Bloody Rose stalked down a dark alleyway, her black form twisting like a shadow as it melded with her surroundings. Her claws, perpetually unsheathed, left deep gouges in the ground beneath her.

She had her eyes on her target. Her prey. Prey which she had been observing and stalking for a few nights now.

A white she-cat had just rounded the corner ahead of her, as she did every night. Carnation was her name - though Carn was the name she was called by the tom she was going to meet.

Bloody Rose leapt silently onto a ledge a few feet above her, tailing Carnation from above. The she-cat was cautiously scanning her surroundings, perhaps aware that she was being watched, but she, like all the others, never thought to look up.

At the end of an alley, the she-cat stopped, and waited. There were a few heartbeats of silence. Then a tom - Alder was his name - stepped out of the shadows, behind a dumpster. He saw her, and something in his yellow-amber eyes melted. His only greeting was a deep purr. Relief filled the she-cat's blue eyes, and she rushed towards him, burying her face in his shoulder.

Love. Bloody Rose - she hated it. While some people might feel their skin spark with electricity, it made her skin crawl in the worst possible way. A declaration of love was a pledge that could never be kept. The cat you fancy might seem like the most brilliant cat you've ever laid eyes on. The sun might as well shine out of their ass. But the sun sets. The sun sets, and the passion dies, and one party is left wondering what went wrong, and what they saw in the other person. There is pain. There is always pain. Everything ends in pain. Again, and again, and again.

Or the love was always false. The love was never true, or pure. The relationship was an infection, a virus, that took over a victim from the inside. It was abusive - one cat exercising power over another for the sake of their ego, and slapping a nice pretty label on top. Again, and again, and again.

What's more, so often, young, stupid cats confused love with lust. Lust - natural, but shameful. True, real love was naive and innocent. Lust was raw, and uncivilised. The darkness that flitted across a lover's eyes, admiration of another's physique, this was not something to be celebrated. It was a necessary evil, but was mistaken for romanticised notion of purity. Again, and again, and again.

Love can never be forever strong and true. Love is people changing themselves to feel wanted. Love distracted from more important things - getting ahead in the world, contributing to society. Love could be persecuted. Love was the cage that traps a bird, and although the bird can sing as much as it likes, it will never fly, or truly know freedom. Love eventuated in pain, betrayal, and heartache. Love cut deep, like a knife, and the knife twisted with every mistake, as everything unravelled. Again, and again, and again.

Bloody Rose's tail brushed against a pot of flowers mounted on the wall behind her. Then she knew. Tonight was the night.

Alder looked deep into his mate's eyes, his own glowing in the darkness. "I don't want to lose you, Carn. I can't, I-"

The she-cat pressed against him, her voice broken, tearful, thick with greif. "I know. I hate it. But I can't control it."

"I know, I know."

"I'll miss you, Alder."

He nodded, his eyes bright. He moved a step closer. "I know. I love you," he breathed.

Bloody Rose felt something twist in her heart at the words. She couldn't put words to the feeling, aside from the fact that it was malicious in nature.

These two cats were being forced to separate. Carnation was being forced to leave - this was a good bye. A smirk pulled at her lips. She could prevent this. She could make it so that they never left each other's side.

After all, that was what true love was, wasn't it?

She dropped down from her ledge, directly behind them. Her paws made a faint shuffling sound. Two heads whipped around, two pairs of eyes staring at her. Carnation flattened her ears. "W-who are you?!"

She grinned.

She gathered up her haunches, and with a shrill, almost joyful screech, sprung at them. Carnation's blue eyes went wide, and Alder stepped in front of her, teeth bared, fur fluffed out. He lunged to bite her, and she laughed has his teeth sunk into her shoulder.

It gave her the opportunity to rip his throat out. His last words would be his quiet, solemn declaration of love. What more could he have asked for?

Carnation let out a terrified screech, eyes stretched wide. "N-no. No, no, no, no-"

Bloody Rose fixed her gaze on the she-cat. The snowy white cat stared back, then her shoulders slumped in defeat. The light was already dying from her eyes - she had accepted death the moment she'd lost her lover. "Take me. Just do it. I want to be with him."

Bloody Rose flattened her ears. They were polar opposites - black and white. "You are foolish."

"So be it."

That was the end of her, too. She ripped into her body. Again. And again. And again.

To complete the ritual, she dipped her bloody paws into a small pool of water in a dip in the pavement, then leapt onto the ledge on the side of a building, glancing at the flowerboxes.

There was a white rose. White, for purity and innocence. She cut it at the base, with a razor sharp foreclaw, then leapt back down, holding it carefully in her jaws, dragging it through the blood of the two lovers. Their blood would forever be mixed.

How romantic.

Chapter by Leafy, who has clearly read far too many depressing English books oops