The Story with Luna

Around 2 p.m. on the 11th, the surveillance camera showed she still looked perfectly normal. When I got home around 9 a.m. on the 12th, she had already left me forever. Seeing her lying on the floor, unresponsive no matter how I called her, my mind went blank with a buzzing sound.

I even dared not go near to check on her—I was so scared, utterly terrified.In the end, I collapsed onto the floor and called a friend for help. My friend helped put her into the cat carrier and took her to the vet, and I cried the entire way.

The moment I saw the vet, a tiny spark of hope for a miracle flickered in my heart. But when the vet said she had been gone for quite a while, a wave of grief clogged my throat. After taking an X-ray, the vet suspected it was an acute heart condition.I cried so hard that my whole body shook. Everything was just too sudden. She would have turned four next month!

She was my little princess—so lovely, so smart, so beautiful.

I hate myself so much. I hate that I wasn’t at home; I hate that I never took her for a check-up. I loved her so, so, so much—more than I love myself. She was the first cat I ever raised. I got her when I hadn’t even graduated yet.

On the first day I brought her home, she wandered around fearlessly and climbed into bed to sleep with me. She could open drawers and cabinets by herself, then crawl inside to take a nap. Back then, weighed down by academic pressure and my father’s passing, I suffered from depression. It was my baby who stayed with me through countless dark nights and healed me. She would curl up around my arm, my foot, or lie on my chest to sleep. She liked to wake up in the middle of the night and lean in to smell my breath. She was with me through breakups, moves, and job changes.

I never once thought she would leave me.

I had already included her in every plan for the rest of my life. Why did fate treat me this way? It took her away—my beloved—without a word. Every time I look at the spots in the house where she used to linger, tears stream down uncontrollably. Her face is all I can see in my mind, as if this is all just a dream.
She was such a free-spirited little one. I wish so badly this was just a dream. That when I wake up, my baby will still be snuggled by my feet. She must have been in so much pain when she left. She probably didn’t want me to see her like that—that’s why she chose to go when I wasn’t home.

I folded and put away the sheet she used to lie on, because it still carries her scent. I’m so afraid that her traces, her smell, will slowly fade away from this house. Every day, the overwhelming longing and piercing pain weigh on me—I can’t even touch her anymore. I just want to see her one more time, hold her, and smell her again.

From the moment I open my eyes to the second I close them, all I see is the image of her lying on the floor at the end.

And the sight of her tiny body being taken into the crematorium.

My heart hurts so much…