"Where are you going?" Pipsqueak's whiskers twitched as she stopped to look around the featureless forest. "Everything looks the same. And all the smells are boring. How are you tracking... what is it again?"

"It is 'Roger,' and I am not tracking him by scent." Oliver flicked his tail in annoyance and kept walking past the drab trees. "I am carrying memories that involve the spirit. When I get closer to him, they will begin to pull me towards him."

"How? That's not how memories work." Pipsqueak ran to catch back up with Oliver, slowing down as she passed him. "It's... not, is it? I have memories of exciting hunts. They aren't going to pull me after the mouse I killed if we run into it here, is it?"

Oliver sighed again and paused to try and feel the tug of the memories. "It is doubtful we will run into any of your prey here."

"Why not? You said this was the land of the dead. And I killed my food before I ate it." Pipsqueak paused and looked back at Oliver, though her eyes suddenly grew wide. "I mean... it has to be dead for me to eat it, right? I don't need to worry about food trying to crawl out of my throat, do I?"

The orange tabby just stared at Pipsqueak for a long moment, then shook his head slightly. Kittens. "Yes, it was dead. You clearly have a lot to learn about being a cat still, but I doubt you messed things up that badly." He looked back around the forest, then started walking in a new direction. "The land of the dead includes many different places, and different spirits are drawn to different ones. This is not the one that dead prey tends to come to."

"Oh." Pipsqueak rushed to catch up again. "So where's that one? Can I get there instead? This place is stupid; I don't think it has anything to eat at all. All I've seen are those weird gray blobs, and they don't seem very tasty."

"You cannot eat those; they are just dead spirits that have come here. They do not have a body to eat. But yes, you can get to that place. Though you cannot eat the creatures that are there either; there is no hunting in those lands. If you try, the guards will make you leave." Oliver continued walking, then paused as one of the memories suddenly tugged at his back. He sat up and looked around the forest, waiting to feel where the tug was trying to bring him.

"Well that doesn't sound like any fun. What's the point of having all the prey there if you can't hunt or eat them?" Pipsqueak continued walking a few paces, then seemed to realize Oliver had stopped. She turned and ran back to him, then looked around with another bored flick of her tail. "Are any of the places here worth visiting?"

"Actually, that one is very nice to go to. You can't eat the mice or other prey, but the trees growing there have fruits that taste even better than any prey. And they are very fun to climb. Plus the humans there are all very nice, and all seem to know exactly how to scratch your ears. And exactly when they are supposed to stop petting you." Oliver sniffed the air again, feeling the memory tug at his back again... then a second or two later, the other memories gave him a quick tug in the same direction.

"Hmph. Humans are mean. The last one I met used a strange green tube to throw water at me. Cold water. It's better to avoid them." Pipsqueak followed Oliver's gaze for a moment, staring at one of the dreary trees, then began scanning the forest again in boredom.

"That can often be true in the land of the living, but not always. I know a very nice human named Madeline, who brings me nice food and keeps me safe when I sleep. And she has learned how to scratch my ears properly." Oliver perked his ears in happiness at the thought of the nice woman. "The humans in that part of the land of the dead are all like that. They are friendly and very helpful."

"I'll believe it when I see it." Pipsqueak's tail flicked in annoyance, and she looked back over the trees. "So what is this part of the land of the dead, then? What spirits come here, if not prey?"

"This is a place of despair. The spirits that come here are the ones that lost the joy of life and gave up on living." The memories gave another pull at Oliver's back, and he rose to his feet and set off in the direction of the tugging. "The memories are pulling me this way. Roger must be near."

~

The forest slowly faded as Oliver led the way through it, replaced by an equally faded room. A plain table rested in the center of the room, surrounded by four boring-looking chairs, with a washed-out brown carpet covering the floor beneath them. Three doorways led out of the room, though everything outside the room just looked like a gray haze of fog.

"What is this?" Pipsqueak edged away from the table, looking around nervously. She eyed a small metal bowl that was on the carpet beside her for a moment before leaning in the other direction. "Is this some other part of the land of the dead? This isn't a forest."

"This is the room where humans eat food at. We have not left the forest; it has just been overridden by a stronger memory. This is one of Roger's memories." Oliver walked up to a chair and sniffed at it. "He has not been here long, so his memories are still strong enough to do that. It is safe to climb the table, if you want."

"I do not. Everything here is stupid; I am sure the 'table' will fade away as soon as I get to the top." Pipsqueak looked around again, then sniffed the air suddenly. "Hey... now that's an interesting smell. There's food here."

"Roger has strong memories of food being in this place. The food should be edible, if you want to eat it." Oliver jumped up onto the chair, then jumped onto the table. "Probably."

"Hmph." Pipsqueak glared up at the table for another second, then followed the orange cat onto the table.

Most of the table was covered in vague after-images like the trees of the forest. Stacks of envelopes flickered in and out of existence around the two cats, along with paper bags, books, and a small potted plant. Dishes covered in various types of food concentrated on one side of the table, slowly fading out to be replaced just as slowly by some other meal.

In the center of the dishes floated a faded gray sphere of light.

The memories on Oliver's back tugged him toward the floating globe, but he paused long enough to knock a stack of envelopes off the table. They faded before they hit the ground, but he had already lost interest in them and turned back to the gray sphere. "I am looking for someone. Are you 'Roger'?"

A faint orange shade seemed to tinge the gray light as a voice spoke from within it. "I... yes. That's my name. Roger." The globe of light floated higher, moving closer to Oliver at first, then floating towards Pipsqueak. "Are you a cat? Cats can't talk. How come I can understand you?"

Oliver's whiskers twitched in annoyance. "Because you are dead. Animals are always talking, but here in the land of the dead you can finally understand us."

"...oh. That explains a lot." The orange faded from Roger's light, and the spirit began to drift back into the center of the plates.

Oliver's whiskers twitched in surprise. Well, that had been an easier explanation than he had expected. "You need to come with me." He followed the spirit through the plates, dodging the faded image of a bowl of soup as it appeared, and reached up to bat at the globe of light. "Somebody sent me here to get you. She misses you and wants you to come back."

The spirit rolled along the table as the cat swatted at it... then it rolled back, drifting back to the center of the chair. "You have the wrong Roger. Nobody is going to miss me."

Pipsqueak leaned down to sniff at one of the plates. "Well, even if it's the wrong human, his food certainly smells good." She flicked her tail once and began licking the plate... only to hiss in annoyance as the plate faded away.

"It is the right human. This is the Roger we are looking for. He is just being a human. Go play with the envelopes; they are fun to knock over." Oliver shot Pipsqueak a glare with flattened ears, then looked back at the gray sphere of light. "You are wrong. A lady sent me here to find you. She is not very nice, and has threatened to do awful things to me if you do not come back. So clearly she does miss you a great deal, if it is bad enough to bother me over."

The gray light began to turn blue, and the spirit moved slowly from side to side on the table. "You're wrong. I spent my whole life looking for a woman like that. There never was one who cared. Not for me."

Oliver's tail flicked in annoyance. It was never as easy as just talking to a spirit. Talking never worked. "You have forgotten. But she has not." Time for one of the memories, then. But which one?

As much as Oliver wanted to get rid of the memory with the pain attached to it, he didn't think that would be a good idea. Roger would probably not react well to the knowledge that he had caused pain to someone else. For all Oliver knew, that was the whole reason the spirit had come here in the first place.

That left the other memories, both of which had a steady, happy warmth against his back. Each held evidence that the spirit was appreciated and cared for... but food was always a good place to start. And they were in his memory of a dining room, after all.

Oliver reluctantly pulled back the paw that had been batting at the faintly-glowing spirit and instead sat up on the table. He curved his back and reached down with his head to bite at the itchy spots, moving toward the memory...

His teeth pulled the memory free, and he turned back to drop it on the table before the spirit. The memory fell to the table as the same ember of light, but when it touched the surface, the ember flared. It was too bright to look at for a moment, but the light soon faded, and in its place rested a black cooking pan. It looked more solid and real than the faded images of plates that seemed to flicker in and out around the table, and it had a delicious smell coming from it.

Pipsqueak inhaled from the other side of the table as the scent reached her – freshly baked eggs, bacon, and sausage. "Yuuuum... finally, something that smells interesting in this place."

"What is that?" The blue seemed to fade a little from the spirit's light, replaced with a curious yellow shade, as it drifted slowly towards the pan. "I remember... this feels familiar..."

"It's a memory. I was given this so you would know how much your lady misses you." Oliver reached out with a paw to try and knock the pan off the table, but the pan proved to be too heavy. After a few pushes he gave up, flicking his tail in further annoyance at the stubborn memory. "It is being stubborn. You will have to come up here and touch it."

"Why?" The spirit's light seemed to pulse with more yellow, but it stayed a cautious distance away from the pan.

"Because that's how memories work. This is the memory of someone who cares about you. Come up here and touch the pan, and then you will see that I am right."

"...okay." The spirit floated closer... then stopped again, just short of the pan. "Will it hurt?"

"I don't know." Oliver batted at the sphere of faded light and knocked it into the pan.

Light filled the room as the spirit touched the memory.

The faded dining room was gone when the light faded, replaced instead by a vibrant kitchen. Oliver and Pipsqueak were suddenly sitting on the cool tile floor of the kitchen, with the spirit hovering beside them. A man stood in the center kitchen, leaning over the oven set into one side of the room. Delicious smells filled the memory – the smells of eggs, bacon, and sausage were still there, but now there were more scents in the air. Hints of beef and chicken tantalized the cats' noses for a moment, before being replaced by broiled fish and sharp lemons. The smell of milk and cheeses wafted around them, only to give way to the bitter but interesting scent of chocolates.

The sight before the cats changed along with the scents. Sometimes the man stood over the oven and did something with a pot or pan. Sometimes the man opened the oven and poked a fork at something inside. Sometimes the man moved to the other side of the kitchen to open the refrigerator, causing cold air to spill out, and pulled something out of it. Other times he pulled things from the cabinets in the walls, and poured them into a bowl before mixing them together with a spoon.

An energy filled the room while the man cooked. A sense of excitement at what the man was cooking. Laughter came sometimes, as he made silly jokes. Singing came at others, as he sang to himself while he mixed ingredients or attended whatever was cooking over the stove.

And then the cooking was finished. A warm feeling came then – the sense of having something exciting to eat, followed by the satisfied feeling of being full.

The light in the kitchen seemed to fade as the memory ended, leaving the two cats and the spirit alone in a dim kitchen. Oliver looked back at the spirit, then batted it towards a cabinet. "Do you remember now? That was a memory of you she values greatly. She wants you to come back, so she can have more memories like that."

"Yes... I remember... I was cooking food for us. She... yes. She always seemed so happy, even though... I wasn't very good..." The gray light around the spirit seemed to get brighter for a moment... then blue began to seep into the light. "But... I lost my job. I couldn't find a new one. I... they were going to take away my house. I couldn't afford more food for us. I..."

"You failed." A harsh squeak came from the far side of the kitchen. Oliver whirled with an angry hiss, arching his back as he stared at the source of the sound, and Pipsqueak leapt back from him as she turned to search for the speaker. Their eyes both narrowed as they spotted the creature slinking out of one of the cabinets. A rat, one nearly as big as they were.

The rat glared at the spirit with angry red eyes and pointed one paw accusingly up at it. "You had a simple task. Provide food. Something that humans have spent thousands of years making easy. It is as simple as going to the grocery store and bringing it back. No months of weeding and watering and harvesting. Nothing to chase down and kill. Somebody else does all the hard work for you, and leaves you with the simplest part."

"And you couldn't even do that little. You are a failure."

The spirit shook, and the glow around it began to fade, drawing the room into darkness. The rat advanced into the kitchen, seeming to grow encouraged by the fading light. "She only wants you back because she's stupid. She doesn't realize yet just how badly you have messed it all up. She doesn't realize you can't give her more memories like those. But she will find out if you go back. You'll only make her life miserable. There will be no more happy meals. She's going to starve, because you are such a screw-up that you can't even afford food for a-"

A sharp SNAP interrupted the rat's words as Oliver leapt across the room and pounced on its back. The creature let out a horrific yelp, causing the faded room to vibrate with the sound.

Oliver bit down, and the cry ended. The rat jerked beneath the cat's paws, then grew still.

The rat's corpse dissolved beneath Oliver's paws, leaving only a pile of sticky goo... and then even that faded away.

A low chuckle echoed around the room. "You can't get rid of me that easily, cat. Roger isn't leaving. He made his choice, and he's here to stay."

Oliver shook his paw, sending strands of the dissolving goo flying, then looked around the room. It was empty except for Pipsqueak, who was staring at the goo in confusion. The rat was gone, but the spirit was gone, too. He flicked his tail in annoyance. Great. Just great. Now he was going to have to chase down Roger all over again.

He shook himself off and got back to his paws, then started walking past Pipsqueak. "Come on. He's wandered off somewhere; we have to find him again." The two memories on his back tugged at him, and he followed their annoying lead. Again.

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Author's note - Upload Schedule

Thank you all for being patient (and many thanks to everyone who helped me edit this)!  I have finished this story and will be uploading a chapter each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at around 10 am eastern, until the story is completed.  I did make minor changes to the Prologue as well as Chapter 1, so if you already read the earlier versions, I would suggest rereading them just in case.  Most of the changes aren't that significant but I'd hate for it to confuse anyone.

And as always, thank you again for reading!  I hope you enjoy what I've written!

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