Monster (Cartoon Cat x Reader)

Memory

"Jamie?"

"Yeah?"

"How come you can sleep in the dark and not get scared?"

The seven-year old blonde, her hair much longer than it would be in nine more years, smirked at her cousin. The two girls, even at their young age, looked so alike that everyone who saw them together mistook them for twins. They were even the same age, albeit a full four months apart. "Because my mom said that monsters only show up in kids' rooms if they believe in them. And I don't believe in monsters!"

Maria had praised her then, admiring her older cousin's supposed bravery with the full and unending wonder that only a child is capable of. But Jamie had been lying, at least in part, to her younger half. While her mother, Maria's father's sister, had actually said that to her, it wasn't the disbelief that fueled her courage. In fact, she believed very much in monsters. But not the kind that hid under beds or lurked in partially-opened closets. No, she believed in the tall creature that lurked in the empty woods where her family went camping every year. The thing with the siren for a head that spoke in her mother's voice.

Jamie had been having dreams about a mysterious, long-necked horse for a while. The dreams didn't necessarily scare her as much as they had unsettled her. Her kid brain didn't understand the ominous sense of something about to go terribly wrong. So when their little party of three decided to take an impromptu camping trip to Oregon, she'd naively agreed. On the way to the campsite, Jamie paused, noticing as only a child does the distinct lack of animal life. No birds, no squirrels. Not even bugs, save for the occasional blow fly. Her parents pressed on, unaware that their only daughter had stopped moving and was now standing alone in the middle of the trail. (Back then, whenever she thought about that, it had struck her as strange that they would leave her without checking she was with them. Later on in life, she would wonder if her total separation from her family had been premeditated.)

Jamie, in turn, had not noticed her parents leaving her behind until they were already far up the trail. She had begun calling for them then, running as fast as her small child legs could carry her up the trail in the direction they'd been going. The woods echoed her cries, but she never received a response. She reached a trail split, with a sign directing hikers where to go. The writing was illegible, worn away by time and weather. This was it. The young girl was lost.

She had just resigned herself to wait, calling over and over for her family until someone came to find her, when a burst of static cried out from down one of the paths. The static was followed by a voice - feminine, warm and worried - that Jamie knew all to well. "Hello?! Jamie, can you hear me?" Her mother's voice was fuzzed by static and distorted somehow, like talking through a phone to someone in the same room as you. "If you can, follow my voice! We're at the old watch tower, using the broadcasting system!"

Jamie followed the voice as it spoke random things, hummed random tunes, and called out for her. She followed it down one of the trails, all the way to the watch tower in question. She saw the tall siren (she'd thought it looked weirdly like a person on first glance) standing beside it and grinned in bright, honest relief. She'd done it! She had made it here!

"Mom?! Daddy?! I'm here, I'm here!"

The siren's base (legs mommy help they're legs) began to move. A hand she hadn't seen before stretched towards her, unnaturally large and bony, the color of rust. The sirens it used for a head shrieked words at her. "LOST PARTY OF TEN. LAST SEEN IN THE ARIZONA DESERT. SEARCH PARTIES STILL HOPEFUL." She turned and ran, flying back down the trail like her hair was on fire. The thing behind her shrieked again, sounding uncannily like a police siren. There was an overpowering smell of cinnamon as something impossibly long and bony propelled her body forwards.

The thing that looked like a siren did not pursue them. Jamie didn't think to consider why, even as they reached the split in the trail again and she was allowed to stop. The horse from her dreams, long neck and skeletal appearance and all, stayed encircled around her until her parents' voices, real and alive and scared, came close. Then it left, disappearing so fast it might not have even existed. They had left the Oregon woods that same day, never to go back.

Jamie had never forgotten the thing in the woods, whatever it had been, but she had also never forgotten the skeletal horse that had tried to warn and protect her either. It had disappeared after the incident, it's job apparently done. She had become fearless after that event, too. After all, even if it was just a hallucination or an overactive imagination as many adults had suggested, nothing could be worse than the siren-headed thing. She never expected to see her infinite horse friend again after that.

Until two nights ago, Jamie thought bitterly as the strange woman led them through the halls. The long-necked skeletal horse had appeared again in her dreams, trying to warn her. Hadn't she learned her lesson after the thing in the woods? That the horse meant something bad was coming?

But no... she'd been the same stupid kid she'd been nine years ago, feeding off of the enthusiasm of her loved ones. The tall thing with the siren for a head won't be there, she'd thought. And we'll be safe in a house, not the woods. And now she was here, lost in this maze of a second floor, being hunted by the black creature they'd left about ten minutes ago. Another monster to flee, one that she was sure would kill her.

But this time there is no dream-horse to save me... The tears had begun to flow again, and she felt the arm Jack had wrapped around her shoulders tighten. I ignored the warnings and now Maria... Jack... Gabe... Markus... they'll all die in here with me... all because I wanted to pretend the past didn't exist.

It's all my fault...

All my fault.