Arman’s first encounter with a demon started with him chasing a cat.

  The cat stood out like a blotch of orange paint in the green forest. It could run, but it couldn’t hide. In fact, it must’ve been a pretty dumb cat, because it wasn’t running either. It frolicked along the forest floor, padding over tree roots and leaping over jagged stones, grandma’s homemade bread in its jaws. Arman crept forward in close pursuit, not daring to run for fear of scaring the little thief.

  At first he chased the cat because he really wanted the bread, which had been warm out of the oven when he was about to take his first bite. When the cat snatched it from his hands and escaped through the window, Arman had been both hungry and angry. Now, he just wanted to get it back out of principle. He couldn’t let the cat win.

  They came upon a creek, and Arman realized he must be lost. He knew the woods behind the farm like the back of his hand, and had never seen this creek. How long had this pursuit been going on? It felt like no time at all, and yet he couldn’t be close to home or he would’ve recognized this place.

  The cat gracefully leapt from stone to stone to cross the narrow stream of water, then looked back at Arman as if waiting for him. Suddenly it felt like it was leading him somewhere rather than trying to get away from him. Was this clever trickster using the bread as bait to show him something?

  Arman stepped across the flowing water with one large gait, now following the cat more than hunting it down. He’d heard stories of animals leading people to their young when they needed help, and the thought of a litter of kittens trapped in a hole saddened him.

  His worry for those hypothetical kittens soon gave way to worry about how he would ever find his way back home, however, when he came upon a small clearing dominated by the base of a great cylindrical tower. How was this not visible from the house?

  The large stone bricks that made up the tower were weathered with age, and vines crawled up its sides. There was a doorway, but the door that once stood there had long since collapsed, and all that remained was a pile of rotten wood on the ground. The cat sat beside it expectantly.

  “Well, I’ve come this far,” said Arman.

  He led the way into the tower, where the air was damp and the only light, aside from that coming from the doorway, shone down from the distant top of the tower where he could see a ceiling full of holes. This faint light illuminated a wooden spiral staircase that went all the way to the top.

  The cat darted past his legs and started up the tower. Arman noticed that the bread was no longer in its mouth, but his stolen lunch was the least of his curiosities now. He took his first hesitant steps on the staircase, and when the structure held his weight, continued forward at an eager pace.

  He finally reached the end of the staircase, where he found a ladder leading up to the attic of the tower. He climbed the ladder and carefully stood up in the small space, distinctly aware of his footing as there were multiple missing floor boards.

  There were large windows on all sides open to the outside air, and the cat was perched atop a windowsill, its fur blowing in the wind. When Arman looked out at the view before him, he was left in complete disbelief.

  Beyond a small patch of forest surrounding the tower, the rest of the world was just…gone. He rushed from window to window, getting a complete picture of the impossible situation around them.

  In a fairly consistent radius from the base of the tower, the ground gave way to an endless blue void, as if the tower had been plucked by a giant and brought up into the sky, taking a chunk of earth with it.

  I’ve been having some crazy dreams lately, thought Arman.

  “This isn’t your dream.”

  Arman’s head whipped around to find the source of the voice, but there was nobody there. Only him and the cat beside him. “I guess it was you who said that, wasn’t it? I am dreaming after all.”

  The cat looked him in the eyes. “Correct,” it opened its tiny jaws and the voice of a man came out. “Now listen to what I’m telling you. You are in grave danger. These are not regular dreams that you’ve been experiencing these past couple of weeks.”

  “That sounds like something a cat in a dream would say,” Arman chuckled, looking back out into the great void.

  Something massive slammed into him from the side, and he found himself gasping for air on the hard wooden floor. A massive feline paw pressed down on his chest, and the snarling jaws of a tiger sat inches from his face. “Does this feel real enough for you?” the beast bellowed. In the blink of an eye the tiger was gone and there was only a small orange cat licking itself on his chest.

  “The dreams have been quite vivid lately,” Arman admitted, trying to hide his shock.

  The cat left his chest and leapt back up onto the windowsill. “And you’ve been waking up tired, haven’t you? That’s because you’re awake in someone else’s dream.”

  “Your dream?” said Arman. “Who even are you?”

  “I’m Damian,” replied the cat. “And no, it’s not mine. But this part of it is being controlled by me, for now. I’ve set the scene, but your powers here are at least as strong as mine, if only you knew how to use them.”

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  “And how do I do that?” said Arman.

  “Use your imagination.”

  Arman imagined himself as a tiger, but nothing happened. It did, however, merit a laugh from the cat, who could apparently read his mind.

  “Sorry, you can’t do that,” said Damian. “Try to think of a place instead. Somewhere you like to be alone. Perhaps a favourite trail in the mountains.”

  Arman tried to do just that, but instead his thoughts wandered to the farm. He pictured golden fields of wheat. The family plow horse rode alongside them, admiring the fruits of its labour blowing in the early summer wind.

  Suddenly he wasn’t just picturing them, but seeing them.

  Not so far from the tower, across the void, floated another island of rock and dirt. This island was much larger than the one they stood upon, and it was growing in size as Arman’s imagination flushed it out.

  Next to the fields stood the stables and the barn, where his father would be working away on some perpetually breaking farm equipment. Further down the road stood the farmhouse, where grandmother baked her famous bread.

  “Stop!” Damian yelled. “I told you to imagine somewhere you like to be alone!”

  “I can’t control where my thoughts lead,” Arman pleaded.

  “You’ll have to learn to,” said Damian. “But right now, you need to wake up.”

  “You said I was already awake,” said Arman.

  “You need to wake up in the real world. Now!”

  Arman didn’t understand what was going on, but he sensed the urgency of the situation and for some reason trusted this cat with a human voice. He closed his eyes and tried to wake himself up, but to no avail. “I can’t just wake up on command.”

  “I see,” said Damian. “Then you must do as I say, or people will die.”

  Arman thought of his family. “Who will die?”

  “Stop thinking about your family. You need to keep your mind occupied by something else. Find a happy memory.”

  Against his will, Arman was brought back to his seventeenth birthday. It was the last time he saw his mother before she left the farm.

  “Not at the damn farm!” the cat begged. “If you must think of your mother, think of her somewhere else. She’s not in any danger.”

  For a second, Arman was successfully able to follow Damian’s order. He thought of when his mother had brought him into town to buy clothes for his birthday. But then he was dragged back to reality by the screams of a horse. His horse.

  “Are you saying the rest of my family are in danger?” Arman asked tentatively.

  “No, I’m not saying anything,” replied Damian. “Just please, keep your eyes closed and keep thinking about your visit to the town. I have to go, and I need you to calm yourself down so that you’ll be able to wake up. Once that happens, everyone will be fine.”

  His eyes still closed, Arman heard the roar of a tiger that started beside him and then trailed off as it became more distant. He knew that his companion had leapt out of the tower and left him there alone.

  He tried to collect his thoughts, but the screams of his horse soon turned into the shrieks of some kind of otherworldly reptilian beast. He couldn’t stay here any longer. No matter what the cat said, the truth was plain to see. The lives of his family members were in peril, and he couldn’t just leave them in someone else’s hands.

  Arman opened his eyes and rushed to the window to see for himself what was happening. The first thing he noticed was Damian, in tiger form, sprinting across the fields. Somehow, he must have leapt all the way from the tower to the other floating island.

  Then Arman saw what he was running towards: his horse. Except it was no longer the same horse. As it shrieked and moaned, it seemed to be transforming into some kind of grotesque monster. Still vaguely horselike, but otherwise terrible. Once its transformation was complete, it turned its head towards Arman and seemed to stare directly at him. Despite the large distance between them, he could see everything in great detail.

  It had ink black skin splotched with streaks of red like bloody lacerations across its entire body. From its head sprouted two giant horns like those of a bull. Its hooves had become the sharp claws of a lizard, and scales ran up the length of its legs before receding into the fur of its still equine body.

  The abomination held Arman’s gaze for a time, but then turned its attention towards the farm. It set off at a sprint towards his family. He could only watch as the monster made for the farm and the tiger chased the monster, aiming to cut it off on its path.

  Arman thought of his father, who was most likely slaving away on the same piece of farming equipment he had been the whole week in the barn. And his grandmother, who would be knitting in her rocking chair right now, passing the time on the front porch. And when he looked closer, there she was, heedless of the coming danger.

  Then he realized what he’d just done. He’d imagined them into existence in this dream, and now they were going to die because of him.

  Damian finally caught up to the monster, pouncing on its back and digging into it with his claws. The two of them tumbled into the ground together and a vicious battle ensued. The tiger seemed to be better suited for close quarters combat, raking his claws along the horse’s soft body and biting into its neck.

  But his triumphs were short-lived. The horse’s head morphed into that of a giant snake, and even as Damian’s teeth sunk into its long scaly neck, the snake swung its head across and plucked the Tiger’s eye from its socket. Damian let out the screech of a wounded cat as he let go of the monster and curled up on the ground, pawing at his bloodied face.

  The monster made it to the barn, effortlessly busted its doors down, and entered. Arman heard a muffled scream, then silence. The monster excited the barn, made eye contact with Arman once more, then started towards the farmhouse at a leisurely pace, where his grandmother now stood frozen in fear as the monster approached her.

  Arman had to do something. He crawled up into the window frame, preparing to jump across the void like Damian had. He reminded himself that the rules didn’t apply here, and anything was possible. Imagining himself with the power of flight, he leapt from the top of the tower with eyes set on the farm.

  Gravity had other plans, and he fell straight down towards the forest floor. Just before hitting the ground, he woke up.

  Arman jolted upright in his bed, a cold sweat raking his body. It was just a dream. It was just a dream.

  “I’m sorry,” the voice of Damian whispered, as something silently limped into his room from the open door.

  It was the wispy blue figure of the cat that had visited Arman in his dream, missing an eye and stumbling on a broken leg. Its form shimmered as if it was only a faint flickering image of the real thing.

  “I’m sorry,” the cat repeated. “I couldn’t stop it.”