Rick found himself having a hard time seeing the path they walked. The sun had passed the zenith, and it was on its way towards the horizon. Not that there was one to be seen in the woods. The gloom was quick to set in, and it didn’t seem as if they had much longer before their only options were to use a flashlight. A rather strange thing, considering how they could look up and still see the glimmering orange sunlight that painted the very edge of the treetops. If he had to make a rough assumption, they only had another hour or so left.

On the plus side, they appeared to have a guide. Monica was leading the way, moving ahead and stopping to meow at them every handful of minutes, taking the time to lazily snack on the bird she’d caught earlier. None present would complain about that though- better some small animal than them.

“Look.” Kat pointed forward.

It was simple to see what she’d been looking at. There were scratch marks on the tree she was pointing at, thin light lines that stripped away chunks of bark and revealed deeper scars. She might have spotted the first, but as soon as they’d noticed them, they noticed the marks were all over the place. The scratches looked like graffiti that had been painted at the base of a building, sometimes small, other times stretching all the way around the monumental trunks.

“I think we’re entering her territory.”

Rick’s comment came accompanied by a gesture of his head towards another tree, one that found itself also injured with lacerations and torn bark. This one was scarred all the way up to the first branch, twelve meters off the ground. As they moved further, following Monica, the frequency and intensity of the markings grew. What at first had been light scratches had become entire portions of the massive trees, stripped away and gouged out, barely any bark remaining within the first twenty meters of wood. In some places, the marks almost seemed to follow a pattern, a path that spiraled its way up the trunk. How many hours must she have spent on this?

“Felines often do these things to keep their nails sharp,” Tomas muttered under his breath. There was an edge of fascination in his voice.

“Kitty likes having big things to scratch, huh.” Kat chuckled.

Rick nodded a little, turning his attention away from the gouged out trees and noticing the terrain was slightly different from an hour ago. What had once been mostly flat was increasing in its incline. The trees were also becoming smaller and younger, their presence appearing to wane and recede if at a pace one would have missed had they not been paying attention. Was there a hill or a mountain up ahead? It was very hard to be sure from where they were standing down on the ground. And with the increasing incline, it was starting to get harder to keep the pace.

“Mrow!” Monica called out from a branch, looking down at them as she cleaned up her claws, licking her paw and shooting them some annoyed look of impatience.

“Do you figure she’ll eat us?” Kat said with a hushed whisper, her tone only held the barest hint of seriousness.

“I still don’t know anywhere else we might sleep for the night. At least not anywhere safer.”

“Nor more dangerous,” Mr. Gabriel replied. His face was an unreadable mask.

Rick couldn’t answer that, there was little sense to trying, anyway. He leaned forward and pushed himself to continue in the direction the feline was signaling them to follow. The teacher wondered how much longer they’d have to follow the feline woman, they’d already had to stop to let Mr. Gabriel catch his breath twice. Was it really her lair? He hoped so- to a point at least, his mind moved towards what they might have to do afterwards. For now, some place to rest was the best thing they could find.

In his upward hike of the aggravating terrain, Rick spotted several felled trees. A rather surprising sight, to be sure. Their trunks were perhaps twice his height and looked half rotten. They lay one beside the other. Their bark had been long since stripped away, and every inch of it was scoured with claw marks. Something about that made him frown, but whatever he was thinking was pushed to the side when he heard a new voice.

A shriek. Female, meek, a cry for help.

Rick froze, turning back towards his companions. Nothing, it certainly hadn’t been Kat. She looked more startled than scared. Ahead? He frowned, moving faster, breaking through some thicket, and stopping as soon as he spotted the entrance of a cave. The sound had come from within. The young teacher could only frown and keep his distance as the others approached him, all four unable to look away from the cave as the shrieking became louder before becoming quiet entirely.

Monica stepped out of the large hole, showing a wide catty smile as she purred, sitting down right next to the entrance. From within, they could hear a soft sobbing that was came in slow wheezes. With Monica having planted her butt next to the cave, the group had paused, sharing concerned looks with one another.

Slowly they approached, paying close attention to Monica’s reaction. The feline ignored the group and stretched, licking at her paws with determination. She looked at the four humans, smugness seeping through those emerald-blue eyes. “Meow.” She proclaimed, returning to her self-grooming.

“I think… she’s inviting us in,” Rick said, the first of the group to step forward, approaching with measured steps.

Monica didn’t twitch or react to his movements, only glancing at him smugly as he peered within the gloom of the cavern as best he could without stepping inside. The hole wasn’t too deep- only ten or so meters and low enough he’d have to crouch to go inside. But the incline was soft enough to make it easy to move in and out. But that was of little concern. Something else had his attention. In the darkness of dirt and rock, Rick spotted the shadows of a figure curled up and sobbing. “I think there’s someone else here.”

That pushed the others to move closer. Tomas hurried to the front, pulling out his phone and flashing a light. Within the cave, the person shrieked in a low whimper and balled up as tightly as she could. It was with this new source of illumination that Rick could see the figure in better detail.

It was a waifish woman, strange and different in much the same ways as all the other monsters he’d seen so far.

She was small, mousy in more ways than just her apparent meter thirty stature. Pale and trembling, a set of round ears adorned the top of her head, scarred, chipped, and torn. With her back presented to the group, it was easy to see the long whip-like pink tail that protruded out of her spine, at least a meter long, and curled up against her. Her body was covered in dirt, bruises, and half-closed lacerations. A few of them were relatively fresh, the wounds clearly no more than a day or two old. Others were scarred, but looking a strange deep purple color, as if someone had dyed it with ink. Rick had little doubt the front was no different. By the looks of it, she’d been either tortured or beat up again and again.

This new woman sobbed, trembling like a leaf. Squeaks and whimpers escaped her with every shudder.

“This is wrong.” Mr. Gabriel spoke with a deep scowl, his hands closed into white-knuckled fists.

“Rick, this…” Kat spoke with a horrified whisper, covering her mouth and looking at the curled up mouse woman that dared not move from her spot.

The young chemistry teacher gulped, turning to look at the feline that was currently licking her razor-sharp claws. Her tongue lapped between her digits, removing the blood from her fur, and her eyes fixed upon him with a firm determination. The smile on her lips widened, showing her sharp fangs and amused blue-green gaze.

A sinking suspicion emerged. The weapons she wielded… “Did… Monica do this?” Tomas spoke the words, sending a wave of cold dread over everyone.

“I think we might have fucked up.”