My name is Mercy. I'm eighteen years old, and two years ago, my mother and I moved to another town for reasons I still don't fully understand.
It isn't that I was never told. It isn't that the answer doesn't exist. It's simply… inaccessible. Like a door I remember opening once, but can no longer bring myself to touch again.
Or perhaps it's the other way around. Perhaps the door is still open, and I'm the one refusing to look inside.
I did ask her about it once. Just once, because once was enough.
She didn't hesitate when she answered, and somehow that made it worse. No pause, no consideration, just a single sentence, clean and sharp, as if it had been waiting for me long before I ever thought to ask.
"Curiosity killed the cat."
Nothing more followed. No explanation came after. And I understood, in a way that didn't feel like understanding at all, that there wouldn't be anything else.
So I stopped asking not because I lost interest, but because something in me decided that wanting to know and being allowed to know were not the same thing.
Now I sit alone on a park bench, watching people pass by, though "watching" might not be the right word. My eyes follow movement, but my thoughts don't.
They drift elsewhere, circling something I refuse to approach directly. Not quite avoiding it. Not quite confronting it. Just… moving around it, over and over again, like tracing the outline of something I'm not meant to see clearly.
Today is April 28th. My mother's birthday. She's turning sixty. And yet, every year, without fail, she forgets it, as if the day doesn't belong to her at all, or never did.
"What should I give her?" I murmur, though the question feels less like something I want answered and more like something I need to fill the silence with.
I try to think of something meaningful. Something appropriate. Something that feels like it matters. But each idea dissolves before it can fully take shape, slipping away the moment I reach for it, as if my thoughts themselves are unwilling to settle on anything real.
Then something moves. Not in front of me, not exactly-just at the edge of my vision, where things are easier to ignore. But I notice it anyway. A cat.
It sits a short distance away, completely still, watching me in a way that doesn't feel natural. I recognize it. Or at least, I think I do. It belongs to one of our neighbors. I've seen it before, passing by, existing quietly at the edges of things.
A small smile forms on my lips, though I'm not entirely sure why. It's calm, too calm to be precise. Not the kind of calm that comes from comfort, but the kind that feels… deliberate. As if it's not simply there, but waiting.
Waiting for what?
For me?
The thought comes easily. Yeah, too easily. Maybe Mom would like this. It settles into my mind without resistance, without doubt, without the hesitation that every other thought seemed to carry just moments ago. That alone should have been enough to question it. But I don't. Or maybe I choose not to.
The cat doesn't move. It doesn't react. It just watches. And then something shifts. It starts small, so small I almost mistake it for nothing at all.
A faint pressure, somewhere beneath thought, beneath awareness. Like something pressing upward from inside me rather than coming from the outside. It doesn't feel like a new idea. It feels like something opening. Like a kernel splitting apart.
Before I can examine it, before I can even decide whether I want to, I'm already standing. Already moving. My body follows something my mind hasn't fully acknowledged yet, closing the distance between us until I'm standing right in front of it.
I bend down and pick it up. It doesn't resist. That should have meant something. It should have been enough to stop me, or at least slow me down. But it isn't. I don't let it be.
In my hands, it feels lighter than I expected. Fragile, almost. But its eyes- Its eyes are wrong. Golden, yes. Bright, yes.
Reflecting the sunlight in a way that should have made them look warm, alive, ordinary. But they aren't.
They don't reflect anything. Not really. They hold. They fix. They see. For a moment, I think it's beautiful. And then the thought twists before it can settle.
Not beautiful. Not really. Something else. Something I can't quite name, or maybe something I don't want to.
Its dark fur seems to absorb the light instead of catching it, swallowing it whole until the shape in my hands feels less like an animal and more like an absence pretending to be one.
"Hey… do you know why we moved?" I ask.
The question leaves me too easily. The same way the other thought did. The same way everything seems to, when I stop paying attention to where it comes from. The cat doesn't respond. Of course it doesn't.
It just stares at me-silent, unmoving, its gaze locked onto mine with a steadiness that feels almost intentional.
As if it's waiting.
No-not waiting.
Judging.
No-that's not right either.
Asking.
That's closer.
As if it's the one asking the question, and I'm the one who doesn't have an answer. Why did I ask a cat? I don't know. It won't respond. It can't. And yet… I ask.
My fingers tighten slightly around its neck. Slowly. Not enough to hurt. Not yet. Just enough to feel the shape of it beneath my hand. Just enough to know that I could.
It doesn't struggle. It doesn't bite. It doesn't even try to move. It just watches.
"Yeah…" I whisper, though I'm not sure who I'm agreeing with. "She was right."
Curiosity killed the cat.