Caterwaul

This is more than 500 words, but I feel if I cut it anymore, it'll lose whatever oomph it has. PS my mommy is not fat, cleans every day and doesn't try to sacrifice me to demons. Also my house is not full of cats.

The house was full of shit. Junk rose, wiggling with worms and maggots, from the swallowed floor to the ceiling. High ridges of trash and boxes swayed and collapsed atop the swamp of damp garbage. The smell of soiled clothing, rotten meat and alcohol curdled the air.
Cats haunted the mountains of debris. Little starving things with thin, bulging ribs and wide, wild eyes. They crept like roaches in hell and sought out warm, dry places to curl up and die. Some escaped, for the door to the house did open on occasion, and they scrambled over one another to dart past the fat woman in the doorway. They ran blindly into the world, leaving the dying to fester in the house while the woman wailed.
Another lived there, in his own space, detached from the rest of the house. It was a boy, Conner, who guarded the only clean room. It was inaccessible from within the house; he had allowed heavy clutter to block the door. Conner entered his bedroom from the window, a high place that his fat mother could not climb. He was safe within the clean room, and if mother tried pushing her belongings into his space he would fight her. She would cry and sob and claim he didn’t love her, but Conner never replied. He’d only gaze back and wait for her to open the window. Then he’d spit in her face. She usually relented, but her resentment towards him for barring her from the room was deep.
It was bad luck if any of Conner’s belongings strayed from his room. The item would become immersed immediately. Gobbled up. Everything fell lost in the house. On a better day, the thing (in this case, a notebook) would sit right outside the door. It was the only time he ever went wandering into the filth.
Conner crept through the narrow pathways that cut through mother’s kingdom. Books, hardware, appliances, furniture, cat toys and God knew what else towered far above his head. Thick layers of brown dust slopped on top of it all. Shit and piss. He tried not to touch the towers. He eyed them, not just in disgust but in distrust. A rusty refrigerator once tumbled atop him and pinned him to the floor. It nearly killed him.
Cats watched him go, sick pale eyes glittering from caverns of trash.
When he reached the blocked door, he felt a jolt. Something new sat before the decaying desk and stacked microwaves—a mirror, framed in silver, decorated in jagged spirals. It matched his height, and the reflection glared back at him. Lying before it were kittens—cold bodies twisted in death.

A cat brushed past him down the path. It carried a tiny kitten corpse between its yellow jaws. Conner watched it as it plopped the little dead thing before the mirror. Others followed it. A parade of cats swam out of the contamination, all carrying grim offerings, and placed them there.
A chill cut through his spine. He felt the back of his neck prickle, and the skin of his arms and legs pinched .Goose flesh crawled up his chest, tugging at the base of his throat. The kittens all had their mouths open, miniature teeth stained brown, and he saw fleas leaping in black swarms around them.
Something moved in the mirror. He pulled his eyes away from the pile and saw, with relief, that it was only his reflection. The image of Conner stared back at him and swayed side to side on restless legs.
It took only a second for him to realize that he standing very still. But the reflection still swayed to and fro like a snake, all on its own.
Mirror-Conner lowered itself to its knees and crawled, legs over arms, to the edge of the mirror.
“Hi,” it grinned.
Conner did not respond. He felt his trigger finger twitching and an odd drowning slush in his gut.
“What’s your name?” it said. Up close, Conner realized it did not look like him much at all. The basic shape of his face and body were identical, but the mouth was sharp and the eyes were misshapen. They had a milky film over them.
“You can tell me,” it continued. “Your name.”
“No,” Conner said. More and more cats brought the mirror their children. “Why?”
“Why? Because that’s what people do when they greet each other,” it said. “You miserable mongrel.”
“No, why are the cats doing that.” He could hardly hear himself talk.
“Oh,” it placed its hands on the mirror. They pressed against it; Conner saw the skin of the hands flatten. “They’re mine. Presents. Born here, or dead here, in this house. Don’t worry, they don’t have names. What’s yours?”
Conner’s head buzzed, full of moths. His arms felt light and though his heart sped in his chest, he did not run.
“Why don’t they have names. I can name them.”
Mirror-Conner watched him, tapping its long fingers on the glass like an impatient child.
“Things born in this house have no names. Things that die in this house give them away. To me. They are mine. Now give me yours,” it said. The thing in the mirror, yellow skinned with long, twisting nails stretched its bottom jaw to the floor. The reflections of the kittens wiggled and moaned as the long, sopping tongue scrapped them into its mouth. It crunched down on the nameless cats, and they screamed as it swallowed. Conner stood, frozen, and watched innards spill from between the thing’s teeth.