This is a real-animal story. By that I mean not creatus or humans, although humans may be mentioned.
Chapter 1
"Thanks, mate."
The amber tabby jumped nimbly down from the last rock. The marshy ground beneath his feet was so familiar, however at the same time he thought he had never felt this ground before. It had been so long since he had seen this place. The mangroves and willows overhead trembled in the wind, and even they seemed to be whispering his name.
A splash behind him reminded him of the gray bottlenose basking in the sunlight. He turned around, but it was too late; Captain Anthony Nickel was leaping and spinning away. Standing on his back legs, a talent that had taken him years to master, he waved his paws clumsily and called, "Thanks again for everything, Cap'n! When I write my autobiography, I'll make sure I write a chapter all about you!"
Sighing, the amber tabby lowered his front paws and began weaving through the trees. His sharp nose soon picked out the scent of metal, and...there was something else there too. Something he had never experienced. His dream of this place, one so real he could remember it almost exactly, never had anything to smell other than the sap and the birds flitting overhead. He headed in the direction of the faint scent, although it grew stronger with every step he took. With four paws, he took a lot of steps.
At last, he saw something loom up above the treetops. Drawing closer. he realized it was a cliff, made of stong obsidian, with maybe...quartz? Unusual for this region.
He reached the edge of the cliff. There, gaping on front of him like a serpent's mouth, was a cave, at least big enought for five humans to fit through. A faint blue light shimmered inside. Putting on a strait face, the cat bravely strutted into the darkness. As he traveled, he thought of what he would accomplish. There would be no more suffering in the world. Everything would be fair and peaceful, no new scars or fatal wounds, nothing bad would ever happen again in the world.
The thing was, he had never thought this over. What if the world was better full of bitterness, of burning flames, of hatred? This had never crossed his arrogant mind, and it turned out it never would. For at that moment he reached a cavern.
A rocky spiral glimmered in the hazy dim light. Looking closer, the tabby noticed a smooth, shiny rope coiled around the middle. The spiral was at least 20 cat-lengths tall, and a narrow ramp wove itself around to the flat top. Craning his neck, the tabby saw that the light was coming from a erect slab of rock. In that rock, there was a keyhole. There was a gold key in the keyhole. It was, seemingly, the thing emitting the smoky light.
The tabby placed one paw on the ramp. Suddenly the rope began uncoiling v-e-r-y slowly. "You are not worthy!" a voice boomed, reverberating off the walls and frightening the tabby so much he jumped three feet straight up. He landed in a crumpled heap. "Thanks for bringing them here. I have to give you that." The voice sneered off-handedly.
The tabby felt a sucking feeling at his chest. Peering down, his eyes just visible as slits, he saw apparitions, strangely familiar, coming out of him, all enveloped in that strange blue light...or smoke. With a jolt he realized that they were the five creatures who had assisted him on his journey here. The last apparition to come out... was himself. He traced it all the way to it's destination: Past the key and into the keyhole.
With that, the world was black and the tabby knew no more.
He never knew what killed him.
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