Haunted pussy.

By Derelict,

For nearly eight years, a stray calico cat lived in the apartment colony.

Everyone called her Kitty.

She slept beneath parked scooters, greeted children after school, rubbed against the legs of elderly residents during their evening walks, and patiently waited outside kitchens for scraps. Every family knew her. Every child loved her.

She belonged to everyone.

Then one spring, Kitty became pregnant.

The colony buzzed with excitement. Children argued over who would adopt the kittens. Residents left bowls of milk near the security gate. Some even built a small cardboard shelter for her.

But one day...

She vanished.

People searched for weeks.

Nothing.

No fur.

No paw prints.

No body.

Eventually, life moved on.

Months later, the colony celebrated the inauguration of its newly completed residential block. Music echoed through the courtyard. Lights decorated every balcony. Residents cooked enormous quantities of food, sharing dishes with neighbors late into the night.

It was the happiest evening the colony had ever seen.

The next morning...

An old woman claimed she had seen Kitty sitting near the staircase.

Everyone laughed "Impossible."

"She's been gone for months."

By evening, the old woman developed a violent fever.

Two days later...

She disappeared.

Then a teenager saw Kitty near the parking lot.

He disappeared.

A security guard spotted her watching him from beneath a car.

Gone by sunrise.

Soon everyone realized the pattern.

If you saw Kitty... you vanished within days.

The colony emptied apartment by apartment.

The only clue came from a seven-year-old girl named Anya.

One afternoon she noticed an unbearable stench drifting through the new building.

Not the smell of garbage.

Something rotting

Holding her nose, she climbed the dark staircase toward the unfinished top floor.

The smell grew heavier until breathing became difficult.

At the end of a corridor, a steel maintenance door stood slightly open.

Poured through the gap like black smoke.

She pushed it wider.

Inside...The missing residents lay piled together.

Some were fused together by dried blood.

Others had been stacked as though someone had carefully arranged them.

Their abdomens had been ripped completely open.

Loops of intestine spilled across the concrete floor, tangled together like coils of pale rope. Ribs jutted through shredded flesh, slick with dark, clotted blood. Empty rib cages gaped wide as if something had reached inside and torn everything out by hand.

Faces were frozen in silent screams.

Several bodies had no eyes.

Others had jaws hanging loose, the skin stretched and split from ear to ear.

The floor wasn't visible anymore.

It was buried beneath a carpet of congealed blood, crawling maggots, and buzzing flies.

Anya's scream echoed through the building.

She turned and sprinted down the stairwell, sobbing so hard she nearly fell.

Then...she heard it.

Tap...

Scratch...

Drag...

She stopped.

At the landing below...

Kitty waited.

Or what remained of her.

Half of her face had rotted away, exposing yellow teeth locked permanently into a grotesque grin. One eye dangled uselessly from its socket while the other stared without blinking.

Everything behind her ribs was gone.

Her hind legs had been torn completely away, leaving only ragged flesh and exposed bone where they should have been.

She dragged herself forward using only her forelegs.

Each pull left a thick smear of dark blood across the concrete steps.

Her throat was split open from jaw to chest.

Every movement forced black blood to bubble from the wound, spilling down the stairs in slow streams.

Yet somehow...she purred.

A deep, wet purr.

Anya backed away.

Kitty crawled faster.

Scratch.

Drag.