Sophia's Vengeance: Prologue

Sophia's Vengeance: Prologue

**The prologue** is an episode in *Sophia's Vengeance*.

Once, the world was good. There were monsters, but most cats were able to survive. Only a few fell prey to the fangs of a creature dripping with poison, and it was rare to hear of a cat being taken off by a giant eagle.

Even with all this, the world stayed in balance.

However, a godlike being began to walk among the cats, giving them the offer to be gods. And every time one accepted his offer, the world began to crumble. You see, it destroyed the balance, and by the time the god was done, the balance was so crushed that few creatures remained.

Humans were completely wiped out. Wolves were a rare sight. Most species of lizard were at the brink of extinction. Almost all of the monsters were dead and gone.

Cats, on the other hand, lived on to see the chaos.

Volcanoes erupted, earthquakes split the dry and scorched earth, and freezing blizzards gripped the areas not caked in lava.

When the dust settled, the world was so broken it was hard to live. A few forests remained, but they were rare, and deserts of hard rock stretched across the planet.

Cats began to divide — some seeking to use the ruins of human civilization as their home, forming massive colonies, while others wished to continue living private, secluded lives in smaller groups. These two ideologies often clashed, resulting in a war-torn land, and some cats who wished not to pick a side became stuck in the middle.

All this time, the cats had no idea something was brewing in a world they couldn’t even comprehend.

———

Everything was dark. The ground, the sky, everything. Or was nothing dark? It was hard to tell. Were endless black and nothing the same thing? Anyway, it didn’t really matter. The only thing that mattered was the creature that lived here.

The creature was strange. It had massive wings covered with feathers. It was pale, nearly pure white with yellow, glowing eyes. Curiously, it stared into the black.

An image formed. A similar creature whose form flickered from blood-red and settled on gold with white wing-tips.

Most creatures would find him imposing, but the other barked a laugh. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen.”

If there had been anyone here to witness this, they would have realized for the first time that this creature was female.

She glanced back at the image, her catlike tail sweeping the ground as she stared into something only she could see. Letting out a yowl of rage, she opened up her wings and the feathers disappeared, scales forming in their place. Full of rage, she slashed out a claw into the expanse of nothing, finding exactly what you would expect. Nothing. “Oh, you stupid, stupid cat!” She spat the word *cat* like it was poison in her mouth. “You’ve doomed me! You had a chance to save us, and now you’ve blown it!”

Another image seemed to appear before her gaze. A gray-and-white tom. A black she-cat with white spots. A white-and-brown tabby standing right next to her. A mottled gray cat comforting two other cats who looked like her kits.

Everyone seemed so happy. Thanks to her stupid brother, who couldn’t even get a decent job done! *Well, if no one else can do it right, you might as well do it yourself.* Obviously, her brother had gone about this all wrong. And he was going to pay for every cursed day she had spent stuck up here. He was going to pay for the mistakes he had made. For the first time, the creature stepped from her world to another. A world that was broken. A world with only a few creatures remaining. Including the ones her brother had exploited. Cats. *Oh, brother. You have no idea what’s coming.*

———

A massive, golden-winged tom sat alone in the only space he would call his home. A wide, empty space that faded from deepest black to purest white. One of the Old Gods, a creature invisible to the eyes of others, had summoned him here. No surprise there. He seemed to be the god’s favorite Lower God slave. It was almost as if he was being punished for something.

“Harnor. You got here swiftly.”

More of a statement than a compliment, but Harnor took it as one. It wasn’t often the old gods handed out compliments to lower gods. “Yes, Great One. I came with haste after hearing you call. I’ve only recently checked up on the Misplaced Cats, and they’re getting on well.” It had been moons since he had encountered a massive group of cats just standing in the god’s area, stuck in between the world of living and dead. That was also the same day he forgot everything. How curious those two things happened at once.

“It’s about your sister, Sophia,” the old god said.

This was news to Harnor. “I have a sister?!”

“Memory loss. I forgot. Your first act as a new god was to revive your sister and make her a god alongside you. With . . . more minor powers. She could only clone herself once and give powers to other cats, like all gods can. But you see, there was something you didn’t take into account when giving her the power to clone herself,” the Old God said.

It clicked with Harnor instantly. How stupid must he have once been! Cloning created a whole new creature with your conscience and form, and if Sophia could give other creatures powers, she could give her clone more power, and when it merged with her again, she would still have that power. Ingenious, but dangerous. She could have never-ending strength.

Noticing Harnor’s understanding, the Old God continued. “You see, when she began to gain power, we tried to restrain her. But nothing would work. So we locked her away in the Dark Plane. You were enraged, so you took cats from the broken world and put them through Tests, so that the strongest could become gods and help you break your sister free. It all went wrong, and that’s where the Misplaced Cats came from. That’s why they don’t trust you. You put them through cruel and dangerous trials before you became the God of Judgement instead of Death.”

Shocked by this, Harnor sunk to the ground. The nervous glances and the growls and sneers from the Misplaced Cats weren’t just because they were horrible cats; he had hurt them.

“Back to the present issue. Sophia has broken free. And we think that she might be planning to do the same thing as you to get revenge for your failure,” the Old God said.

Harnor lifted his head, not sure what he was looking at. The Old God was invisible, after all. “She wants to kill me.”

“Yes.” And with that, the Old God vanished.

———

Sophia glanced down at the war-torn, broken world. This couldn’t be too hard. Landing in front of a cat, she looked down at them kindly. “I’m so sorry this has happened. But I know who is to blame. And I’ll get you revenge, but I need your help.”

It had begun. The Tests were about to repeat themselves.