Chapter 1 Part 4

I grabbed my books and coat and left the cafeteria, pulling my coat up to my chin once I went out to the cold.

Crap. I must me going crazy. Ashley was right. Being stalked by a jungle cat? I really was going nuts!

I shivered miserably. I seriously was going to freeze to death here. Why on earth had I decided to go to college here? There must be plenty of colleges further south, where it was undoubtedly warmer.

I wasn’t sure what would kill me first, my (apparently) phantom cat or the cold.

The cold was doing a good job, but speaking of the cat…

There he stood, on the sidewalk, watching me from about ten feet away. As I had glimpsed him so many times before, he was black-spotted over a golden base with those damn, haunting amber eyes. Tear markings ran from his eyes to his lips like running mascara and three thick stripes of black ran down his back. His tail was made of rings of gold and black, ending with a white tip. The feline’s body was long and lean; he was leggy, with a small head, a deep chest and a long tail.

Cheetah, I realized. Great, now I had absolutely no chance of running to safety.

His spots were weird, though. Instead of many small spots running across his body, he had fewer, larger spots, as if the small spots had gathered into clumps. I’d read about these in National geographic or something: this cat in front of me was a king cheetah.

We stared at each other, the gaze between predator and prey, until the cheetah made his move—

Back into the forest.

I must have stood there for a full minute before moving. Um… what the hell? Why the hell was there a cheetah on campus?! It could have, like, freaking eaten me!

Needless to say I ran to my dorm as if there was hellfire (or a cheetah) at my heels. Once within the shelter of four walls and a door, I went straight for my phone.

“Ashley!” I cried into the phone the moment my friend answered it.

“Tara? Are you ok?”

“As if! I saw it! Like, on the sidewalk behind the science center!” Looking at me!”

“W-what?”

“The cheetah!”

“You mean your stalker?” There was a moment of silence; I could hear muffled giggles.

“I shit you not! It could have freaking eaten me!”

“Where did it go?”

“Hell if I know! It just loped into the forest and was gone!”

“Did you take a nap yet?”

“Ashley! I was nearly eaten!”

“Tara, seriously. Go take a nap or something. You really sound crazy. You’re freaking me out.”

“You’re freaked out?! I’m freaked out! Ashley, it was a cheetah!”

“Okay, you seriously need to take a chill pill. Call me after your nap and then we’ll talk.”

“But—Ashley—”

“Goodnight Tara.”

Click.

Crap. I shakily pocketed the phone. I’m crazy I’m crazy I’m crazy I’m… Distracted, with a gradually fraying sanity, I managed to knock into someone. I looked up. Well hello, crush.

He smiled at me and I wanted to melt.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi.” I drew the greeting out, awkward and clumsy. “I… I have to go.” I quickly slipped away, up the stairs to my floor.

Snap. Door shut. Now I was safe. Sigh of relief. Maybe Ashley was right. If anything, I needed sleep, big time. I pulled off my shoes, threw off my coat, and closed the blinds.

I retreated to bed, and without a moment’s hesitation, promptly fell asleep.

Chapter 1 Part 3

I snapped my head away from the nearby window, in which I swore I saw that face again.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Just that!” she cried out.

“It’s a nice view.”

“Bullshit.” She crossed her arms. “You’ve been skittish lately. Like big time. As if you’re looking behind your shoulder for someone.”

“It’s nothing, really,” I insisted, feebly, if you ask me.”

Ashley saw right through it. Her gaze said she demanded a better explanation. I sighed.

“I-I think I’m being followed,” I said quietly under my breath.

“WHAT?! Like a stalker?”

“Yeah. God, I saw it only once, and now it feels like I’m friggin’ being followed.”

“You saw him?” Ashley was all eyes and ears. “What does he look like? God, we have to talk to Campus Safety!”

“I-it was spotted—black spots—with like a golden background. And, man, those amber eyes—”

Ashley’s face dropped and it slowly became suspicious. “Spotted?” She echoed.

“Yeah, like a jaguar or something.”

“Tara, are you saying… that a jungle cat is stalking you?”

I nodded.

There was a pause, and then—

“That’s the most hilarious thing I have ever heard!” She burst out laughing. The giggling shook her body until she had to rest her forehead on the table.

“Ashley, I’m not kidding!” I cried.

“Forget Campus Safety,” she continued to giggle. “It’s time to call the zoo!”

“Ashley!”

“Tara, you have to be joking. You must be joking. You are being stalked by a leopard? A jaguar? A big cat?” Ashley’s face grew more and more serious as she spoke.

“I—” I wanted to insist the truth of my statement; I want to argue my side. But I paused to actually consider what I would say: “Seriously Ashley, during class I see it looking at me through the window—” some of which, I realized, were on the second floor “—and I feel it, watching me!” I sounded like a damn mad man.

So instead I caught myself and said, with some trouble, “You got me! I can’t believe you actually thought I had a stalker.”

Ashley giggled more. “Yeah really! I was wondering, ‘Who would stalk Tara?’”

I cracked a smile. “Gee thanks Ashley."

Ashley smiled. “I think it’s time for you to take a break, though. A good nap or something. Have been working late on a project or something? Being stalked by a big cat? Stuff like that only comes from a person that’s pretty sleep deprived.”

I laughed weakly. “You’re right. I think I’ll head back to my room; take a good nap.”

Ashley smiled. “Sounds like a good idea to me.”

Chapter 1 Part 2

My name is Tara and I’m halfway through college. I drink on occasion, and I never mind a good party. I’m an average student with an average family life and an average, used car with which I go to an average job. I have average friends (no insult intended) and we together participate in a pretty average college experience. There is nothing incredibly remarkable about me, frankly. I like to travel (much to the chagrin of my car, I can imagine) and I like animals. Not PETA-go-to-jail-for-them like; more like I-can’t-wait-to-get-my-own-place-so-I-can-get-one kind of like.

Though I don’t like animals enough not to freak out when one of the larger types is staring into my face from about six inches away.

After that incident, it’s fair that I was a little paranoid. It was as if I was seeing the mysterious jungle cat everywhere I looked; it felt as if it was watching me everywhere I went. It was as if I had my own (deadly) kitty stalker.

During classes, I could swear that the feline face would peek in through the window—there! In the corner of my eye!—but the moment I turned to the window there was nothing but the red splendor of autumn.

Eventually my paranoia was noticed by one of my friends.

“You’ve been acting really weird lately,” one such friend, Ashley, said one lunchtime as I sat down at our usual table.

“Have you been feeling well?” she asked anxiously.

Chapter 1 Part 1

I wasn’t quite sure how I had gotten into this mess. Well, I knew how, but I didn’t know how. Here I was, in a great hall mad of marble and alabaster, with massive towering walls and—gah, I don’t have time to describe the godforsaken room! I was crouched on the white marble, bowed before a woman who currently had control over my fate.

Making sure that my head stayed low and keeping my gaze far from the woman’s haughty face, I looked to the creature that sat silently beside her, giving me a mournful look.

I desperately implored to him with my eyes. Kgosi, help me!

But he just lowered his sad amber cheetah eyes.

Before this, before I found myself bowing before this arrogant, angry queen, I had been blissfully innocent and ignorant, free of the sticky situation that I found myself in now.

Before this, my only concern was the gradually cooling autumn weather; the only begging I had to do was to teachers for leniency (what can I say? I had a problem getting to class on time).

The weirdness began during that last sunny day of the year. I was napping on a towel, in the still-green grass near my dorm, enjoying the last of the summer sun. At this point the trees in the surrounding forest had already gone fiery red and warm orange.

Life was good. Today was the start of a long weekend, I didn’t have too much homework and the weather was to my favor.

My eyes were closed—I was falling asleep, actually—when I got that feeling that I was being watched, that something was close to me, interrupting my nap and invading my personal space. I opened my eyes and—yikes!—I was met with amber eyes within a feline face. This was no housecat feline either; this was a friggin’ jaguar of the savanna kind of feline.

The face hovered over me, golden and black-spotted, looking as if it was ready to go for the jugular.

Naturally, I screamed.

As I scrambled away, scared out of my mind, whatever the creature was leapt away, and before I had time to identify it or to even fully understand what had just happened, the creature retreated into the forest, its spotted coat melting into the burning leaves.

That’s how it all started, with those golden amber eyes. But let me go a little further back, to before even that first meeting.

Introduction

Welcome to the Somnambulist, a sort of "story blog" where I'll develop a story, bit by bit. Posts are typically a few paragraphs and the plot isn't planned, so it'll run as long or as short as necessary.

The idea came from "cell phone books" that are pretty popular in Japan.While I'm not posting this story on websites that are made for this, the idea is the same.

I liked the idea of making a sort of impromptu book; my older stories were written like that: I started out with an idea, or a character, or a place that interested me and then went on from there without having that many plans on what was going to happen next. It was like reading a story as you were writing it.

The stories that came out of this method of writing were... well... shaky at times, plot-wise, but I'm not sure if that's because I was making up plot on the go or because I was in middle school when I wrote them. Either way, this blog and the story that will unfold in it is more a creative exercise than anything, a way to get ideas flowing, and hopefully a way to get rid of writer's blocks that come up while writing some of my other, more planned, stories.

In any case, I hope you enjoy the story!