It was raining. The rain has always given him comfort. It has always relaxed him, but more so now. Yawning and stretching during a rainy weather, padding away and finding another dark, gloomy, soft place to lie down in is the best activity to do during these cold, wet days. He can clearly remember running in the rain, splashing water with other children when he was just a young boy. Or drinking hot cocoa that his Nan used to make whenever he decided to stay over. His Nan… On these gloomy nights he always thought about his Nan. How her kitchen would always smell like heaven…cookies and hot cocoa. How comforting it was to stay with her. And the devastation he felt when she died, also on a dark, wet, gloomy, rainy day like today. What a sad thought! He decided to go on thinking about splashing in the rain once again. The joy of being an innocent child without a care in the world.
He heard singing, is it coming from the shower or the kitchen, he wondered? He sniffed and smelled fresh cottony scent. Definitely the shower, he decided. That has also always been a comfort, lying down, relaxing, and listening to Caitlyn sing in the shower after a long day. He blinked and looked at the semi open door of the bedroom. Should he join her, he wondered? He blinked and contemplated some more, then heard the singing stop and the door outside opened and closed. He guessed not. Which is fine by him. He was once a fan of hot showers, staying clean, but not anymore, not in the last few years. He stretched some more, looked outside, scratched his bed a little then settled down once again, waiting. He heard footsteps then light flooded inside the room.
He meowed. Yes, meowed. Even in his mind it still seemed surreal. He realized that no matter how many years has passed he can never get use to this. The years do not make missing her any easier either. A lot of people would probably look at him not with pity but with contempt if they heard his rants. They'd probably think that he complained too much and that he didn't have the right to complain since he chose this and that what more can he complain about when he was with her almost 24 hours a day 7 days a week? It doesn't make it any easier to know that they were all right and it didn't mean that he missed her any less as well. Miss her, when she was like a few feet away, what a stupid thought right? But when you stayed with your fiancé, or maybe he should start convincing himself now that she was his ex-fiancé? Anyway, when you stayed with your fiancé, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, see her, hear her, smell her, but not be able to touch her the way you want to in the last 6 years? That eventually takes a toll on anyone. Sure, he was a cat, but he is also still human.
Yes, he was human, or the more correct term should probably be is human. Sometimes, when his cat instincts kick in, like when he was just lying in his cat bed by the window looking out at the rainy day, sometimes he forgot that he used to be human. But the moment she comes in, everything comes back. Everything including all the feelings that came along with being a human, all the longing. Did he mean sexually? Of course not, don't be a perv! Well, maybe a little, can you really blame him, he was human after all. But more than the sexual touch, he longed for the intimacy. The way that she would brush her fingers at the back of his hand at random moments. Or the way she would comb her fingers through his hair. The way they used to talk about anything and everything. He longed for those moments when they would lie in bed and talk about non-sensical stuff. He longed for those moments when she would just sit at the table and watch him in the kitchen, smiling. Hell, he even longed for those moments when they would both be just on their phone, not talking. That's a millennial relationship for you he guessed.
He felt her scratch him behind his ear. "Hello, Lancelot! How was your day? Don't tell me you've been napping by the window all day again? You need exercise! You're getting fat, you silly cat!" she said. Yes, he knew, Lancelot, right? Of all the names out there, Lancelot? It would probably have been too much to ask of her to pick the name Sam instead of Lancelot, that was his name by the way, Samuel Bennet. A Bennet, you will probably wonder. And the answer is yes, he was a Bennet of the Bennet coven. He is a witch, and his family or coven is one of the oldest and most powerful family of witches.
With that knowledge you will probably wonder, why in God's name has he not just turned himself back into being a human if he was a witch? Did he just want to be a martyr? Or maybe, for those bashers out there, you'd probably think that he was just craving for attention, playing the victim so to speak. He wished it were that easy. And in the last 5 years he couldn't count the number of times that he wished that he wasn't a white witch. Ohhhhhh. Yes, ohhhhhh. For anyone non-magical, that probably means nothing. But the point is, unlike dark witches, white witches follow very specific rules. 2 of the most important are that they shall not use their magic to harm anyone and that they shall not use their magic to change time. Also, and maybe he should have just started with this, he lost his magic.
He sighed, or at least as much of a sigh he can make as a cat. It sounded more like a growl than a sigh but that was close enough. An acquaintance once told him that rules were meant to be broken and to hell with the consequences. When he still had magic, he always thought that no matter what happened he was not stupid enough to forget that the consequence would be to be a fugitive and to be disowned by your own family. All witches were born as white witches but as they break more rules they eventually get consumed by the magic and the power. They become fearless, faithless and hopeless. They turn themselves over into the dark and that's why we call them dark witches.
The witching world don't let these people just roam free. Just imagine letting a criminal roam free in a civilized world. Because essentially, dark witches are criminals. They don't steal, they don't kill you, they don't rape you, no, they do much worse than that. They tempt you so that eventually, no matter how white you are, you turn over to the darkness as well. And that, for him, was a much worse crime than anything. So that's why they had police. Yes, the witch world has witch police who locks up dark witches. They were like police and bounty hunters wrapped in one. They don't always catch all dark witches but they also don't stop until they are all hunted. It wasn't just a desire to catch the bad guys that was pushing them to keep on hunting, it was more than that. Witch police, after going through all of the rigorous training, are cursed. Were there good curses? Anyway, it wasn't a curse that was forced upon you, it is very much voluntary. The curse forces you to keep on hunting for dark witches until they die. His friends used to say that it was like being really really thirsty. You just had to find the water source. They were as much drawn to the darkness like the dark witches but instead of wanting to harness it, to use it, they wanted to extinguish it. And that's normally how they find these dark witches, by following the dark.
Dark witches were something really special. They lose all sense of humanity and are filled with darkness. They harness that darkness and do all kinds of magic that white witches are not able to even understand or do. Doing magic is not just about reading incantations as how they show it on TV. It's much more than that. For white witches, there is respect to the elements. The elements are what gives them the power. They harness that power and the elements are what help them do all kinds of different things such as spells and magic. For dark witches, the elements are not available to them anymore. White and dark cannot mix. But the darkness is limitless. There are no laws when you cross over. Harnessing the darkness saps everything good in you and replaces it with emptiness. But with that emptiness comes a great power. How much you are willing to give to gain more power is always the question that is asked. Eventually the enormous power becomes too much and you don't even need witch police to kill or lock you up anymore, it just eats at you and you decay.
He wasn't a dark witch and never wanted to become one. If there was a purely good clan in the witch world, it was the Bennets. They were just full of hope and of love that being dark never even crossed his mind, until that day. But even when he thought about it, he knew he didn't have years to be able to do what he needed to do. And he knew he still didn't have the will to harness the darkness. So, even if he wasn't stupid enough to become a dark witch, he was stupid enough to summon one instead despite all the warnings his sister gave him. That also caused him to be disowned by his family. That and because he has killed using his magic. Yes, a dark witch can be summoned, but it is a well-known fact that only desperate people are able to summon them. Why was he desperate you might wonder? What happened?
He looked at Caitlyn. Watched her as she went to the closet and changed clothes. God! Why was he torturing himself? When the towel fell to the ground his mind's eyes immediately saw the bullet wound that was meant for him entering through her chest, through her heart and going all through her back. Yes, she died. If that wasn't bad enough, she died for him. Needless to say the man who took the shot died in a heartbeat, that's another sin against him. Even to this day he could remember the warmth of her blood in his hands. He could still see her ashen face as life slowly left her. He could still hear her say I love you as her eyes frosted over with death. What man, person, wouldn't feel desperate after that? Who can blame him for wanting her back? For feeling the weight of guilt on his shoulder for her death? She was his destiny, his life. Without her, what was the point? He wanted to die but how can he choose the easy way out when he was the one at fault?
Blinded with grief, he summoned her. Adrianna was a witch, same as he, same as anyone in his family. Except that she was a dark witch. She came of course. She came only when you were desperate enough to give her anything she wanted in return for doing the forbidden. He was given a choice in return for returning Caitlyn's life. Either live as a human but live as far away from Caitlyn as humanly possible not knowing where Caitlyn was for him to find her or to live with her without anyone non-magical knowing who he was. The caveat here was that, Caitlyn was non-magical. Still, it was a no brainer of course. How could he face life knowing he would never see her again, touch her? So he chose to live with her thinking that it didn't matter if she didn't know him he can make her fall in love with him again.
But in every contract there was always a disclaimer and when you are desperate enough those disclaimers are often overlooked. He should have known about that, he was a business man after all besides being a witch. But at that point in time he just didn't care. She didn't tell him that he was going to live with her as a cat and that he could only go back to being a human for 1 hour every witching hour. If Caitlyn were to wake at that time, the curse would be lifted and she would immediately die. She also did not tell him the greatest sacrifice of all, that he would lose his magic. And he didn't foresee how hard it was going to be to be disowned by his own family and hunted by the Keepers of Magic. To a certain extent, he wished everyone, magical or non-magical, would have forgotten him altogether. But that would have been an escape on its own. Adrianna wanted him to suffer. That was five years ago. And it has been five years of agony for him…
He woke, it seemed like he fell asleep thinking about his past again. He has gotten used to waking up at this particular time despite not having an alarm clock handy to wake him up. He looked at the clock, desperately wanting its hand to turn. It was 2:59 AM. As soon as the clock struck 3 he felt the change happening. It doesn't take a minute for him to turn back to being a human but each time needs getting used to. At 3:01 he stood in the moonlight fully naked but human. And at this time every day, he would spend 10 minutes just kneeling beside Caitlyn's bed, brushing her hair away from her face. Wanting to touch her, even just her hand, but refusing to as he needed his hour every night. At 3:10 he stood up, walked to the closet door, opened it and walked through.