The Final Request

My life had always been ordinary. I worked in a library, lived in a small apartment with my plants, and had a routine that could be set to a metronome. I’d never believed in the supernatural, not even as a child when my grandmother told me stories about spirits that haunted the old forest behind our house. Those were just tales to scare children into behaving.

Then I found Kiko, a scrawny, trembling cat huddled by the dumpster behind the grocery store. It was raining, and he was soaked, his fur matted, his eyes full of fear. I took him home, planning to call the animal shelter the next day. But Kiko was sick, listless, refusing to eat. The vet said he had a hernia and some blood test abnormalities, gave me antibiotics, and sent us home. Kiko perked up, played with a piece of string, and purred for the first time. I thought he was on the mend.

But after a week, he declined again. A second vet took X-rays and found a collapsed lung, two hernias, and something called FIP, a fatal, incurable feline disease. The vet said that even surgery wouldn’t save him. I had to do the humane thing: put him to sleep. I held him, stroking his fur as he slipped away. I cried for hours.

A month later, I started noticing things. A tuft of his gray fur on the carpet, even though I had vacuumed multiple times. A cold spot in the corner of the living room, which I dismissed as a draft. Then, one night, I woke to the sound of scratching at my bedroom door. I swung it open, but nothing was there. I checked the apartment; all was quiet.

The next night, I heard a faint meow, unlike any sound Kiko had made in life. It was deeper, more resonant. It came from under the bed. I knelt and looked, but only saw dust bunnies. The following night, I felt a pressure on my chest, as if a cat were sitting on me, but I could see nothing. I lay still, my heart hammering, and then I heard a voice—clear as a bell, but not spoken aloud—in my mind: ‘You let me die.’

I tried to rationalize it. Grief could do strange things to the mind. I went to the library, buried myself in work, but the presence followed me. Books would topple off shelves when I walked by. A patron would ask if I had a cat, because they felt something brush their leg. I knew it wasn’t a haunting; it was something else, something worse.

I remembered the first vet’s words: ‘He has a collapsed lung, but we can try surgery, but FIP is fatal.’ And I remembered the second vet’s: ‘It’s the kindest thing.’ But now, I wondered if there was something more I could have done. The guilt festered, and the phenomena grew.

One evening, as I prepared dinner, I saw a shadow dart across the corner of my eye. I turned, and there, sitting on the kitchen counter, was a translucent shape that looked just like Kiko. His eyes were not the soft yellow they had been in life; they were black, bottomless pools. He opened his mouth, and a foul odor—like decay and cat food—filled the room. ‘Why did you kill me?’ he asked, the words forming in my head, each one like a cold finger trailing down my spine.

I stumbled back. ‘I didn’t want to. You were suffering. It was the only way.’

‘There was another way,’ the specter hissed, his form rippling. ‘You could have searched harder, spent more. You have money. You chose to spend it on yourself.’

I did have savings. I could have taken him to a specialist, maybe found a clinical trial. But I had been afraid of huge vet bills, afraid of prolonging his pain. I had chosen the easy way out, and now he was here, reminding me.

Over the next week, the haunting intensified. Kiko appeared more solid, his presence more oppressive. Objects flew across the room, leaving scratches on the walls. My plants withered, turning brown and black. I barely slept, and when I did, I dreamed of black water closing over my head, of Kiko’s claws on my throat.

I sought help. A priest, a skeptic, a medium—each offered different explanations, but none could rid me of Kiko. The medium, a fragile woman with trembling hands, told me, ‘He wants you to fulfill his last request. He wants to be buried with his mother.’

But Kiko was a stray. I had no idea where his mother was. I scoured the shelter records, the vet logs, but there was no trace. In my desperation, I began to search the neighborhood where I found him, asking if anyone knew of a litter. Finally, an old man who lived across the street from the grocery store told me that a stray cat had given birth under his porch a few months ago. ‘The whole litter died except one,’ he said. ‘I saw your cat from the store. He was the only survivor.’

He pointed to a barren patch of earth under his porch where he had buried the mother and the dead kittens. I went there that night, carrying Kiko’s remains in a small wooden box. I dug a hole and gently placed the box beside the spot where the mother was buried. As I covered it with dirt, I felt a cold wind swirl around me, and for a moment, I heard a purr, a deep, resonant purr that filled the air.

Then nothing. The wind died, the air warmed. I stood, tears streaming, and walked home. That night, I slept for the first time in a week, deeply and without dreams.

The phenomena stopped. My plants recovered, and the cold spot vanished. I resumed my routine, but I was changed. I kept Kiko’s collar as a reminder, and I vowed never to make such a choice again. I still don’t believe in ghosts, but I believe in the power of guilt and the requests of the dead. Some say the dead can’t come back, but they can. They wait for you to fulfill their final wishes, and until you do, they’ll haunt your every step.