Plague Doctor

Under the ashen sky, the scorched wasteland stretched without end. A fat mutli-colored cat padded down the ground. Sometimes she stopped to scratch behind her ears or use her tail to fan herself. “Meow? Meow?” The cat mewled several times, actually she was saying, ‘Dirty-minded Jun? Dirty-minded Jun?’

Wu Siyu had wandered for hours already but it felt like she had been going around in circles since nothing around her had changed. To confirm she tried pacing at the same spot for half an hour, from that she confirmed that the feeling was different. It was like eating through synesthesia and actually eating. The difference was small but present. ‘Am I inside the painting?’ She did not think so because this did not look like the world that she had painted at all. Therefore, the watercolor was most likely a channel between two worlds.

There was nothing of interest for her to investigate so that was quite convenient. If only the wind here was a constant 27 to 28 degrees.

Also she noticed that her cat body probably possessed some kind of mysterious power or else she’d be cooked by radiation by now. Her claws should be smoking but she was fine. She wondered what was happening to her real self back on Earth? If she was unattached, Wu Siyu probably would not have even thought about that but now she had to worry on behalf of two persons. The poor baby, they had lost their father and now they were going to lose their mother too.

‘I need to find a way back,’ She declared, ‘But it would be great if I can locate Dirty-minded Jun first.’ Wu Siyu continued to move forward. Suddenly, something appeared down the horizon. Her cat eyes widened. It looked like a flag. Based on Dirty-minded Jun’s horror movie logic, the right choice when in this kind of situation was to ignore it and turn around. To survive, Wu Siyu believed Dirty-minded Jun’s mental framework would make more sense than hers did. Furthermore, if she placed herself in Dirty-minded Jun’s shoes, then she would not need to do any thinking of her own. That was just perfect.

However, something stopped her from turning around. She saw a human shape down the distance. Even though she tasted no saltiness, she worried that it was Dirty-minded Jun. Therefore, Wu Siyu slowly approached the flag. When she got closer, she got a good look. It was an iron pole stuck into the ground. Some tattered clothes and a large cage were hung on the pole. The person was trapped inside the cage. He was definitely dead. The kneeling body was desiccated and fully decomposed. His back, limbs had disintegrated to bones.

“Something’s not right.” Wu Siyu stopped moving and backtracked for a few steps. Her tail raised in alarm. If this was the place where Ximei saw in her illusion, then a giant atomic explosion just occurred here. There should not be an iron pole still standing upright. Furthermore, the body would have been vaporized and not only decomposed.

‘This has to be a trap.’ Wu Siyu affirmed, ‘but what is the goal of the trapper?’ She thought about it and her mind came up with a cartoon of her cat self leaping through the air screaming ‘Dirty-minded Jun, is that you?!’ The iron cage opened up to swallow her and she was unable to leave.

Then the cartoon redrew itself to show the cat Wu Siyu sidling up to the iron pole. When she got close enough, another cage burst out from the ground and she was made the second captive. In any case, this would not end well.

‘Dirty-minded Jun’s perspective is as useful as ever.’ Wu Siyu nodded and turned around. She dashed away. Who was inside the cage? How did he die? How did the dead body survive the atomic explosion? Who was he waiting for? Was it really a trap? So many questions, but Wu Siyu did not intend to answer any of them. After all, she was just a cat.

Wu Siyu kept moving for a long time. She only stopped when she believed she was faraway enough to not see the iron pole anymore. She turned around and proved that she was right. ‘By the way, how come I don’t feel any hunger at all? Is it due to the heavy store of body fat?’

She had covered so much distance that her actual self would be collapsing on the ground by now. Her real self wouldn’t be able to move without some rest and food.

But now, her cat self not only did not feel tired or hungry, she was incredibly energized. If she faced 10 Zoogs or a panda now, she had confidence she would not lose. And that was the problem. ‘What exactly am I now?’ Wu Siyu only knew that a normal cat would not have accomplished this so the reason would be the mysterious power that constituted the cat.

Should she have tried to investigate the source of the power and see if there were other ways to utilize it? Perhaps this was the method necessary to go home? But the problem was, what if the source was evil? Would she be corrupted from the exploration of it? Furthermore, would she be able to tell the difference? A crazy person would not know they were slowly going insane…

‘Ah! So this is what it feels like to be Dirty-minded Jun!’ She suddenly felt heartache for him. Wu Siyu patted her head with her paw. If this was how she had to live her life, she too would have a cerebral hemorrhage soon. ‘I’m definitely more suitable to be the support character.’ She thought, ‘So… should I investigate or not? Maybe I should because I have not done that since I appeared in the body of this cat. The connection between my consciousness and this body is not at its optimum form. But once the connection is made, will I be stuck in this feline form forever?’

“Jesus, it’s happening again. Dirty-minded Jun, shoo shoo.” Wu Siyu patted her head again. She almost lost her mind just from a taste of Dirty-minded Jun’s suspected PTSD symptom, paranoia. In this situation, Wu Siyu decided to abandon Dirty-minded Jun’s perspective and be the best Wu Siyu she could be: O well, I’ll just wander about for a while first, I’m sure something will happen soon enough~

This world had a day and night cycle. As time passed, the sky darkened. Wu Siyu sauntered about when she spotted a strange discovery. There appeared to be a border that split the sky into two. One side was dusk but the other side was dawn. Furthermore, she saw a drone. It buzzed on the other side of the sky, it was a Phecda drone.

‘Huh?’ She studied the clearly delineated skies and then she noticed the grounds on both sides were different as well. Even though they were both scorched wasteland, one side was lighter than the other and the lighter side was mixed with some brown soil. She saw a few tree stumps, they looked freshly cut. She recognized them as the tree stumps from the quarantine circle.

“So that side is…” It soon dawned on Wu Siyu, “from the mutated area. It’s part of Earth.”

‘Then what is this side?’ She looked underneath herself and then turned to look behind her, before turning back to study the mutated area before her… The mutated area was the point of intersection for these two worlds.

At that moment, Wu Siyu saw the drone fly towards her. But the moment it crossed the border, it disappeared. She believed it had continued its journey back on Earth. It did not disappear but returned to the sky beyond the mutated area instead of crossing into the space where she currently inhabited.

‘Will I be able to enter this mutated area?’ She pondered, ‘Can I use this mutated area as an intermediary pitstop to return back to Earth?’