Unravel(5)

Matthias looked towards the window and saw that it was going to be sometime before night settled, so he decided to take a quick nap before dinner. When he was awake again, it was already dark outside.

He slowly tried getting up from his bed, but he quickly realised his leg was still hurting. He was also getting tired of just sleeping in his bed, so his injury was a huge pain in the ass for Matthias.

Knowing there's nothing that he could do, he plopped down on his bed again and looked towards his window. His bedroom's window was opened, and to his surprise, a cat was there lazily sitting on his windowsill, licking its paws.

A midnight-black cat, sleek as polished obsidian, perched regally on the windowsill. Its fur, the color of a starless night, shimmered with an inner luminescence, catching the light like captured starlight. Around its neck, a broad collar of lapis lazuli and gold, intricately carved with hieroglyphs that whispered of ancient power and forgotten gods, encircled its throat like a celestial halo. Emerald eyes, pools of molten jade, gazed at Matthias with an air of timeless wisdom, a silent guardian of secrets older than the world itself.

"What are you looking at?" The cat suddenly spoke.

"Argh!"

"Don't shout, boy, you're going to wake your family," the cat spoke again.

Matthias sat straight up in his bed and looked around frantically. He even slapped himself a few times just to make sure he was not seeing things.

"W-what are you? How can you speak?" He asked, then suddenly he remembered his conversation with his parents. "Are you a Nolte?"

"Was it that obvious?" The cat snorted.

Even in his puzzlement, he was quite sure the cat was mocking him right now.

This little shit!

The cat jumped from the windowsill and to his bed, then it sat right in front of Matthias, staring at him.

"I was not very sure if I wanted to develop a link with you when you first called for me, you are quite weak and I don't associate myself with the weak," the cat said. "But something got me interested."

"Called for you? Me? When?" Matthias asked, quite puzzled.

Encountering a talking cat was a very surreal experience in itself, then the cat started spouting some obnoxious things. Matthias felt like he was in a fever dream.

"Yesterday in the forest when you almost got gobbled up by the Sed."

Matthias knew what it was talking about, however he did not recall ever calling for a talking cat during that moment. And was the cat rolling its eyes?

"I'm very glad that you decided to make a visit, but I never called for you nor did I ever know of your existence. You must have misunderstood."

The cat shook its head as if disappointed.

"Are you slow?"

The cat was really starting to test Matthias' patience. But he decided to be the bigger person here, since he was a big boy now, almost reaching adulthood and all that.

"No I don't think I am. I just don't recall ever calling for you," Matthias politely answered.

"Out of nowhere you called for me and against my better judgement I decided to save you from that Sed. But here you are lying to me that you don't know me and of my existence."

What the cat said made Matthias confused. What he knew was that it was his mother that had saved him from the Sed the other day, so what the cat said did not make any sense to him.

"It was my mother who saved me from the Sed."

"That was me. I used my aura on that Sed to make him scared, a bit before your mother arrived there."

"What? That was you? But how did I call you? Tell me, I really don't remember."

The cat stared at him, then it looked towards the window.

"Call me."

"What?!"

"Call me so that we can have a link. You need to first call for me for that to happen. You may not remember, but you already called me before. So think very hard and call me again," the cat said leisurely.

Matthias went through his memories of the forest; when he slipped on the lichen covered root and when he heard growling sounds coming from his back. He then remembered him not being able to speak because he was losing consciousness and wanting to call for help.

Oh.

Matthias knew what the cat was talking about.

"The being who's willing to help those in need."

Upon saying those words, Matthias whole body started glowing. He looked at the cat in front of him, who was staring right back. Its whole body was also glowing in tiny dots of many colours.

"The name is Emis."

When the glow starts disappearing, Matthias was assaulted with a bad case of dizziness that he could barely open his eyes. Somehow, though, he could still hear Emis talking beside him.

"Still so weak."

Matthias wanted to tell the cat to piss off but he could not speak since his whole body was getting numb.

Just before he was out cold, he could hear the cat clicking its tongue. And was the cat also sighing? Matthias would never be able to make sure since he did not remember a single thing after that.