Five Cats and Five Movements

She struggles to see me through the tempest and the darkness. Fear pushes her breath out in ragged bursts. I can hear it across the dozen or so strides she stands from me, despite the rain and thunder pummeling the rooftop and drenching us both.

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Her eyes are desperate. They’re big and brown like her mother’s. The lashes flutter in the downpour like birds in a bath, but my own eyes don’t blink. I see her clearly, in a way few others can. Her pupils shrink with each flash of lightning, then swell in their wake, adjusting again to the dim glow of the glass pyramid behind us. The colossal spire adds a blood-red gleam to the moment, both ominous and fitting.

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I’ve killed innocents before… men, women, and children alike. Their deaths were horrific -- dark pustules mushrooming out of their skin, some as big as a man’s fist, covering them from head to toe before flesh and bone melted into gelatin.

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The snake fang offers a more merciful death. One swipe from the reptilian tooth will give her a swift and painless ending. As I struggle to garner fortitude for the task, the fang weighs heavy in my hand, much heavier than its arm’s length portends.

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At this moment, sympathy and compassion are weaknesses. I must shrug them off to save thousands, maybe millions. I must kill this young innocent or else the Mother of Fury, the Butcher of Armies, the Ravager of Nations will be let loose upon the world again.