Gunpowder
Chapter Twenty Six

Poppy couldn’t stop reading. She read every post on the community, decrypted every cipher, solved every code. There were more people in on the group than she could have ever imagined: 995. Nine hundred and ninety five ex-loyals were part of this cult.

But her mind kept trailing back to the single post in the chat room: “Cat.” Was it some sort of code word? It only appeared when she entered the chat room, it had to have been directed at her, didn’t it? If it was directed at her, what did it mean? Was it an insult, calling her weak? Or, an assumption which was far worse, did they mean they wanted to kill her?

After the single word had popped up, she had immediately closed the chat room window, too afraid to respond; But now she was considering opening it again. What harm could it truly do? Its not like they could track her from just opening the window, the website had to have better security than that, right?

Her mouse cursor had hovered over the button many times, but she had not yet built up the courage to click it. That word was her demon now. It would haunt her for as long as she remembered its existence.

“Screw it,” she said, a look of determination appearing on her face. She had already rigged the computer with an IP scrambler. There was no way they could find her if her IP was switching to some random place every five seconds. Her mouse cursor flitted over to the button that would open the chat room, and, building up all the courage she had stored away in every nook and cranny of her soul, she clicked.

It was nothing special at first. The computer hummed for a split second, then the window opened.

“Tabbae is typing..” appeared for only a moment, and was quickly replaced by, “I am the dog and you are the cat. I am the god and you are the rat. It isn’t a fight, it is a bloodbath. Death would be merciful, Poppy,”

Poppy closed the window instantly after reading the cryptic poem and slammed the laptop closed. The person on the other end knew her name. She could only hope that they didn’t know her location as well. But that hope was just a sliver under her mountain of fear and dread. What had she done? How could she have been so stupid? Her thoughts only got more terrifying as she leaped onto her bed and hid under the covers like a small child, thinking that the fabric would protect her from whatever monsters came her way.

What did this “Tabbae” person mean by “Death would be mercy?”

The thought was cut short as she realized something she should have realized a long time ago.

Tabbae was an anagram.

An anagram of Abbet.

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