I've remembered Edgar Allan Poe's writing about The Black Cat. That was gruesome, but I think the author wrote it wonderfully. Like how a man under the influence of alcohol could kill not only his pets but also his own wife. Could a man really do that? I've never drunk since I feared that I might kill innocent people just like him.
"You shouldn't touch it," Cain said. "I have a gut feeling that it wasn't a normal cat. It must be a witch. We have to be very careful. We're not here anymore."
"What do you mean?" I asked, confused.
"Remember that ghost who caught you? They must be still lurking around here, spying on us. We have to be ready for anything." Cain slipped his hands inside the pockets of his denim jacket, and we crossed the streets together.
"Ahhh..." I screamed as my head started aching. The surroundings seemed to be spinning around like I was riding a roller coaster. The buildings were dancing. Something's ringing in my ears. "What's going on?"
"Lil, are you okay?" Cain asked. His voice was round and deep, as if he was speaking from the top of a deep hole and I'm in the bottom of it.
"My head is aching and..." My vision gradually came back to normal, and my head stopped aching. "I, I'm fine now."
"Are you sure?" He asked worriedly.
"Yeah," I said, hoping that it won't happen again. It wouldn't be easy to defeat the enemy if that happened during the fight, as the pain that surged through my brain as if it was going to explode didn't allow me to think clearly.
"This is bad," Cain said as he stopped, looking at the casino. There seemed to be a commotion, as there were many police cars and people outside. "It seems like we're too late."
"What do you mean too late?" I asked.
"Your enemy is already dead," he replied.
"How did you know?"
"I can feel it. There's no threat around. No souls to take. Someone stole your enemy."
"But how?" I asked. "I thought my enemies were solely mine. How could others steal them?"
"It might be an accident, like the man died for some reason before we arrived, but I feel like that's not the case. Someone's trying to deceive us," Cain said.
"Isn't that dangerous? If we can't collect a hundred souls, then I won't be free, and you'll also vanish forever."
"If someone else is collecting the souls of our enemies, then there's a chance to win it. We'll soon encounter them and fight with them. We have to win and get the souls they took," Cain explained.
"It must be because of that black cat," I said.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
"Black cats are said to be unlucky. This morning I also saw the number of the devil. I woke up at 4:44 in the morning, but I didn't think too much about it," I replied.
"You can't blame it on the cat, Lil, or on the numbers you saw. Stop connecting the dots that aren't there in the first place."
"Perhaps the universe is sending me signs, warning me of what might happen. This might not be one of my lucky days."
"That doesn't make sense," Cain said. "You make your own luck, Lil. Just because you see such things doesn't mean you're unlucky. Those things exist naturally. We can't question a black cat why it's black."
"Okay." I didn't want to argue anymore. I couldn't understand why I'm seeing patterns, as if everything is connected. Those signs make me nervous, or I'd say discouraged.
"Don't be discouraged, Lil. We're not always lucky, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try. Keep trying; you can't bullseye the target with just a single shot. It takes constant practice to hit it perfectly," Cain said.
"Thanks for the encouragement." I smiled.
Cain was right. We can't always hit the target, but that doesn't mean we should just give up. We might not hit the moon, but the arrow might hit the stars. We might not get what we want because the universe knew that we deserved something better.
"What are we going to do now?" I asked.
"Let's go somewhere else. We shouldn't allow those thieves to keep stealing our enemies," Cain replied.
"It's becoming a competition, isn't it? But it's difficult since we don't have any idea about our rivals," I said.
"Don't worry about that. There's only one I knew who had the courage to do it: an escapee."
"What do you mean, escaped?" I asked.
"There's no time to answer your questions, Lil. You'll find it out soon. But for now, let's go somewhere." With just a flick of his fingers, we got teleported to another place.
It was another gloomy place. The surroundings were dark, fallen buildings buried in black soil, graves and sepulchers protruding from the ground, ravens feeding on carrion, and what the fuck are those things ahead?
"Are those dead people?" I asked.
"Zombies," Cain replied.
"Just a while ago we were in a modern city, and now we're in an apocalypse?"
"Stop complaining, Lil, or your luck will get worse. There are only two things you need to do here: kill the leader of those zombies and survive," he said.
"Got it," I replied.
There were three guys and a woman approaching. They looked gloomy and exhausted. They carried knapsacks, axes, and long guns with them. They couldn't be just hikers. They must have survived in this apocalypse. They halted in front of me.
"Who are you, kid?" One of the guys asked. "Are you lost? How did you survive the zombies?"
The three guys and the woman seemed to be nice and friendly. I couldn't feel any threat from them. I knew they had fought so hard to survive until this day. They must have been grappling for hope, trying to find that tiny spark in this gloomy world. I want to help them to end their suffering.
"I've come from another city. It wasn't affected by this apocalypse," I said.
"Oh, that sounds nice," the woman replied.
"Do you want to go there?" I asked.
"That place is too good to be real. We've been traveling this land for too long, and we couldn't get out of here. There are zombies in every direction. We didn't even have a working movie phone we could use to ask for help," the man with long, curly black hair said.
"I can bring you there through teleportation," I said, and they laughed as if they didn't believe me or they couldn't believe me, but I continued anyway. "But first I have to defeat the leader of those zombies."