The Hipster Who Leapt Through Time (The Hipster Trilogy Book 2) by Luke Kondor

if he were with Moomamu in a tiny room. Talking over cappuccino.
    “I think it’s called teleporting. Normally it takes me to other places. But this time … it … well … it didn’t,” he shouted.
    The silence in the stadium became awkward. Nobody knew what to do. Had Moomamu cheated? He’d merely fought in the only way he knew how. And he didn’t even do it on purpose. How could he be held accountable for cheating?
    Moomamu looked down at the human. He was still moving. Crawling away towards safety. Wherever that was. The movement had opened the skin and he was now leaking blood. A dried, red sandy trail led from Moomamu’s feet to the human and the crowd began to hiss again.  
    Moomamu didn’t know what to do. So he stood and waited. He’d won the fight. Freedom would be his reward.
    “He cheated,” a lone voice from the crowd shouted.  
    “Kill ‘em both,” another said.  
    Moomamu looked up to the shouting cat. The prince had stood up from his blanket and wandered over to the shouting cat, who kneeled and put his ear to the prince’s mouth. He then rose and silenced the crowd again with a wave of his paws.
    “Okay,” the shouting cat began. “It was the prince’s promise that the winner of the fight would be granted his freedom.”
    Moomamu felt excited. First step, freedom. Second step, get back home.  
    “But,” the cat continued. “You have not yet won. Not by a cat’s standards anyway. Your opponent is crawling away. If you kill him, you will have your freedom.”  
    The words from the cell came to Moomamu’s mind. The whispering voice of the invisible man. He must take a life. He must kill.
    Moomamu didn’t know much of life. He’d not been alive, technically, for that long, but he did know one thing. When he’d seen Marta’s dead body, it had struck him like a lightning bolt to the groin. It awoke an anger in him. To see a miracle of cells and electricity and matter be made useless. To be rendered empty. It was something that hurt Moomamu more than any physical pain could. Perhaps being alone in the universe, in the stars for so long, made him appreciate life all the more. And now, he’d been asked to take it away.  
    He bent down and picked up the curved blade. The metal was discoloured with the dried blood of its victims. The body parts and remains of the other cats littered the Scrapping Grounds. The blade was heavy. The handle wrapped in weathered skin. It was a small blade, about the length of a cat’s tail, but it was sharp. Moomamu could see that. He turned and walked towards the man who’d now slowed in his escape, the stick reaching upwards to the sky from the wound in his shoulder.
    Moomamu walked in front of the human and stopped. The human looked up at Moomamu. A fine line of blood marking the ends of his mouth and making its way down his chin. His eyes were bloodshot. The fabric around his head had fallen back, revealing a forest of thick black hair dusted with sand.
    You must kill.  
    The words rang in Moomamu’s mind.  
    You must kill.
    He lifted the blade towards the sky and the crowd erupted with cheers, pleased with the results of the day. As Moomamu readied himself to bring the blade down into the human’s skull he heard the word, “Please.”
    He stopped, looked down. The human was looking at him. His eyes screamed mercy.  
    “Please,” he said, coughing up a mouthful of blood. “I just want to go home.”
    The blade felt heavier with every passing second.  
    All he needed to do was let the blade fall. The weight would do the work. It would land in the human’s head. And then he could go home. Just let the blade do the work. His arms shook. They were tired. The blade grew heavier with every second.
    Moomamu sighed, lowered the blade and threw it to the floor.  
    “I can’t do it,” Moomamu said, to himself at first but then louder to the crowd. “I can’t do it!”
    With a single wave of the prince’s paw, an arrow flew through the air and