The mystifying scene of the little glowing cat, with three eyes, had the back of my neck shiver. Watching a living being shining in this dark and dreary forest wasn’t as comforting as it sounded. It left deep fear in my heart. The darkness of the forest seemed a bit more acute than before and it felt like my heart was being grasped by the ghastly hand of the forest. My breath was stuck in my throat for a while before escaping as if the dam had burst open in my lungs. In this eerie silence, only the voice of old man Blake was heard.

“An Apparition.”

Apparition. The old man had told us to be aware of them when we first got here. We never encountered them though. If I had seen something like this when I was hunting alone, I would most likely have apologised for all the sins I had committed in both of my lives. It was only because Old man Blake was with us that I had stood straight, without moving. I understood one thing about me today - In any given circumstance, I would do much better against humans as opposed to these freakish horrors of the world’s underbelly.

“What exactly is that?” Sirius asked while looking at the disappearing cat curiously.

“It was an apparition. They are found only in the eastern badlands. They are not often spotted easily.”

“Can we hunt it down?” Sirius asked again in his unnaturally curious tone.

“We cannot. They are spectral in nature which means that no one can touch them. Well, neither can they touch you. However, whenever you see them, always try to stay away. Many times, encounters with apparitions lead to hallucinations and illusions. Some say they saw the glimpses of their past, some say they saw the future that never happened. Well, what I would say they glimpsed was… delusion.”

Sirius and I looked at each other. Sirius was looking with his eyes filled with curiosity and excitement, and I was looking with apprehension. Being the adult between the two of us, I had to stop such dangerous behavior. Sirius smiled at me, however, mischievously. The glint in his eyes was giving me certain discomfort and I didn’t even want to imagine the scenarios that I would be part of again. Sirius already had the worst horrors and nightmarish beasts as his pets. The ones he called his friends, by the names of Boo, kurr and Grau. I couldn’t allow it to happen yet again.

Shelving these thoughts aside, we gradually resumed our journey, this time more attentive of the surroundings. We soon reached the boundary of the forest where the trees got darker in colour. No, it seemed like the colours were being snatched away slowly from everything in the environment. The air around us had gotten colder and my breathing seemed shallower than before. I kept on walking, refuting the signs of terror my heart was screaming about. It was frankly unexplainable. I had been in many wars, fought in situations that almost broke me mentally and I had even died. And yet, this situation was the one where I felt terror. With every step of mine, my instincts flared up in warning signs and my heart would beat more wildly than before.

I glanced at the old man and Sirius, and found no discomfort on their faces. My breathing had gotten faster overtime and now I was practically fighting to get some air into my lungs. My forehead was dripping with sweat when I heard Sirius call out to me.

“Mehr! What happened?!” I tripped as I fell forward, only to end up in the arms of Sirius. He slowly let me down and laid me on my back. My chest was huffing wildly as I struggled to breath. Water had started escaping my eyes and I clenched my fists tightly. The situation was extremely concerning and I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. The old man was infusing his mana into me to give me some comfort from pain. It helped somewhat, but the core issue still remained.

That’s when my eyes fell on the harrowing little cat again. It was standing on a branch of a tree not too far from us as it stood still and looked at me with all three of its eyes. I forced my trembling hand to point towards the cat. As soon as the old man and Sirius turned around, they stood on their spot, petrified as their eyes opened wide. Only a few moments had passed when Sirius flopped to the ground with a thud beside me. The sound around me had gone muffled now and only the dreadful silence remained. I turned my head to look at Sirius who was convulsing violently on the ground and I tried to move my hand to hold his shoulder. However, from the corner of my eye, I noticed old man Blake kneeling down on both of his knees and bringing his head to the ground. He lifted his head upwards slowly and proceeded to nod his head as if agreeing with whatever the silence around me said.

My eyes felt as heavy as my heart right now, and I couldn't stop them from closing. However, right before closing, the sight that my eyes saw petrified me to the core. I could see, not hundreds but thousands, of the harrowing little cats blinking at me from all sides. Some were standing on trees while some stayed on the ground, and some stood in mid air as if everything around us was a lie.

My eyes came to close and the darkness greeted me. My body didn’t listen to me as I tried to open my eyes or move my hands. It felt like the ground beneath me had given way and I was falling deeper into the darkness. It only took a while before my ears started buzzing and my head throbbed violently. Not long after I had started falling, my eyes welcomed the stream of light that pulled me towards it. My body had started to listen to me and I tried to move faster towards the light. The light washed over me as my surroundings illuminated with the splendor of a hundred moons and I gently opened my eyes.

I had intended to see Sirius and the old man when I opened my eyes but the scene that came to my sight almost made me throw up. There were hundreds of thousands of people standing, disciplined and ready to go to war. They all stood there with weapons in their hands and bloodlust in their eyes. One man was standing in front of this army, on the elevated platform, as he addressed the army. I physically convulsed looking at that man, with his arrogant expression and smug smile, as he roused the morale of the army with the words he would later come to regret. That man….. was the past me.

**************************

*A few moments ago*

Blake Elmare turned around gradually, after noticing that Mehr was pointing behind him. His eyes opened wide as the sight of thousands of little three-eyed cats met his eyes. He looked visibly confused and petrified. After all, this wasn’t something that had ever happened before. The apparitions never attacked anyone and so many apparitions that looked similar, turning up would have been a tale worthy to be spread throughout the mainland. Yet it wasn’t.

Blake stood stiff like a stone, thinking about what he could do to save the children in this scenario, until he heard a soft female voice around him. All the cats opened their mouths at once, and yet only one voice was heard that simply said, “Oh, is that little Seventh?”

‘Little Seventh’. Blake Elmare became terrified at the words that were spoken. He knew what those words meant. Very clearly so. And just by those words and the place they were currently in, Blake was quickly able to deduce the identity of the speaker. He kneeled down hurriedly, so as to not anger the being who was speaking to him.

“Please forgive me, Oh Goddess of Insight, The Second Star. It is my fault that I wasn’t aware that this place was your burial ground.” Blake spoke as his voice trembled, praying that at least the children would make it out of here safely.