The Cat-Woman

So I look at lots of writing prompts, and have lots of ideas, but very rarely do I actually write anything from them. The other night I had a smidge of inspiration and wrote this based off the prompt above. At the bottom I've put some notes on what I was envisaging when I wrote it... enjoy..?

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I don't know if you'd call what I have a superpower or not. Hell, I don't even know if I have it or not yet. And to be honest I'm scared of finding out.

Ten years ago when I was 15, four friends and I went to a country fair. After a while we got bored of walking around, and for a laugh we decided to go see the fortune teller.

Everyone came out laughing saying it was ridiculous. When I came out I wasn't quite laughing. Well, I suppose I was, but it was more of a nervous laugh. Thinking about that afternoon now just makes me more nervous, but I'll tell you why in a second.

When Kelsey went in I don't know what she was hoping to hear, but I doubt it was the prophecy "bananas will hold the key to happiness". Last year though, it came true. She was running a marathon when she was knocked down by a guy in a banana costume. When he helped her up she couldn't stand, she was angry and screaming. He looked her square in the eye and said "there's only one thing for it." He picked her up and ran the last stretch of the race with her in his arms. They're getting married next month and everyone can see a whole bunch of bananas on the horizon.

Beth came out with what seemed to be a slightly more realistic foretelling. "Your fortune will be made when you see the number 23." That sounded promising, and as I said, slightly more realistic. When she turned 22 she nearly died when a number 23 bus clipped her after it mounted a pavement. The insurance payout meant that if she was sensible she would never have to work again. Spoiler alert, she wasn't, and she did.

Jo's fortune was the quickest to come true. "A horse shoe will bring you luck." That's what they do... bring you luck. Duh! It was a pretty pointless prophecy on the face of it. After we'd all seen the fortune teller, still high on the amusement, we stopped at the horse shoe stall to see if Jo was going to win the big prize. She lost on every throw and we took it as confirmation that it was all hocum.

Exactly one year later we went back to the same fair. It was horrific. You'd have said anything but lucky. As one of the shows was going into the central arena a horse got spooked and bolted. Jo got trampled and took a fairly large hoof to the head. She was still conscious though, and the paramedics were with her in under a minute to check her over and they took her off to the hospital to have some scans. The doctors found a tumour. They'd caught it just in time, that horse had been a lucky break after all.

Ellie's wasn't the brightest foretelling. "Do not walk the line to Freedom." We didn't hear from Ellie for a long time. We knew she'd become a photo journalist, and occasionally we'd see her name credited on the front page of the papers. Then she suddenly came home. She looked shell shocked, but she said she needed the familiar faces.

She had been working with the army and lucked out on getting a sought after position with a reconnaissance team. They started walking towards a village, a few of the troops ahead. The pictures she took of the troops walking down the dirt road were stunning. The village in the background, the villager's handmade sign, they'd even written the village's name in English on the bottom in rough paint... Freedom. She remembered screaming, pulling at the troops around her begging them to stop. They'd told her it was seconds, but it had felt like longer. There was an explosion. The advanced team were gone, they might have stopped if they'd heard her. The rest had, if they'd gone ten more feet the lead Humvee would have driven straight over a landmine. She saved 21 people that day.

The girls, for bad or worse, had their fortunes come true. For bad or worse, good had come out of them.

Now we're just left with me.

That day at the fair I lied to my friends. I walked out of that tent and told them she hadn't told me my fortune because she's broken her crystal ball. It was partly true. I had gone in and sat opposite her. She'd taken my hands and placed them on the ball, and as soon as her hands were laid over mine... the crystal ball shattered. She stared at me in shock and said "You have the spirit of the cat in you. You will die eight times yet still live. On your 25th birthday you will die for the first time." That's not really the sort of thing you want to tell your friends, it kind of puts a downer on things. And freaks you out to boot, so I lied.

But now we're here. My birthday is a week away.

Up to this point I've been a bit all over the place. The first year none of us really took any notice of it, and I didn't think much of the ball breaking, it might have just been a bit she did to get more business. After the accident though, I'd thought about it again, but no... it was just coincidence.

When Beth had her accident I worried. If it was true, then I only had three years left. I felt a little terrified, and a little indestructible. But it was still just a coincidence.

When Ellie came back not long after that, I thought about telling them. I wanted them to tell me that it was all nonsense. But what if they didn't? That thought was so strong that the day after Ellie told us her story I went and brought life insurance. I was fairly certain that a psychic's prophecy couldn't invalidate a payout.

How am I supposed to live this last week of my life... when I don't even know how it will end?

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A lot of things come into my head as graphic novel ideas, which is why a couple of bits above seem a little jiggled about as I was visualising the progression as I wrote it. The main thing that I haven't decided is how the next stage will unfold. I can't decide if she should have nine different lives, when she dies again she's reborn or repurposes the body of someone else who died at the same time. Or whether each time she died it's just like losing a life in a video game. I'm not quite sure what she's going to do with the knowledge once she dies the first time... I think I'm more confused than she is.