Chapter 13: Shooter
As soon as Nick poked his head out of the door, another arrow came flying. Fortunately, the tentacle hadn't lied about its capabilities. It reached up from under Nick's slanted chest and caught the arrow, breaking it in half and tossing the pieces to the side.
After only a couple of seconds, another arrow soared toward Nick's face. Nick had barely recovered from the first. He didn't even have time to react.
Fortunately, he didn't have to react, either. The tentacle did all the hard work and caught the arrow again.
Nick cleared his throat and pushed open the door further, taking a step out. He wasn't scared of the arrows.
He was, but he wasn't going to show the shooter that.
After Nick stepped onto the porch, the tentacle caught three more arrows before there was a halt to the attacks. During the pause, Nick thought a little about what could possibly make someone try and kill him just because he existed.
He couldn't come up with a specific reason, but he realized that throughout history, people had often killed without reason. Outsiders, foreigners, strangers, and people who 'didn't belong' were often targets of baseless killings.
The one trying to drop arrows into his brain probably didn't have any grand reason.
After a while, Nick saw something move at the edge of his house's clearing. It was a...
'A cat?' Nick squinted as he tried to see the figure clearly. It looked a little like a cat walking on two legs or a person mixed with a cat. They had two soft, small, and slightly fluffy ears on top of their head. Glossy black fur that shone in the porch's light covered their arms and parts of their face. The eyes were yellow and very much like those of a cat, including the vertical slit pupils that were barely more than straight lines as they stared at him.
From what Nick could remember about cats, their eyes were like that when they were very angry.