Title: Like Me
Series: Darkstalkers
Author: Rann Aridorn


         I'm rooting around inside a trashcan when I hear the struggle. I 
mean, I'm really IN the trashcan. I guess I could just turn it over or 
something if I shifted to my humanoid form, but sometimes, I like to be 
what I am. I'm a cat. My name is Felicia. I'm a cat, but I'm a Dark One too.
         But I hear the struggle, and quickly, I scramble up to the edge 
and I pull myself up, just in time to see a man running away and a woman 
crumpling to the ground. With my nose out of the fumes of the garbage, I 
can smell the heady scent of human blood. It's a scent I hate. It always 
means someone's hurt... someone's in pain.
         I pull myself over the edge of the can and run to her side, 
looking at her face. She's barely got her eyes open, but she turns her head 
and sees me. She smiles... even though she's bruised and in pain, she's got 
a pretty smile. She lifts one hand up, and I see it shake. She rests her 
hand on my head and runs it down my back... I can feel her blood smear in 
my fur.
         Oh no, please, not again.
         I could snap into my other form, carry her with all my speed to 
the nearest hospital, doctor, to somebody, anybody. But before I can even 
draw another breath, her hand falls away from me. I hear her heart and her 
breathing stop. Her scent changes subtly, already showing that she's dead. 
Oh no.
         Not again. It's just not fair. It happened before... I came upon a 
woman just in time to see her die... for her to use her last energy, her 
last moments of life, to show me affection. Affection for a dirty little 
alley cat with a weird shock of blue hair on its head. She didn't know I 
was a Dark One... a thing... some... monster. Just a cat. Saw me looking at 
her so sadly, and... NO!
         I can smell the murderer on her, can scent his trail. I'm already 
running as I explode up into my humanlike form, my teeth bared, my eyes 
narrow. I can feel anger running through every part of me. I'm mad! I'm 
FURIOUS! This can't be allowed to happen again! Once was enough! Two times 
is unforgivable!
         He's already inside a building. I don't let the thick door stop me 
at all, two smashes with my fists and it's down. Human men start awake, 
coming to their feet and drawing guns. Sweeps of my big hands, the big 
hands that keep me off of the stage I so love, knock them sprawling, smash 
them into walls, sending them away into unconsciousness. The one I want 
isn't with them. He's upstairs.
         I go up, smashing things I see as I go, trying to give some vent 
to this fury that fills every part of me. Why do humans do this to each 
other?! WHY?!
         He's coming out of a room when I find him. But I don't even stop. 
I just grab him up as I go, I don't pay attention to his screams or 
struggles as I keep carrying him up, up more flights of stairs, smashing 
open another door to the roof and leaping across it, balancing on the edge. 
I am a cat. Or a cat-thing.
         I wrap a big hand, a monster's hand, around his head, and I hold 
him out over the edge. He can't see, but he must somehow know the danger 
he's in, because he struggles even more, his hands grabbing at mine.
         I had a friend, once. He met me the night the first woman was 
murdered. When we were trying to find the murderer, he looked up at the 
full moon, and he changed. He fought me. My friend, fighting me, asked why 
I was willing to try so hard... to get hurt... to find this woman's killer. 
I didn't know her, he said, or anything about her.
         I just said that she petted me, once.
         'And that's enough?' John had snorted at me. I could hear the 
contempt in the voice of his werewolf form.
         I said what I still believe. That it was more than enough.
         I can't know anything about the woman tonight. She could have been 
a prostitute. A drug dealer. She could have killed people herself. She 
could have been the worst person in the world just as easily as she could 
have been someone kind and wonderful. But I can't know those things about 
her. Because of this man, no one will ever know anything more about her, 
because she's gone.
         All I can know is that in the very last moments of her life, all 
that woman could do was smile and show me a tiny bit of affection. She gave 
all she had left just to give a tiny bit of kindness to a little cat.
         And that's more than enough. A lot more.
         The circumstances are different now. There's no evidence that he 
was the killer, nothing left at the scene. All that says that he killed her 
is me smelling him there, my nose catching his scent. No human court will 
ever admit the testimony of a Dark One, I know that. If they put me on the 
stand? The people would laugh at me as I tried to fit my big form, my 
oversized hands and feet, into the witness stand, to try and not sit on my 
tail. The man's lawyer would point out all the Dark Ones that kill people, 
hurt people. Because of what I am, they would use me to procure this man's 
freedom.
         I can't let that happen. I can't let him go free to hurt someone 
else. To take another life away from the world. I hate what I'm about to 
do. I hate it down to the very bottom of my heart. But there's nothing else 
I can do. I can't live if I think he would ever hurt anyone else ever again.
         I let go of him.
         I make myself watch. I want to turn away so badly, I want to look 
away from it, clench my eyes shut, to forget what I've just done, if only 
for a moment. But it's the choice I made. I can't shut it out. I watch as 
he hits a flagpole halfway down, his body bending and then seeming to 
almost bounce away from it, before he hits the pavement on his head. Blood 
goes everywhere. The body looks so small.
         I fall down to my knees and clutch my hands around my head. How 
could I have done it? I love humans. I love them, I hate the thought of 
them being hurt. How could I do this?!
         Because I love them. I love them so much more than I love myself. 
I have to do what I can to protect them. Even if it makes me hate myself. 
Because I do. I hate what I've done. I can't take it back. I wouldn't if I 
could. But I hate it all the way down into the icy pit of my stomach.
         I don't know how long I stay there, rocking back and forth, 
holding my head like it would split in half and roll away in two separate 
directions if I didn't. But after awhile, it starts to drizzle, tiny little 
drops of cold rain that leach all the warmth out of my skin the second they 
touch it.
         I hate the rain.
         Right now, I hate myself more.
         I stand up slowly, and I turn to walk back downstairs. My ears are 
drooped, my tail hanging limp. I must look quite the sight as I stagger 
down the stairs. The big bad catwere, almost stumbling her way forward in 
her misery. And what misery? Because she disposed of a dangerous criminal? 
Some Dark One. Some hero.
         Some hero.
         I shove open a door into the back alley and almost fall outside, 
resting my hands on the wall. The drizzle's on me again, and it's slowly 
drenching my hair and my fur. I hate the rain.
         I hear a little rustle in the mounds of trash in front of me, and 
I see a little grey head with black stripes poke out. The alleycat meows at 
me quietly. He seems happy when I gather him up in my big hands and hold 
him to me. I guess he doesn't get petted much either. I rub a cheek against 
his back, letting his damp fur take away some of the tears falling down my 
cheeks. You don't know how lucky you are, little friend. I can only ever 
pretend to be what you are. You'll always be a real cat.
         Not a monster like me.




             .---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
             | Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
             | Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
             |     Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject     |
             `---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'