"Loki, you little demon spawn! Get back here with my underwear!"
My yell echoed through the suburban street as I chased after the black blur darting between houses. The summer heat beat down on my neck, sweat already collecting under my T-shirt despite it being only 5 PM. The neighbors would be getting an eyeful today—a twenty-year-old man in jeans and a worn university hoodie, sprinting down the sidewalk after a cat carrying boxer briefs in its mouth.
Just another quarantine Tuesday.
I slowed to catch my breath, hands on my knees as I watched Loki's tail disappear around Mrs. Henderson's hydrangea bush. That cat was going to be the death of me. Seven years of living with him, and he'd only gotten more devious with age.
"I swear I'm getting you fixed when the vet clinics open back up," I muttered, knowing full well it was an empty threat.
Grandma would never allow it—she thought his "spirited personality" was charming. Easy for her to say when he wasn't stealing her underwear for neighborhood show-and-tell.
I straightened up and jogged toward the bush, the sun hanging low in the sky as evening approached. The streets were emptier than they would have been in any normal summer, but the pandemic had changed everything. No kids playing ball in driveways, no neighbors chatting over fences. Just the occasional masked pedestrian giving others a wide berth.
The bush rustled. I dove forward, hands outstretched.
"Gotcha!"
My hands closed around air as Loki bolted in the opposite direction, my gray boxer briefs still clenched triumphantly in his teeth. His yellow eyes gleamed with what I swear was laughter.
"You're enjoying this, aren't you?" I called after him, drawing a confused glance from an elderly man walking his corgi across the street. I gave an embarrassed wave. "Cat... stole my... nevermind."
I took off running again, this time following Loki toward the small wooded area that separated our subdivision from the next. His black fur made him harder to spot as the daylight began to fade, but the gray underwear flapping from his mouth worked as an unfortunate beacon.
"Come on, Loki! Grandpa and Grandma are waiting for dinner. I'm supposed to be picking up groceries, not playing underwear tag!"
The trees ahead grew denser as I followed the path into the small wood. Despite living in the suburbs of Ontario my whole life—or at least since I was five—I'd always appreciated this little patch of nature. Usually, it was peaceful. Today, it was the battleground for my dignity.
I slowed to a walk, scanning the underbrush for movement. "Loki? Come on, buddy. Truce?"
A faint meow came from somewhere to my left. I turned and spotted him perched on a fallen log, my underwear now abandoned beneath him as he groomed his paw with exaggerated nonchalance.
"Oh, now you're done with your game?" I approached slowly, not wanting to spook him into another chase. "You know, most people's pets bring them dead birds or mice. Mine brings stolen laundry to the local park. Very classy."
Loki blinked slowly at me, his black fur gleaming in the dying sunlight filtering through the trees. Something about his posture seemed different—alert, ears twitching as if hearing something I couldn't.
I was three steps away from retrieving my underwear when I felt it—a slight trembling beneath my feet.
"What the..."
The trembling intensified rapidly, the ground suddenly lurching so violently that I lost my footing, stumbling forward before falling face-first onto the forest floor. The world became shaky in seconds. Trees swayed dangerously, branches snapping. Birds erupted from the canopy in panicked flight. Loki yowled, abandoning his perch as the log itself rolled from the force of the tremor.
Earthquake. A big one.
My heart hammered in my chest as the shaking intensified. We didn't get earthquakes like this in Ontario—not ones this powerful. I tried to push myself up, but another violent jolt slammed me back down. My face pressed against the dirt, the taste of soil invading my mouth.
"Oh fuck…" Grandma! Grandpa! Their faces flashed in my mind, and terror gripped me. They were alone at home—Grandpa with his bad hip, Grandma with her tendency to freeze in emergencies. The house was old, full of heavy furniture that could fall.
I needed to get to them.
Using a nearby tree for support, I forced myself to my knees, then my feet, fighting against the ground that seemed determined to throw me back down. The earthquake showed no signs of stopping—if anything, it was getting stronger.
"Loki!" I called out, suddenly worried about the cat despite his earlier crimes. A flash of black caught my eye—he was crouched under a nearby bush, fur on end, looking more frightened than I'd ever seen him.
That's when I noticed something else. Something wrong.
The quality of the light had changed. The sunset glow was fading rapidly, the forest growing dark not with natural dusk but with something... else. A heavy darkness seemed to be pressing in from all sides, the air itself growing thick and difficult to breathe.
"What the hell is happening?" I whispered, my voice sounding muffled in the strange atmosphere.
The earthquake continued, but now it felt secondary to the wrongness spreading through the air. Twenty feet ahead of me, something impossible began to happen. The empty space between two oak trees... tore.
That's the only word for it. Reality itself seemed to split open, creating a gash in the world that revealed nothing but swirling darkness within.
I blinked hard, convinced I was hallucinating. Maybe I'd hit my head when I fell? But the tear was still there when I opened my eyes, widening, pulsing with an energy I could feel pressing against my skin.
"This isn't happening," I said to myself, backing away slowly. "This isn't real."
But it was real. Too real. And it was getting bigger, the darkness spilling out like ink in water. Worse, I could feel it pulling at me—not just physically, but somehow pulling at something inside me.
I turned to run, to get away from whatever cosmic horror show was unfolding in my local woods, when the pull became a violent yank. My feet left the ground, my body dragged backward toward the tear.
"NO!" I screamed, hands grasping desperately for anything solid. My fingers scraped bark from a tree before losing their grip. I clawed at the ground, at the air, at nothing.
"HELP! SOMEBODY!" But who would hear me in the empty woods during a pandemic, during an earthquake, during... whatever the hell this was?
As the void's pull intensified, my thoughts fragmented into panicked bursts: Grandma and Grandpa. Who'll take care of them? The store. Rent due next week. My business class assignment.
Absurd, mundane worries mixing with pure terror as I was dragged feet-first toward the tear in reality. I managed to flip onto my stomach, fingers digging futilely into the soil.
That's when I heard the familiar meow.
Looking up, I saw Loki sprinting toward me, against all logic running toward the danger rather than away from it. His yellow eyes were fixed on me, determined in a way that seemed impossible for a cat.
"Loki, no! Run away!" I screamed, but he kept coming.
The void's pull strengthened again, yanking me the last few feet toward its maw. As the darkness began to envelop my legs, sending ice-cold shock waves through my body, Loki made a final desperate leap toward me.
He landed on my chest, claws digging through my hoodie.
For one suspended moment, we locked eyes—my panicked hazel ones meeting his determined yellow ones. There was something in that gaze, something that didn't belong in a cat's eyes. Something knowing.
Then the void claimed us both, swallowing us whole.
The last thing I saw was the forest vanishing behind us as we were pulled into absolute darkness. The last thing I felt was Loki's small body pressed against mine, his claws holding onto me with fierce loyalty.
The last thing I thought was a desperate, useless prayer: Please let Grandma and Grandpa be okay.
Then, nothing.