This chapter is dedicated to @shakespearian1 who's writing a fantastic story called Disney rebels. It's a strange hodge-podge of Disney lore and some more modern stuff. A most enjoyable read. 

Also, the cover you see above you was the first cover for this book, designed by donutinaa. 

"Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend."

―Richard Matheson, I Am Legend 

Voltaire strutted in. I followed him.

I had been there before (of course you have, eye).

It was the room midway to the underworld. The one with the arguing cats in it.

Only there weren't restaurant tables and chairs any longer. There was just one long, grey, low table stretched across the room. And cats were seated around it. Cats everywhere.

They spoke in soft murmurs to each other, some of them sipping milk from little saucers.

Their fright was palpable in the air surrounding us. Their eyes reflected the red light. They looked like small, dark spectres in the void. Air hissed through some vents I could not see.

Voltaire strutted onto an empty chair between a white cat and a spotted brown one. He sat.

They all seemed to notice me together. I was tall and bloodied and wet with snow and cold and filthy and tired. I was me.

And they were cats.

I smiled.

"Revolutionary, who is it that you bring to this congress of cats?"

The voice was thin and parched yet somehow magnificent. A lion's voice. Not a cat's.

The cat to whom it belonged was grey and bent and was glaring at me through his slits for eyes.

I waited.

After what seemed to be an infinity of bated breath, Voltaire cleared his throat.

"This is the one. The one who started it. The one who killed the prophet."

There was another silence. This one was shorter, but the vacuum it left seemed to suck my body dry of blood. I felt it drain from my face. I could imagine exactly how pale I was. How sharp the green in my eyes would appear. How my shoulders were hunched.

Then, the room exploded into a furious cacophony of protests and yells.

"Under who's authority?" one of the cast yelled at me. "Who made you do what you did, ghost?"

"Yes! Answer, ghost. What agent forced you to kill the prophet? The mouthpiece? Who made you do it."

Voltaire raked his paws across the grey surface of the table. I help my ears. The din died out slowly and all heads craned to look at him. He licked his whiskers.

"Firstly, idiots, she is no ghost. This, my friends, is what flesh and blood looks like. Secondly, she has no idea what made her do it."

"So, we all agree that it wasn't her, then?" another cat said. A stunted little black one.

"Something is controlling her. You can't kill the prophet. Believe me I've tried." The old cat spoke, his voice filled with malice.

"Somebody let the poor girl sit."

A female voice. I looked around. It belonged to a pudgy, luxuriously furry white cat sitting close to the head of the table.

"Yes, certainly. Sit over here, fleshling."

The cat called Herman pointed to a tall, empty chair at one of the corners. I crossed the rom and pulled the chair back. I sat.

"Milk?" the cat next to me asked politely. I shook my head and tried to smile.

I was sitting face to face with the old cat. The one with the lion's voice.

We faced each other, my head cradled on my hands.

The room erupted into murmurs again.

"I'm sorry." I offered.

The room was made still.

"What did you say?" someone asked.

Voltaire chuckled. "She apologized, idiot. For something she didn't do."

"Fat lot of good it'll do now."

"Yes. I agree. We are beyond the point of apologies now."

The old cat looked up at me. "Are we?"

"We don't have time-

"Are we?"

Silence again.

"This fleshling shows considerable strength of character. Something most of us clearly lack..."

"Dash it all, old man. She killed the Prophet."

"The Prophet was dead a thousand years ago."

A new voice spoke. Quiet, sharp and raspy.

"I knew Nostradamus. I knew him well. He made a lot of prophesies in his time. He knew when winter would come. He knew where and when the ghosts would arrive. He knew their names. He predicted the arrival of the fleshling a few hundred years ago. He had one prophesy, though, which he told no-one. No one but me."

"We're waiting." Voltaire said.

"He told me he would be the one to die first. He told me that his killer would be garbed in Death's raiments."

"Nonsense. I've seen plenty of ghosts in dresses..."

"Let me finish. The killer would be garbed in death's raiments and she would have with her the Queen's tail."

All eyes turned to me.

The tail felt wet and bushy in my hands.

I lifted it and tossed it into the middle of the table.

"Prophesy."

The word buzzed around the room like a rogue bee.

Voltaire's poker face was as haughty as ever, but I could see the surprise in his eyes.

He pounced on the table and peered close at the tail. He poked it.

"What are you doing, Revolutionary? Sit down. There is no question about its authenticity. Only one cat has ever been mutilated here. Our goddess. Our eternal mistress. That tail belongs to the Queen of Cats." the pudgy cat who gave me a seat said.

Voltaire smiled. "I was only looking."

He didn't get off the table.

"Prophesy, hmm..." he darted his tongue across one of the many little saucers lining the table. "I have a thing or two to say about prophesy. I'm sure you are all aware of the prophesy regarding my role in the last days..."

"Enlighten us." The one called Herman said.

"He shall be the one. The revolutionary who shall unite the doom-bringers. He shall be the one who shall crush the column. He shall be the one to usher in the end."

It wasn't Voltaire who spoke. The voice belonged to the cat next to me, the one who offered me milk.

"Thank you, Benjamin." Voltaire said.

"Revolutionary, don't be preposterous." said a cat from across the table. "We abandoned that petty dispute a long time ago. There are no harbingers and no more creationists. Even if the Queen exists-

"There's no question about that. Look at the tail." said Benjamin.

"What does that prove? That tail could've come from anywhere. The newer wave of collective philosophies have come in and they have brought with them new-tech from their own time. That tail could be synthetic for all we know."

"That tail is real! Look at it!"

"Quiet." The old cat hissed. Silence prevailed yet again. "Let the Revolutionary speak."

"My thanks, Socrates." Voltaire said, now back at his seat. "Friends. We have put old differences behind us a long time ago. But I think it is time to consider carefully. The one who called himself the Prophet is gone. He shall not return. I never liked him very much and you know it. Yet, his prophesies have taken on a nasty tendency to come true. He was right about the girl, about the tail and about his own death. So we have to assume that he will be right about the Queen. And about the end of the world. Friends, I feel that I am honour bound to bring that end."

"There is no end to bring, Revolutionary." Herman said.

"Because it's not your end to bring." I said.

All eyes turned to me.

"What?" Voltaire asked.

"It's not your end to bring, Voltaire. I'll be dead in a week, it seems. And I'll tear your world down with me."

"That...that doesn't make any sense. Why would you kill yourself?" he asked, his voice pale and parched.

"I'm not killing myself. I ate the commitment. I'm a time-bomb now. I'm waiting to blow up. I am your apocalypse."

"The mouthpiece-

I shook my head.

The constant mumbles and whispers slowly diminished until there was just silence. I could hear the rumble of my own thoughts. I could feel my breath as it poured out of my mouth.

I was alive. For now.

"So who's jumping her?" Herman asked. "Must be somebody from this time frame right?"

"I don't know." said Socrates.

"Where are you going?" someone asked him.

"To prepare."

He stretched, took a last sip from his saucer, gracefully leaped off his chair and left the room.

The other cats began murmuring again and they slowly walked out.

It was only me and Voltaire. He glared at me, his eyes sharp with malice.

"So. If I kill you know, I can get the whole thing over with."

I did not move. My eyes were fixed on the doorway.

Voltaire snarled or smiled. He came up to me, his head inches from my face. He help out a paw and showed me his claws. They were abnormally long and sharp.

"Come on. What difference does it make for you? A week or a day, it's all the same. Just let me kill you. Come on..."

"No."

I got up and paced backwards.

He did nothing for a while. Then he pounced.

He scratched at my hands and my face as I tried to hold him off.

I squeezed his neck. I could hear him wheeze as he struggled to breathe.

"No! don't kill me! You don't want-

I smashed it's head on the table. Hot blood leaked onto my fingers.

I dropped the limp body.

I walked.

Hooray for the second act! I'm sorry if the first act seemed like a meandering mess in terms of plot. There is a reason, dear reader and all will be revealed at the end. Trust me.

And if you enjoyed this chapter, clicking that little vote button won't cost you a thing but it'll make me very happy. 

Do you want to know what will make me even more happy? A comment. Just a little one, if you can spare the time. It would make me ever so happy! 

Thank you!