The laughter echoed in Quaxo’s head, taunting him, exposing his worthlessness for his entire psyche to see. He ran and kept running, not caring at all where he was going. He ran past piles and piles of junk, going deeper and deeper into the Junkyard. The laughter just kept getting louder. Quaxo could feel tears starting to well up in his eyes, starting to cloud his sight. He kept running.

He finally stopped and when he did, he wished he hadn’t. He had no idea where he was. Quaxo nervously turned around, looking up at the unfamiliar piles of junk, so like his home, and yet so alien. His tail nervously twitched back and fourth as Quaxo tried to find his scent to back track. No luck. His nervous state and plain lack of tracking talent kept him from picking anything up.

"Great Heaviside…" Quaxo muttered under his breath. Why did they have to go and make him run?! Now he was lost and wouldn’t be able to find his way home until morning, if he was lucky. "Stupid queens!" he hissed in frustration. And Tugger? Quaxo paused. He didn’t feel any animosity for the other tom…

Quaxo shook his head. This wasn’t any time for thinking of things like that… He had other things to worry about. He looked around to see if he could find any of his footprints. None. The ground was solidly packed dirt. There was some dust, but even his superior Jellicle vision couldn’t pick anything up. "I guess I should wait until morning." He said as he looked around for someplace that looked like it would offer some shelter for the night. Nearby, he saw an old truck, turned upside down so that there was a space between the ground and the truck bed that would be a good spot to camp out for the night.

He made his way over to the truck, jumping slightly at each strange sound. When he reached the truck, he turned and looked up at the sky one last time. The stars were the same. Quaxo smiled. The stars were always there, always constant. He was about to duck under the truck when something caught his eye. He looked back up at the sky and slowly scanned the horizon.

Quaxo’s eyes tried to take in the whole horizon in an attempt to find what was different. The color? A deep blue, almost black. That was normal enough. The stars? They danced and shined as always. The Moon? The Moon…

Quaxo shook his head and looked again, just to be sure. There was something different about the Moon. He cocked his head to the side, as if a change of angle would change this strange feeling that was swimming around in his head. No, it didn’t change the feeling in the least. Quaxo squinted and searched the Moon, trying to find what was nagging his consciousness. Then it hit him…

Jellicle. The Moon looked like a Jellicle Moon!

"But that’s impossible…" Quaxo whispered, not believing what he was seeing. He closed his eyes and shook his head again, trying to convince himself that he was simply seeing a figment of a tired mind, but when he opened them again, the image was the same. If anything, it was clearer to him more than ever, even than on the eve of the Jellicle Ball.

"No, no this can’t be right..!" Quaxo muttered, resting his head in his hands, but jerking back suddenly in pain and surprise. He looked at his hands with a look of mixed shock and horror on his face. He still felt the burning sensation on the sides of his head from where his hands had been mere moments before. His hands, formally covered with dull, white fur were now black, a slick ebony and seemed to be glossier than even Tugger’s coat. The simple fact that his coat color was changing in front of his very eyes should have been enough for the young tom to be concerned with, but he didn’t even seem to notice the amazing transformation in front of him. What had his eyes’ attention was the faint blue glow that was emanating from them. The pale color of the glow would make one think that it should be cool to the touch, but Quaxo’s hands felt like they were burning! Tears welled up in his eyes from the searing pain and he couldn’t help a whimper pass through his lips.

As if his whole body was conspiring against him in some cruel plan, Quaxo felt the burning pain making its presence known in his legs, causing him to drop to the ground. Hoping to stop the pain, Quaxo drew his body into a tight ball, only to let out an ear-piercing scream when the mysterious glow around his extremities seared his face and torso even more when contact was made.

Feeling his body being consumed by the glow and the pain, Quaxo simply lay on his side and allowed himself to cry.

It reached the top of his arms, and Quaxo could feel it creep onto his torso, spreading down towards his chest, and up along his shoulders to his head. Below, it had reached his thighs and he could feel it spread down his tail.

Quaxo’s entire body shuddered as the two masses of light and pain slowly crept towards one another. Quaxo arched his back and stretched his arms and legs in strange writhing motions, as the pain twisted itself into something unlike he had ever experienced before. His mind felt like it was being twisted, pulled and molded into some strange shape, one that Quaxo couldn’t even recognize as his own. Slowly the twisting snapped him from his body, the pain suddenly gone completely, replaced by a strange feeling of euphoric freedom that he was amazed by, yet terrified of. No longer did he see himself in the Junkyard. Gone were the piles of human-created refuse that provided shelter, and provided an occasional meal. Even the sky and its stars, the one thing in his life that had had been constant, was suddenly gone. In their place was a vastness that he never could have imagined before.

He felt like he was floating, yet anchored. The sky around him was endless black. Not the deep midnight blue of the sky above the Junkyard, but black. It was black like the deepest pools of water, yet here he seemed to be able to see the stars even better than before. He seemed closer to them, as if he could reach out and touch them. There was an air about this place that was frightening, yet comforting… The stars that circled him looked warmer than the ones back in the Junkyard. They almost looked like they were reaching out to him, urging him to come to them…

For a moment, Quaxo stood as still as a statue. He was frightened, more than he had ever been before in his life. Nothing about this made sense! I didn’t belong here! He wanted to yell. Leave me alone and let me go home!

::Do not deny what you must become.:: The words came softly as a whisper into his mind. ::There must be one in every generation.::

Quaxo started and looked around, and didn’t see anyone. Just the blackness and the stars. No! Let me go home!

::You must accept it.:: the voice whispered again. ::You are the one whose Ineffable Name must be known.::

Whoever you are, you’re nuts! Quaxo screamed in his mind. I don’t even know what my Ineffable Name is!

The Whisper was silent for a moment. ::When you are ready to accept it, you will learn it.::

Then the blackness enveloped him.

Tugger skirted around piles of junk, trying to keep on course toward where the scream sounded like it came from. Quaxo had a distinctive scent, making his own path easy to find, and for that, Tugger was eternally grateful. He felt guilt gnawing away at him. If only he hadn’t decided that it would be a good idea to try to get Quaxo out. If only the girls hadn’t laughed when they dropped him. If only… If, if, if. That’s not going to do anything. Tugger’s mind snapped to him.

He’s so small, Tugger thought, to delicate to fight anything that might be out there. That thought only served to make the tom push himself harder. Turning the next bend in the maze that was the Junkyard, Tugger saw something that made him come to a sudden stop and take cover behind an old washing machine.

There was a small clearing amidst the piles of junk, and laying next to an old overturned van was the body of a cat. Tugger did his best to try to see better who it was, but the darkness surrounding the cat made it almost impossible. All Tugger could see from his cover was a black cat, with a white face and chest.

It looks like Quaxo…Tugger thought. But Quaxo has more white, and the black is… is wrong. He quietly moved a little closer, his mostly black coat giving him enough cover to blend in with the shadows with the other cat being unaware of his presence. Once he was a little closer, he saw that the colors were indeed wrong. The white was far whiter than the grayish white of Quaxo’s coat, and glossy ebony fur covered this cat’s entire body except for the half-hidden face, partially visible chest and a dusting of white on the ears. The rest of the body was covered in a glossy black, a far cry from the matte black of Quaxo’s coat. He was going to move a little closer to the still figure, when he detected a hint of movement. Then there was a sound. It was something between a groan and a painful whimper and the cat’s figure slowly curled into a ball and even from his distant standpoint, Tugger could see that the other cat was trembling violently.

Tugger was confused. Really confused. Here was a scent trail that led to Quaxo, a yell that sounded like Quaxo, but this cat didn’t look like Quaxo. The physical differences might not have meant much to a human but to cats, many of whom look very similar, little details made a great deal of difference. Sometimes one cat could be differentiated from another only by a shade of a coat, or by a stripe or two. But the smell was right… And that’s what drew Tugger in closer to the strange cat.