Story-eating cat

Story-eating cat
One of the few images taken of the story-eating cat. The photographer was later found half-eaten in a nearby river, with a note on it that said "sowwy, i was hungwy >-<".
Born	Around 2000BC Mari
Nationality	Mariot
Other names	Mari, Mary

The story-eating cat is an abnormally small yet hostile creature from somewhere in Mesopotamia. Few written sources document its existence, but it has made its way into many old folktales across the Fertile Crescent as a wretched and dangerous beast that frequently fed on loose livestock, people and building materials. It has been called many names, such as the "shadow tiger", "devil of Babylon", "earth eater" and sometimes a "cute little kitty" by people who don't know any better.

Description

Due to the lack of written sources about this creature, its nature is rather shrouded in mystery. However, most known sources point that it normally had the appearance of a cute orange kitty, but left this alluring appearance the moment it wanted to eat, unhinging its jaws to an unnatural degree, to the point of being able to swallow cities whole. Researches disagree if this cat was a freak of nature, an unwordly demon, or an alien from another planet; but they do agree that it had to be an incredibly dangerous creature and suggest that those who ever find a creature with similar description should run for their lives.

History

Before 800 BC

A drawing of what's rumored to be the story-eating cat's true form. It is unknown who the artist behind the drawing is, or if they managed to finish it alive...

The story-eating cat was first spotted in the city-state of Mari around the year 2000 BC. It quickly became well-known around the city for its small size and for being unusually willing to approach the residents, as well as its big appetite. It was also a very potent hunter, killing so many pests that the city managed to save up remarkable amounts of grain each year. However, this overabundance of available food made the city a prime target of conquest, and when it was conquered by the Assyrians the cat was captured in order to become food itself it ate up half of the Assyrian army in order to free itself. It would from that point onward develop not only a great mistrust of people, but also an absolutely gargantuan appetite, making it known as the feared "Shadow Tiger of the Euphrates". However, it would also go on to learn how to write and speak, making it possible for it to manipulate local farmers to give it food. This would go on until 1100 BC at the very earliest.

800 BC - 1900s

At some point after the fall of Persia it had largely abandoned the Mesopotamian river valley, presumably in order to find food elsewhere. Because of this it was rarely written or spoken about until the Spanish started colonizing the Americas, when they found this cat eating up an entire mountain in the Andes. Since the Spanish had no clue what it was doing they decided to leave it alone, but its presence would cause a lot of problems for them later on when it was done eating the mountain, as now it had fresh infrastructure right at its doorstep. This was, in fact, the tipping point that made the Spanish give up on recolonizing the area, as rebuilding the area after the cat had eaten it cost too much money. Simón Bolívar somehow managed to scare it off though, but this came at the cost of his military capabilities.

Following its (somewhat voluntary) expulsion from South America, the cat instead turned its eyes north, towards the United States. There, it learnt English, German and Irish, as well as a little bit of Dutch from stalking Martin Van Buren in his presidential office. In addition to this it learnt how to swear from Andrew Jackson's parrot at his funeral. It was then caught eating Jackson's coffin after the ceremony, making it a prime target for bounty hunters for a couple of decades, at which point everyone collectively assumed it was dead and gave up on trying to find it. It then ate up a bunch of gold reserves in 1893, causing a big recession.

1900s

Not much is known about what the cat did (or ate) between 1893 and 1941, but what we do know is that it'd expressed interest in fighting in WWI, as evidenced by a bunch of letters to the President of the United States allegedly written by the cat. However, it never got the opportunity to do so, having to wait until 1941 to be able to eat German soldiers. Official estimates on the amount of troops the cat ate range between 100 thousand to a million soldiers, making the cat probably the most significant enemy the Nazis ever had to deal with, and possibly being responsible for defeating them too. After the war it mostly went underground, not only because that was were the Nazis were hiding, but also because a cat eating tons of people daily draws in a lot of attention. The whereabouts of the cat aren't really known from this point onward, but it is suspected that it has something to do with the disappearance of a couple of forests in Siberia in the 70s and 80s.