Same

Well, speaking of the devil. (I actually did so. In Noctober, I think. After being to the Bad Girls Club, a night when I was inspired by the absence of devils singing in songs. There were girls and guys singing instead. Slightly too high in pitch for me, but not in those falsettos of the devil song advocates, which include some of the other avis I see. At that point they said they were gonna have me cruisefied for bouncing up and down to popsicle music instead of flinging my head to and fro to the sound of bent knees.)

And now I'm speaking of the devil again. And would you believe it, cruisefying me was mentioned again today, but not by the others but by that horrid little rude man, who did return. I dunno if the guys that accompanied him were actually his brothers, but they were big and definitely not fairies, which they shouted back at me when I suggested they were. That was an attempt of mine to add a mellow, floating, misty touch to our rendezvous, because I found the lot of them intimatedating.

They said I'm gonna fry. That used to be a major fear of Mia's which I never really understood. I've seen fire, but I never saw it harming anyone. I once even sat in a log fire without anything happening to me. But now, the way the horrid man and his cabal spoke of it, the frying didn't sound very nice at all.

Witch. That's what I am, they said. A witch. Because I promote magic and heathen rites. I preach of and dance naked with elemental beings that do not exist. I promote bestiality not only with sheep. I'm a lessee and eat cats. I called them fairies. Therefore I shall burn by the steak.

I was just about to explain things to them, to put things right and make everyone happy again, when something happened. If you have been listening to my diary before, you may know that I once had a virus or a crab or whatnot that made clothes stick onto me even after I had taken them off. It was quite scary. Now, something similar happened. I was taking my clothes off to show Horrid Man et al that a lil bit of nudity doesn't do much harm to the world (at least not in a Mature sim) and that they needn't fear it.

But there was nothing beneath those clothes.

There was no skin.

I was hollow.

Okay, there are see-through garments. But as I wasn't wearing anything this couldn't be it. I had obviously been taken ill again. I was sick. It was like a return of the crabs. It was like lobsters, or a paella. And the timing of it was most inconvenient.

I half expected those guys around to be sympathetic, saying things like "hope you get well soon" or "try a Lemsip, hun". They did not. Instead there were screeches and a hurried search for tinder and a Pole. Well, well, so there it was. Even though I didn't understand why they couldn't do with someone from somewhere else, there it was, the reference to First Life that I had been half expecting. These big guys were there for religious reasons, after all.

"Speaking of the devil", I said, and there were further screeches.

I told them I almost went to Belchum once, hoping they would consider me one of them, a First Life name-dropper and thus, implied, a worshipper of humans. It didn't soften them. I asked them to go away. They didn't. I began tossing my head to and fro energetically. Their voices rose into falsettos, and despite them being quite a horde, and all of them so big they must have chosen maximum body size in the Appearance menu, they didn't seem quite as cocky any more. The minute before I had heard them say things such as "let's get her!" and "yeaaah!" and "kill the witch!", but now they almost seemed... scared.

Omg, wasn't I scared too. Because I knew that word. Kill. It meant deleting. They had come to discontinue me. I was dead scared. And so did the one thing any avatar in extreme peril would do.

I opened my inventory. I looked into it for anything usable. And grabbed the most horrifying thing I had in there for a weapon. One so bad I never ever thought I would ever touch it.

"I have a cat", I said, closing one hand around the Black Cat Avatar while reaching for the menu to open it with the other. "A black cat."

There were poofs. Poof, poof. And there were no more screeches. The big ones were gone, and so was Horrid Man. I later got an IM from him, saying I wasn't just a smelly witch, dike and beast mistress, but also very, very sick. Which I already knew, from the hollowness. "stay clear of me, ye jezebel of the devil", he said. Fine with me. I still don't know why he keeps approaching me. Maybe he thinks I'm cute.

So I was alone again. One hand holding that object. It had been there in my inventory all my life, and I had feared it. It was just an object with a name, like all other objects. But this one I had never opened. So I didn't know what was in there. I just knew how bad it was. It could be nothing but the source of pain, tears and black hearts. I realized that. And I realized that this wasn't my cat, but Mia's. Because I don't really feel those things. She does. And so she had put it there for me.

Which meant she had been there all the time. I wasn't here first. But neither was she. We both were. We were the same.

We are the same.

I'm not hollow any more. Because I'm no noob and I know how to fix those things. And because I tapped the menu, oc. At that point there was no other choice. The Black Cat Avatar opened. I got to see it. I got to feel it. I got to feel all those things of Mia's, but not like before by sensing her, but directly, in me. My hollowness was filled with a heart.

So now I fear fire.

I know Mia's pain, which is now mine, too.

I know love.

The lamb has been sheared.