Elisa trembled as she reached out to touch its injured body. Blood covered her hand, and she saw that Mimi’s limbs were tightly bound with rope, sinking into the flesh. Its body, tail, four paws, and head were all covered in blood.
“Mimi…” Elisa’s eyes were a terrifying crimson, dry and uncomfortable. It was a luxury even to cry at such an extreme.
Elisa didn’t know how she managed to untie the rope binding Mimi. All she could see were Mimi’s burned flesh and the tiny bloodied holes in its mouth.
The sharpest four teeth had been cruelly clamped off. How much pain must Mimi have been in?
“Mimi, I’ve come to get you. Look at me. Didn’t we agree to be together forever? I’ve already brought you back in this lifetime. Can you hold on a little longer? I’ll cancel my work… I’ll be by your side from now on. I won’t hand you over to anyone else…” Elisa shuddered and lifted Mimi, drenched in blood, into her arms.
As Mimi lay in Elisa’s arms, it strained to open its eyes upon hearing Elisa’s voice.
It was Elisa… Elisa had come to get it, to take it back…
But it couldn’t go back. It had no strength left, it couldn’t go with Elisa.
Mimi opened its mouth, blood flowing out, unable to make a sound from its blood-filled throat.
It was just a cat, unable to even call Elisa’s name.
Twenty minutes.
Mimi had been tormented by Filippa for a full twenty minutes.
She used pliers to pull out its teeth, used a craft knife to cut it, and doused it in gasoline before setting it on fire.
As it burned, how much it longed for someone to extinguish the flames on its body. It didn’t want to die; it hadn’t seen Elisa happy, nor had it seen someone enter her life to take care of her.
Finally, when its fur no longer resembled its original self, Filippa “mercifully” used her foot to extinguish the flames on its body.
From struggling at the beginning to now gasping weakly.
In just twenty short minutes, it felt like it had endured for years. It was in pain, exhausted, and sleepy. It wanted to see Elisa.
Its tired eyes closed, wanting to sleep, but it knew that if it slept, it wouldn’t hold on until Elisa arrived.
It had held on this long; it knew Elisa would definitely find it.
Mimi didn’t want to die. It had waited so hard for Elisa, waited for her to come and get it.
If it died, what would Elisa do? It didn’t want Elisa to cry. If it died, what would happen if she was mistreated?
Mimi struggled to open its hazy eyes, using all its strength, pulling at its bloodied mouth: “Meow…”
Its voice was unrecognizable, no one knew what kind of pain it had endured in these twenty minutes, nor could they imagine.
“Stay strong, Mimi. We’ve finally reunited. I’ll take you to see a doctor…” Elisa staggered to her feet, her body swaying.
“Meow…” Mimi struggled to lift its small paw. Elisa lowered her head as she saw this.
It used every last bit of strength to raise its head and plant a gentle kiss on Elisa’s face, tearfully bidding farewell: “I want to hold on, I don’t want to go, if I could, I’d still want to be your cat. I’m sorry, I have to go first.”
Finally, Mimi closed its eyes. Its heartbeat and breath gradually faded away.
Covered in blood, it curled up in Elisa’s arms, just as it used to sleep obediently in her embrace, but now Elisa could no longer feel its warmth.
Trembling all over, Elisa stared at Mimi in her arms, her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes bloodshot.
“A tweet-” a sharp birdcall pierced her ears, as if mourning Mimi’s death.
She thought that in this life, she could protect what was precious to her, but it turned out to be the same as the last lifetime.
She had been uneasy these past few days, noticing Iris’s unusual behavior. Why hadn’t she been more careful? Why had she only just realized?
Her chest ached as if a fire was burning within her. Elisa’s face was as white as paper, contrasting sharply with Mimi’s blood-soaked body.
“Mimi, I’ll take you home…” Elisa took a few steps forward while holding Mimi, grunting, her breath labored. She tasted the bloody taste surging up from her throat.
She took a taxi on the roadside to the nearest veterinary hospital.
On the way, she was photographed by many people and the images were posted online. Online marketing accounts never care about the truth of a situation; all they care about is generating buzz to make money, even if that money is stained with blood, acquired at the expense of others’ suffering.
The hashtag #ElisaCrueltytoCats# trended, and clicking into it, one could see Elisa holding a mass of blood, barely recognizable as a cat.
Netizens hurled insults, and the comments were as ugly as they could be.
There were also rational netizens who noticed that something was off.
“If Elisa abused the cat, would she appear in public holding it?”
“She must have abused the cat; look at how cold and indifferent she looks, not a tear on her face.”
“If something happened to my cat, I would be crying my eyes out. Elisa is a malicious woman.”
…
But at a time like this, no one paid attention to such comments. When muddiness becomes the norm, innocence becomes a crime.
At the pet hospital, Elisa stood at the door, waiting.
Not long after Mimi was brought in, the doctor came out and shook his head at Elisa.
“It had no heartbeat when it was brought in. There was nothing we could do.”
Elisa forced a smile, “No, that’s impossible… We agreed to be together… It wouldn’t leave me. It wouldn’t…”
Elisa looked at the doctor, hoping he would say something to comfort her, such as a mistake in the examination, or that it was just a cruel joke.
But the doctor kept shaking his head, just apologizing to her.
She didn’t want apologies.
“It was too severely injured,” the doctor said with difficulty. It was the first time he had seen a cat so severely injured. Someone who abuses cats is no better than a beast!
Elisa’s eyes were bloodshot, her eyes so swollen, her chest so heavy, but she couldn’t even cry.
It was as if her heart was being tightly bound by a dense and intricate net, preventing it from beating.
Her eyes had lost their light, and she looked through the doctor’s figure at Mimi lying inside, its collar removed and placed beside it.
She took a step forward, and the doctor moved aside to let her in.
At that moment, Elisa seemed to have lost her soul, her entire body stiff like a puppet on strings. She went to Mimi’s side, lifted it up again, and clenched the tag on its collar with her right hand.
The words on the tag were almost imprinted in her palm.
-Mimi Forever.
The smell of blood in her throat grew stronger. Elisa’s usually clear mind shut down. She carried Mimi out, and in the corridor, without warning, she knelt down, her body swaying, steadying herself.
Mimi’s blood had dried, sticking together in a stiff clump. She reached out, as gently as when it was alive, tenderly stroking its fur, scratching its neck. But… Mimi would no longer respond to her.
She buried her head, the scent of blood sharp in her nostrils. In her agony, she didn’t notice a figure rushing towards her.
Not until a shadow fell over her, “Elisa.”
Elisa looked up at Louis, who had knelt in front of her. His eyes were filled with pain, wanting to say something, but looking at Mimi, drenched in blood, his heart ached sharply.
He couldn’t find the words to comfort Elisa.
Two days ago, Mimi was fine. Elisa had carefully fastened the collar around Mimi’s neck, instructing her to be good, but now, everything had changed.
Elisa leaned her head against Louis’s shoulder, her right hand clutching the collar so tightly that her knuckles turned white, her entire arm trembling. She raised her hand and let it fall onto Louis’s chest, her whole being trembling like a blade of grass in the wind, as if a gust could tear her taut soul apart.
Louis felt tortured. He embraced Elisa, gently patting her shoulder. This action released the emotions Elisa had been suppressing.
In a choked voice, she murmured, “Mimi… Mimi is dead… It’s dead.”
This was the cruel reality she had to face. Mimi died in her arms, breathing its last breath and suffering its last heartbeat in agony.
“Elisa, let it out. Crying will make you feel better.”
Elisa’s eyes, like ink drops in water, gradually widened. She clutched Mimi tightly in Louis’s embrace, crying hoarsely.
“Ah-” she let out broken sobs, tears flooding her face, streaming continuously from her brimming, crimson eyes.
Her emotions had collapsed to the point where she couldn’t distinguish whether this was reality or a nightmare. Her vision blurred, her ears deafened, thunder roaring incessantly in her mind.
The extreme pain felt like a blade tearing apart her carefully preserved memories. She frantically searched but couldn’t find a single intact, beautiful memory of Mimi. Her mind was filled with nothing but the bleeding wounds of Mimi. It was so agonizing, it wanted so desperately to live, and it loved her so deeply.
The agony and despair surged through her body, urgently seeking an escape.
Elisa grabbed Louis’s clothes, her despair visible only to him.
The jarring sound attracted the attention of others.
“What’s going on? Why such loud crying?”
“Ah, a pet died. I just saw it, it was so tragic, all covered in blood…”
“That sounds terrible.”
“It’s just a pet, right? She’s acting like it’s her own parents who died. Maybe she wouldn’t even cry this loudly if her own family died.”
“If it’s dead, she can just buy a new one.”
“Dead…”