Soul Bond
Fern had lived alone with her cat for more than six years, and in that time she had come to know his routines the way a clock knows the turning of its hands. He would sleep most of the day curled into a perfect circle on the couch, wake at dusk, stretch, and slip silently out the front door. At first, Fern thought nothing of it—cats were hunters, after all. But over time, she began to notice the pattern. Every morning, just as the early light crept over the hedges, she would find something waiting for her on the welcome mat: a dead mouse, a small bird, once even a young rat. The animals were always laid out neatly, facing the door, their bodies perfectly intact.
The first few times, she assumed her cat was simply bringing her his kills as gifts, a strange feline tribute. But the longer it went on, the more wrong it felt.
The disturbing part wasn’t the gifts themselves it was what happened to them. Or rather, what didn’t happen.
By the time she left for work each morning, the carcasses were gone. Completely gone. Not just taken, but erased. There was no blood, no fur, no feathers. No sign that anything had been there at all.
She had tested it once. One spring morning, she left a sparrow on the mat while she made coffee. She kept glancing out the window. For nearly an hour, nothing moved. Then, she turned her head for the briefest moment—just to reach for the sugar—and when she looked back, the bird was gone.
Fern tried to laugh it off at first. Neighborhood fox, maybe. Or a stray dog. But she’d never seen so much as a pawprint or a disturbed leaf. The kills simply vanished. The ritual continued night after night. Her cat hunted. The bodies appeared. The bodies disappeared. Life moved on. Until one evening in late autumn.
The air that night felt heavy, like the world was holding its breath. The sky was bruised with low clouds, and the first hints of frost clung to the grass. As dusk settled in, Fern’s cat sat by the door, tail swishing impatiently. When he meowed to be let out, Fern hesitated. She didn’t know why—maybe it was the strange pressure in the air, maybe the bone-deep tiredness she’d been carrying all week—but something in her rebelled against the idea of letting him go.
Instead, she shut the door and latched it. She closed all the windows, even the small bathroom one she usually left ajar.
The cat didn’t take kindly to this. He scratched at the door, at first lazily, then with more insistence. His claws scraped wood. His tail lashed. He let out a low, warbling cry that made Fern’s neck prickle.
“You’re staying in tonight,”
She told him, voice firmer than she felt. The scratching went on for nearly an hour, an endless back-and-forth of claws and muffled growls. Then, abruptly, it stopped. Relieved, Fern exhaled and went to check on him. What she found froze her in place. The cat stood several feet from the door, back arched, fur bristling. His ears were flat, his pupils blown wide. His mouth was open in a silent hiss, his whole body locked in a stance she’d never seen before. Pure, unblinking readiness, as if staring down an enemy he knew too well. And then came the first bang. It wasn’t a knock. It was a blow. Something struck the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. Before Fern could react, another impact came louder, harder and this time the wood splintered, the frame groaning under the force.
On the third hit, the door gave way, swinging inward on one broken hinge. Standing just outside was… Fern. Or something that wore her shape. It was older, much older than she was, though its face mirrored hers in grotesque detail. Its skin was pale, split in places, peeling like paper left in the rain. Wounds gaped along its arms and neck, the flesh hanging loose. Bones jutted where they shouldn’t, and one arm dangled at an unnatural angle. And yet, despite the ruined body, it stood solid and strong enough to have smashed through her door.
Its eyes locked on hers. The thing took one step forward. Then another. It moved with grim purpose, bypassing Fern entirely and lunging toward the cat. But the cat was faster. With a blur of movement, he darted between its legs and out into the night. The thing’s head snapped back toward Fern. She didn’t even have time to scream before it was on her. Its weight drove her to the floor. Cold, damp fingers like knotted rope wrapped around her throat. The smell was unbearable—wet earth and rot, as if it had clawed its way from a grave only hours before.
Fern thrashed, her nails raking its skin, but the creature’s grip was iron. Darkness gathered at the edges of her vision. And then—just as her breath began to fail—she saw the cat again. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted by the weak porch light, two limp mice dangling from his mouth. Their bodies swung gently in the night air, tails curled. The creature froze. Slowly, it turned its ruined head toward the cat. In an instant, it released Fern, scrambling to its feet with jerky, unnatural movements. It lurched toward the door, snatched the mice from the cat’s jaws, and bolted into the darkness beyond the porch.
Fern lay on the floor, gasping, her chest heaving. She stared after the retreating figure until the night swallowed it. The cat padded inside, tail high, and trotted into the kitchen without a glance at her.
That night, Fern didn’t sleep. She sat in the living room chair with a blanket wrapped around her, eyes fixed on the broken door, listening to the wind until morning. By dusk the next day, a fresh kill lay on the welcome mat—a small sparrow, its wings folded neatly. No blood. No mess. Fern left it where it was. The following night, another offering appeared. Then another. Days became weeks. The cat hunted. The bodies appeared. The bodies vanished. And the thing outside never returned.
When the cat began to grow old, his trips into the night became fewer. His movements slowed, his once-proud tail drooped. One winter, he stopped going out altogether. Fern noticed the first night he stayed in. She noticed the second. By the third, the welcome mat was empty. She tried to tell herself she didn’t miss the ritual, but the silence outside felt different now—thicker somehow, as though something was waiting. So, on the fourth night, she went out herself. The air was sharp and cold, and the fields beyond her home were brittle with frost. She moved quietly, scanning the underbrush until she caught the flicker of a wing. It was a sparrow, small and warm in her hands when she caught it. She broke its neck quickly, whispering an apology. She brought it home and laid it gently on the mat.
The next morning, it was gone. She kept at it. Mice in traps, birds caught in the hedges. Each one placed on the mat at dusk. Always intact. Always gone by dawn. And the thing outside never came back. But Fern understood, now, the weight of the work. It wasn’t a hobby for her cat. It was a duty. And now, it was hers.
