I think the cat I found is giving me nightmares.

I am a single guy living in The Middle of Nowhere, Nebraska. Well, it isn’t actually called that, but it certainly feels like it is.

There aren’t many things that happen here, with so few people. We all know each other by first name basis, and there hasn’t been anything even remotely interesting happening here in over 20 years.

Well, until I found Miki.

Miki was an orange and black cat, fairly small but surprisingly well fed for a feral cat. There wasn’t a collar or anything, and there weren’t any cats I knew about in the town, so I decided to adopt the thing and named it Miki, due to her fur’s pattern creating the vague shape of a monster, with too many legs and too many eyes all over her body.

She was pleasant enough, and quite a lap cat. After about a week, I decided to let her sleep with me. That was when things started happening.

I normally cannot remember my dreams for more than a few minutes after I wake up, but about 3 weeks after Miki started sleeping with me, I remembered them much better. That would be cool and all, if said dreams weren’t becoming nightmares.

Every. Single. Night.

I remember each one clearly, usually going from regular dreamy madness to dead silence and cold wind in seconds. That was the only warning, before something began to torment me.

It was different every night, but it always ended the same way, unless I became lucid enough to wake myself up before it happened. I would always die to a piercing wound at the end of every night.

Whether it be through spear, sword, knife, or any other sharp object, it was a frighteningly consistent and slow death. And I felt all of the pain. I think I know what it feels like to be stabbed better than anyone else in the world at this point. I always woke up with cold sweats and a throbbing pain where I had been “killed”, but nothing more. It faded after an hour or two.

I could never extract any details, besides the fact that it had at least 4 eyes and 5 limbs. It was almost entirely black, with only the pupils of its eyes showing. I begun to suspect Miki being the culprit of these nightmares, but it was hard to believe a simple cat could cause such nightmares.

After about 2 years of dealing with this torment every night, I decided to force Miki out of my room. She did not like that at all, and tried to get in my room by all means it could, screaming and slashing at the door.

Her attempts were futile, however, and I finally went to sleep. No nightmares, at least that’s what I thought. Until I woke up.

I looked out the windows, and pure darkness gazed right back. Miki was still screeching and clawing, but even more desperately. I could hear her voice weakening due to her constant screams at this point. I looked at the clock, and it said 1:30 PM.

I knew the one person who might be behind the darkness, so I called out his name.

“Come on Seth, I know you did this. Can you please remove this darn filter?”

He didn’t respond. But someone else did.

“You thought that damned cat was the source of your nightmares, did you? You thought my many hundreds of attempts to kill you were just figments of your imagination, didn’t you?!?”

The voice came from the darkness, as pale eyes and a gaping maw appeared from the darkness to speak, and watch me.

“I tried so many times to get to you, but the cat you call “Miki” stopped me. She turned my assault from the physical realm to the dream realm. You certainly remember all of that pain you felt, yes?”

“Y-yes.” I answered, shivering. Miki kept clawing at the door, but her screams became louder, and her claw strikes at the door became louder and deeper. The darkness sneaked in to my room, and multiple tendrils of darkness formed into sharp spear points, aimed at me.

“You will feel all of that pain, at once. It will be excruciating, and you will die slowl-“

The darkness was cut off by the door exploding into wooden shrapne. Miki was now the size of a tiger, with the masses of black on her body shifting constantly, like a lightning bug trying to escape a jar. She leaped at the darkness, cutting through it, before diving into the darkness.

It screamed, as it shrunk down rapidly, disappearing from view, until nothing but Miki remained, back to her normal slightly overweight size outside my window. Her black pattern on her fur had gained a new “eye”, and a large area with sharp black teeth-like markings opened, revealing her orange fur below.

“T-thanks so much, M-miki.”

Miki simply jumped up, and rubbed against me, before meowing in her hungry voice, demanding food. Makes sense, considering I had been sleeping for about 17 hours and had not refilled her food in that time. Plus, she deserved it, after that.