I have Nine Lives

16th September 2021, Japan, in a small village an old woman was slowly walking towards the train station, she wore simple autumn clothes that kept her fragile body away from the cold breeze, she had a surgical mask on her face to protect her from the deadly virus that lasted to this day.

It was an unfortunate event that happened one year ago but most people already became used to wearing a mask and using an unholy amount of hand sanitizer to keep the virus away, the death's from the virus also stabilized and became very rare.

The woman was called Tsuru Mazawa and she was on her way to visit one of her friends that lived at the train station, most of the young people moved away from the village due to work, her children did as well, they were one of the early deaths due to the virus.

She was heartbroken at first but with the help of her friend she started to move on, she didn't have much to live for besides this friend and she couldn't abandon him as she saw him grow up since he was very little.

Tsuru walked slowly but this was the fastest speed her old legs could take her, after 20 minutes of walking she finally reached the train station and she called out:

"Felix-kun come out, I have brought dried squid!"

Out of the train station come out a fat orange tabby cat, he walked with a gait as he meowed towards Tsuru, and he started rubbing his head on her leg in a show of affection, Tsuru crouched down and gave him small pets on the head as she had a small smile on her old wrinkled face.

A buzzing sound could be heard from the sky, but Tsuru ignored it until it became too loud to ignore, she looked up and in the sky, there was a gigantic flaming rock of death!

It was moving closer and closer to earth to the point that Tsuru could smell the fire, the meteorite hit, and Tsuru hugged the cat Felix closely, a piece of concrete from the station exploded as everything burst up in flames.

The cat didn't get injured at all as Tsuru protected it with her whole body but both of Tsuru's legs were crushed by the concrete, the Earth started shaking so hard that lava started to spout out of different locations, there was one thing for sure, the planet didn't have much time left if any at all!

Tsuru almost passed out due to the pain from her crushed legs but she looked at the tabby cat in her arms and it meowed sadly as it licked her face, suddenly out of the corner of her eye she spotted a small glowing silver portal, it was very small, she wouldn't be able to fit even if she cut her legs and entered it but Felix could squeeze through even though he was quite fat.

She didn't know how many seconds could the Earth last, and all she wanted was for her lovely Felix to survive, he was the only family that she had left, she wouldn't be happy in the afterlife if Felix died with her!

With all of her remaining strength, she threw Felix inside the glowing portal and the moment Felix's tail disappeared from Tsuru's vision was the moment that the Earth exploded!

The explosion engulfed the whole earth, the meteorite hit the core and it was also quite big so it triggered an immediate chain reaction that made the earth explode soon after.

Where Earth stood nothing remained besides some random bits and pieces that turned into ashes that slowly drifted into the universe never to be seen again.

The moon didn't remain whole after the explosion as three-quarters of it was affected by it as well.

Earth was decimated by an asteroid, nothing remained the legacy of humans disappeared from the universe forever...

But there was still something out there that came from Earth, even though it arrived in a different universe the legacy of Earth as a whole wasn't fully destroyed, but humans were surely done.

Felix hissed as he got up from the ground and looked around, he was a normal cat with nothing special to him, as he looked around gigantic trees could be reflected in his pale green eyes.

The cat didn't know where he was so he started to meow, he felt both scared and hungry as he didn't get to eat the dried squid that Tsuru prepared for him.

His meows attracted something out of the woods, it was a white rabbit but it had deer antlers, it was a jackalope!

If a human was in Felix's situation he would have wondered where he landed, but to Felix this was dinner!

Even though Felix was a normal cat, he was a stray feral cat that Tsuru took care of since he was small so he was only good around her, when Tsuru couldn't come to feed him due to the weather he would be hunting, he caught small rabbits and birds before so he thought that he could catch this rabbit as well, even though it looked strange and he never met such a rabbit before he was too hungry to care!

The cat moved slowly as he made himself as small as possible so he wouldn't scare his prey away, the jackalope smelled the air then immediately charged towards Felix's location, Felix jumped towards him trying to go for a quick kill, his mouth went directly for the neck but the Jackalope's antlers entered his big furry stomach and exited the other side!

Felix was dying slowly, nothing was flashing to his eyes, his pupils turned a white shade as life left him.

Suddenly another Felix popped out of the air and launched himself at the rabbit who was now eating the carcass of his kill, the rabbit didn't expect such a thing to happen so Felix's sharp teeth entered its small and fair neck drawing blood.

The rabbit wanted to cry out its death throes were muffled because Felix went directly for his throat, the white rabbit's eyes turned a deep crimson as he used his last amount of strength to run his antlers into Felix's chest again, effectively killing him again.

Both bodies fell to the forest ground, a deep pool of blood on the ground coming from three bodies.

Out of nowhere another Felix appeared and slowly went to the body of the rabbit, he smelled it a bit then he started to dig in.

The meat was eaten quickly as bones crunched under his teeth, even though the rabbit was deadly and faster than Felix, its defenses were quite weak since he was defeated by a normal cat, however, this type of rabbit could even kill humans if they were unprepared!

After Felix finished his meal he smelled the other two carcasses which were his former bodies, but he wasn't interested in them, he felt sleepy and he didn't want to sleep on the cold hard ground of the forest so he climbed a tree.

He found a tree with a good shading that also let some sunlight in and directly went to sleep there, he started purring as he enjoyed the meat that now stayed in his big stomach.

Strange blue energy from the meat was traveling inside his body-altering it, however, he was now sleeping and even if he was awake he wouldn't have understood what was happening to him. After all, he was just a cat.

Unknowingly to him the smell of blood and the sounds of fighting had attracted two burly figures to the forest grounds...