“Do we ever win, Mom?”
Raniw smiled at the young ginger cat, barely out of kittenhood, who asked the question.
“No, Runi, we will never win. Death finds our hooman in different ways. It’s just that the people we seek to protect could be used by the Muraw for their own deadly ends.”
“What’s the point of us fighting then?”
“We fight because of hope,” Raniw explained. “Maybe one day, our hooman’s condition will be better. Maybe the situation will change, and they can have the quality of their life improve even for a few days before they die.”
Raniw liked the eagerness in Runi’s eyes. Yet, she knew that there’s a lot more hidden beneath the surface of this adolescent cat whom she is training as Mawr: guardian cats who protect hoomans on the verge of dying. For the past month or so, Runi has been assigned to Hector, a 45-year-old hooman suffering from heart disease.
The aggressive Muraw challenging Runi is Gadyos, a horrible creature who has begun to grow frustrated. Runi should have been an easy conquest for him: after all, Runi is barely a kitten and Hector is Runi’s first assignment. Yet, what Runi lacks in experience, he more than makes up for in courage and ability. “A Mawr never fails to tell the truth.” Raniw told the young cat. “Tell Gadyos what you can do to beat him.”
Gadyos is not the only challenge the cats are facing. Hector is being badly treated by his teenage son Lowell and his wife Raina. “You should still be able to work. Your sickness dragged us into being poor,” is what Hector usually hears, expressed in various ways. For Raniw, Hector’s 12-year-old daughter Elaine is the only other hooman in the house who makes their lives as cats bearable.
Yet, Runi is now sworn to the ways of the Mawr. The battle between him and Gadyos happens when Hector and the other hoomans are asleep. “Look at you and your pathetic spells, Gadyos. You can’t even get past a kitten like me.”
“I’ll get you and Hector soon, kitten. It’s only a matter of time,” screams a visibly frustrated Gadyos, who then retreats for the night to fight another day.
Yet, the fights against Gadyos hurt. Raniw makes sure Runi is always nursed back to health for the next battle.
One night, Gadyos gets through Runi’s defenses. Runi feesl a certain fear, a certain instability in Gadyos’s words and actions that night. The powerful spell that Gadyos uses is something that Runi has not seen or studied before. “Where is your empty boasting now, kitten?” Runi hears Gadyos scream before the cat loses consciousness.
Runi feels Raniw’s tongue on his cheeks bringing his consciousness back. The crying over Hector’s body, especially by Elaine, tells Runi that he has failed in his first assignment.
Raniw tells Runi to banish that thought. “Like I told you before, we don’t always win. We don’t count losses like that. The Mawr Council looked into the spell used against you. It looked like an experimental and unauthorized spell.”
Runi weakly spoke. “Looks like Gadyos’s failures to defeat me has made him to resort to desperate measures. You’re right, Mom, this could never be counted as a loss.”
“We may have other problems, though. With Hector gone, we will get driven out of the house. Probably after his burial.”
The cats , however, will find out that the hoomans have chosen to cremate Hector. The hoomans come back to the house after a few days, and put Hector’s urn on top of a console table.
The next day, Elaine brings the cats out in a vacant lot outside. “I’m sorry, cats, but we can no longer feed you,” the teary-eyed girl said. Runi tries to console the hooman, but she pushes him away. Elaine comes back to the vacant lot, though, to feed the cats.
After a few more weeks, Raniw tells Runi that they have to move to a new neighborhood.
“Can I visit Elaine one last time, Mom?” Runi pleads.
Raniw agrees. She knows that Runi’s compassion towards hoomans is what will make him an unbeatable Mawr in the future. Runi decides to visit at night, when he can easily get into the house unnoticed.
The house is a complete mess when he gets in. He sees both Lowell and Raina slumped in a corner, appearing to be drunk with substances that even Runi knows are bad for hoomans. He peeks inside a separate room and sees a badly beaten-up Elaine silently crying. How anyone could harm the sweet, kind Elaine is beyond Runi’s compehension.
“Eat it.”
Runi starts hearing a sinister voice, which gets louder as it enters the living room. Along with the other scattered things, Runi sees Hector’s broken urn, its ashes scattered on the floor.
The voice seems to be coming from the urn, or the ashes. He knows the ashes taste bad, but for Runi, it carries an irresistible aroma that beckons him to taste it. He starts licking the ashes.
It does not taste as bad as he imagined it. He continues eating. He does not even notice his consciousness slipping away, to be replaced by something that is capable of controlling someone much stronger and more agile.
When asked the next day, the next-door neighbors said that they had to stop a hysterical Elaine trying to flee from their house. It was almost midnight, and loud cries of people apparently being maimed, their flesh being ripped, and their bones being broken were heard from inside the house.
The next morning, the bloody, badly-maimed corpses of both Lowell and Raina are found. They are killed by what appears to be a huge-toothed, sharp-clawed monster, much like a big cat such as a lion or tiger. The neighbors think an aswang monster has started haunting the neighborhood, so they buy a lot of garlic from the marketplace to drive the aswang away.
Earlier, near dawn, Runi regains consciousness in the vacant lot. Raniw is licking the blood away from Runi’s ginger fur.
“What happened, Mom?”
“Looks like the Mawr Council will have a lot of explaining to do. Apparently, Gadyos turned you into something else.”
Runi is not able to recall what happened inside Elaine’s house. Raniw said Gadyos’s spell may have caused an unexpected effect on Runi, and has turned him into a vengeful being.
“Is it a bad thing, Mom?”
“We don’t know yet. For now, we’ll visit your new hooman and find out if they’ll take you into their household.”
There seems to be no problem getting accepted by Alex, a person suffering from chronic kidney disease. His family is kind to Runi, too.
Genoy is the Muraw who has been assigned to take Alex’s soul. He sees the Mawr he’ll be up against and laughed. “Greetings, kitten, and welc…” Genoy suddenly runs away, scared when Runi grins at him.
