear just like the nekojin who built this settlement. Another body to be used up and discarded. Another life that does not count because it belonged to someone the world has decided does not matter.

  The rage builds until I cannot contain it anymore. I slam my fist into the stone wall of my shelter, and the pain that explodes through my knuckles is almost satisfying. Real. Honest. Better than the helpless fury that has no target, no outlet, no purpose.

  I hit the wall again. And again. Until my knuckles are bleeding and my arm is shaking and the rage has burned down to something colder. Harder. More useful.

  Not going to disappear.

  I am not going to be forgotten.

  The plan is to survive, and I am going to remember. Remember this place. Remember these people. Remember what was done to them and who benefited from their destruction.

  And someday, somehow, I am going to make sure the world remembers too.

  The pendant presses against my chest, the crescent moon and star a weight I did not ask for but cannot put down. These were my people, whether I was born nekojin or made one. Their symbol is my symbol now. Their history is my history. Their murder is my inheritance.

  I will carry it. All of it. The grief and the rage and the burning need for someone, anyone, to answer for what happened here.

  But not tonight. Tonight I am one nekojin with bloody knuckles and an empty stomach, hiding in the ruins of a civilization that was supposed to be erased. Tonight I cannot do anything except survive.

  So I will survive. I will learn what this body can do. I will find food and shelter and safety. I will grow stronger, smarter, harder to kill.

  And I will never, ever forget that someone owes a debt for what happened here.

  The anger does not fade as I settle back against the wall, cradling my throbbing hand against my chest. It just banks down to coals, hot enough to keep burning through the night, through the days ahead, through whatever comes next.

  Tomorrow I will explore more. Tomorrow I will try to understand this place and what it means. Tomorrow I will figure out what to do next.

  But tonight, I do not sleep peacefully. I sleep angry. And the anger keeps me warm when everything else has gone cold.

  The moon rises outside my shelter, its crescent shape visible through a gap in the broken roof. The same moon that is carved into my pendant. The same moon that watched over a people who were destroyed and forgotten.

  I am not going to forget.

  I am never going to forget.

  And somewhere, somehow, there will be a reckoning.