It smells so weird out here!
Maybe I shouldn’t have picked a spot right behind the dumpsters to switch, but turning into a cat is gonna be seen as weird so I need to hide if I’m not doing it indoors. Hehe. I’m an outdoor cat now! Rahhh!
Oh gosh, I didn’t even check to make sure there weren’t any cameras.
There aren’t, thankfully, but now I can’t help but think that that’s an oversight on the university’s part.
Oh well.
Holy balls I have sooooo much energy! I want to run run run! I wanna chase something!
But first, I really must get out of this dreadfully smelly alley.
I peer around the corner of the dumpster I hid behind, manic giggling pouring out of me in a stream of hss-hss-hsses. No one’s in sight, coast is clear, I’m free to go! I was worried if someone saw me coming out from behind a dumpster, they might go and investigate and maybe take my bag, but no one’s here! Yippee!
I bolt out of the alley, faster than I’ve ever run before, wind flying past me as I take the ground ahead of me in great strides, putting one foreleg in front of the other and kicking off the ground with my hindlegs when I land, bounding down the grass beside the sidewalk (concrete hurts my paws to run on!) and past a group of students I’ve seen around quite a bit. A girl with bright, dyed red hair, a girl with black hair, and two guys with dark brown hair. They smell like grease and cheese and sweat and flowers and pine and holy crap my nose is picking up sooo many smells! Too many! Gotta tune them out!
“Holy shit, look at ‘em go!” a girl says as I run past.
Someone else cries out, someone gasps, someone laughs.
It’s all noise, all behind me. I am speed.
I run, and I run, and I run.
I make it out of the cluster of dormitories and run towards campus. I could go into the surrounding neighbourhoods, but they don’t feel as known or as safe as campus. Objectively, nothing is safe. It all feels so new with my enhanced senses and I don’t really know how I’ll react to something “new”. The air smells fresher where I am now, still running in the grass alongside a different sidewalk that borders a road. The trees are beautiful, all golden yellows and pastel oranges, and the sky is blue and cloudless. I can smell car exhaust and someone, somewhere, smoking weed, but for the most part, the air is fresh. I have never smelled this deeply before. Oh my gosh I hope it rains again before winter. I need to smell petrichor. I need to!
RAHHH!
I’m so fast. The wind feels so freaking good against my face!
There’s more people ahead, only three this time. They’re chatting about something I can’t make out because I’m not in range yet, but one of them, a girl, points at me and takes out her phone. I briefly worry about someone taking a picture of me before realizing I don’t give a hoot. Take my picture all you want! I am free and happy and fast and beautiful. I am full of grace and I am agile and I am awesome.
The group stops, the two boys watching me run and the girl following me with her camera as I get closer. I still have so much freaking energy, but what the heck, I can stop for a moment.
I slow my sprint to a quick trot, strutting over to the girl filming me. Her eyes are sparkling and her pale face is lit up with joy. She’s really cute, too! She’s wearing a knit crimson sweater and dark jeans, and her brown pixie cut looks adorable on her squishy lil’ face. I don’t pay any attention to the boys, just strutting my stuff until I’m right in front of her. I tilt my head up at her and give her a cursory sniff—stale paper, something chemical-y, and cinnamon. Strange. Strange, but cool and new and, combined with her vibe, good enough for me to feel comfortable rubbing up against her pant leg. She immediately gasps, bending down to pet me, and I let her. One of the guys tells her not to pet stray cats and the other crouches down with an outstretched hand. I’m hesitant to let him pet me, mostly because he’s a dude, but I give him a sniff—stale paper, sweat, and some kind of lavender hand lotion. Good enough.
I allow him to pet me, and soon all three are crouched around me, giving me pets and scratches and rubs. I don’t know how, or why, but I feel safe with the assumption that even with so many people touching me, they have no ill intent. They’re just excited to pet a cute kitty! And I’m the cute kitty! And I don’t even mind the fact that there are freaking people touching me! Holy smokes!
Sadly, I still have way too much energy, so I give them a mrrow of what I hope sounds like satisfaction (but doubt it actually does) and take off again, running my butt off until I make it to a crosswalk. I need to cross the street to get to campus proper, but that’s easy enough. I wait for the lights to turn, move to cross, and—
Whoosh.
—almost get fucking hit by a truck that decided to run the red light.
Holy fuck.
I almost fucking died.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, I almost fucking died oh my god.
I’m frozen in place until the light changes again, which, thank fuck I notice, because I almost get run over again.
My heart is racing so fast, my stomach has dropped out the bottom of me, and my breathing isn’t steady at all. It’s fast, sharp and constant and—hey what the FUCK?!
I’m suddenly being lifted into the air, picked up, and I hiss and claw at whoever the fuck thought they could—
Stale paper, chemical something, and cinnamon.
It’s the girl from before.
I stop making a fuss, but it’s too late. I clawed her right through her sweater, probably, and she drops me.
Why did she pick me up?
Why did she follow me?
Where are her friends?
“I’m sorry!” she says as I back away, body lowered to the ground as cars keep zooming by behind me and it’s too much, too much sensory input, too many smells, too much light, too much too much too much! Why did she pick me up?! Who does that! I need to go! I need to run! This isn’t fun anymore!
I run back the way I came.
I am back behind the dumpsters, curled into a ball and not feeling very safe at all. I want to go inside. I need to be human to do that. I don’t feel safe, so I can’t become a human, and it’s a lot harder to trick my brain into feeling safe than it is to think about awful things and overwhelm myself with negative feelings.
I was crying, I realize, as I blink dried tears from my eyes.
I just wanted to have a good time. Why… why couldn’t I just have a good time?
This is my fault. I should have stayed inside, stayed human. I should have made Gwen dinner regardless of whether or not I thought she might eat out with Evan. Now I’m stuck outside and things still feel like they’re moving too fast and—
“Hey.”
My ears swivel to the source of the sound in an instant. The person who whispered it, softly and gently as if afraid of spooking me, is sitting across from me against the back of the recycling dumpster.
Crimson sweater.
Stale paper.
Chemical smell.
Cinnamon.
Her.
Her, again.
She’s the reason I was freaking the hell out. How did she even find me? Why is she here? How long has she been here? Why didn’t I notice her?
I narrow my eyes at her. She’s far enough away that if she makes any sudden moves, I can be gone in a flash. She can’t pick me up again. She can’t touch me if I don’t want her to. I’m not safe, but I’m safe from her touch.
“Sorry for picking you up,” she says, and oh my gosh she’s talking to a cat like a crazy person.
No, wait, I’ve totally done that before, lots of times.
Still, I guess I can appreciate the apology since she seems to know picking me up was not the right move. Sorry, cute girl’s sweater. At least it doesn’t look like I actually broke skin, given her sweater only has loose threads on one of the arms and she doesn’t seem to be in pain—oh, wait.
I sniff.
I haven’t smelled blood yet, but I’m sure I would if I was near it.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding, and it’s a little higher pitched than I would like. Whatever.
She isn’t bleeding.
I didn’t hurt her.
I thought I did, but I didn’t.
I only wrecked her sweater.
I feel bad, even if it was in self-defense.
I tilt my head at her curiously, wondering why she’s here, how she found me.
“You hungry, little guy?” she asks, reaching into her purse. “I heard you meowing and when I saw you back here, I thought you could maybe use something to eat. Do you like chicken?” she asks, removing a saran-wrapped bundle of yes that I somehow didn’t smell.
I raise my head imperiously, sniffing at the chicken as she unwraps it. It’s grilled and smells a bit like lemons, maybe half of a whole chicken breast.
I want it…
…but not quite enough to trust her again now that I’m a little less… manic, or whatever I was when I initially ran out into the world. Luring in animals with food is classic human shit. No way am I getting catnapped.
“Here,” she says, and she breaks off a piece. She throws it to me, and it lands a little to my right. I keep an eye on her, but I get up and walk over to sniff it anyway. It doesn’t smell drugged. It smells like… like chicken and lemons, and butter, salt, and pepper. I lick it cautiously.
Five seconds later, I have devoured it.
Oh, wait, I just ate food off the dirty outside pavement.
That’s… gross? Weird as fuck, Alice? Disgusting?
That’s… fine. I’m a cat. I have a good immune system, and there’re no plates out here, and that’s how cats normally act anyway. They’ll eat off of pretty much anything.
I sit, still eyeing the girl suspiciously.
“I’ll leave the rest here,” she says, placing the chicken on the ground beside her and standing. Is she leaving? “I’m getting cold, and I’d bring you inside if I could, but I don’t wanna get in trouble. If you’re still here tomorrow, I’ll bring you some more food, okay?”
I almost nod, but stop myself. I stare at her. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“Okay… well… bye—oh, dang, what’s that?” she says, her eyes narrowing at something behind me. I turn slightly to make sure I can keep an eye on her and what she’s looking at, and I freeze when I realize the cardboard I’d left on my backpack has been blown away slightly by the wind, revealing it in its entirety.
Shit.
“Uh, look, there’s a cool bag behind you that I wanna look at, so… I’m gonna walk towards you, and, uh… chicken’s all yours, or you can run off and come back for it later. Sorry if I’m about to scare you,” she says, and she sounds sincere, and I don’t know what to do.
I like my backpack. The leather is soft, I’ve had it for years, and I’ve taken good care of it. I would’ve used a different backpack for this, but I don’t have another one, and Gwen and I don’t keep our grocery bags in the dorm or else we forget them when we go shopping. I just… wasn’t thinking when I left. Or I was, but only about being a cat again.
I’m so stupid.
Do I leave, or do I protect my bag?
The decision is all but made for me as the girl gets too close, and I find myself running to the bag and resting on top of it, batting a paw in the air and hissing at her, telling her this is mine.
She looks shocked.
“That’s… yours?”
I nod up and down a few times.
Oops.
“Did you just—” she starts, but shakes her head. “Cat, I am losing it,” she laughs. “All right, I’m not gonna take it from you. I hope you stay safe and warm tonight, okay? It’s supposed to get pretty cold.”
Is it? I never check the weather.
I feel… fear, I think, bubbling up inside of me. If I don’t feel safe, am I going to be stuck out here tonight? Alone, cold, alone?
No, Gwen and I are on the first floor. I can jump at the window until she notices and lets me in.
I find myself nodding again before I can stop myself.
What the heck is wrong with me?
She stares at me incredulously. “Okay, no, I need to go to bed,” she says. “Enjoy your chicken and your bag. Ninite!”
And with that, she walks away. I wait a while until I’m sure she’s gone before relaxing and walking over to the rest of the chicken she left behind. After a few cursory sniffs, I deem it okay to eat and absolutely devour it. Gosh, chicken is so good.
I need to try fish. I have a feeling it’ll be even better.
I walk back to my bag and frown, resting on the ground in a somewhat comfortable loaf position and curling my tail against myself. I’m not cold or anything, but I still don’t feel safe. I thought I could have fun outside, have a little adventure, and I somehow forgot the world is awful and full of people like that asshole in the truck, or the weird nice girl who gave me lemon chicken. I think I prefer the rotisserie chicken because it has less seasoning, but the lemon chicken was still good.
I briefly wonder why she could possibly have been carrying chicken in her purse before deciding she probably found me first and brought it back from her dorm room.
I want to go home.
I’m alone, and no one but Gwen (and Evan, but what’s he gonna do?) knows about me. If I had gotten run over, or mauled by a dog, or someone took me, or I got caught by like… animal control or something (do they even care about stray cats?)… Gwen would probably never know what happened to me.
What the hell was I thinking, going outside on my own?
Stupid, Alice. Stupid, selfish asshole.
I’m stuck. I can’t convince myself I feel safe right now, not after everything that happened.
Eventually, the sun sets, and I breathe out heavily as I make my way around the front of the dormitory, the sidewalk lit with the soft glow of streetlights. I turn the corner of the building, crying and alone in the dark. The dark doesn’t give me any trouble, sure, but the feeling of being in it alone is what hurts.
It takes me a few tries to find our dorm from the outside. I have to sort of jump up and look inside to see if it has the telltale signs of Gwen and me living in it. When I do find it, I see Gwen and Evan sitting on a sofa. I fall to the ground and jump up again to get another peek. Gwen looks worried and is talking to Evan rapidly. He seems… unnerved, and then I’m back on the ground.
Fuck, they’re probably wondering where I am.
Why are they worried, though? My slides are gone and Gwen’s smart enough to notice that and infer that I simply went out as a human.
Maybe she thinks I would have taken my phone if that was the case? I guess it is, but still. It seems weird for her to be reacting this way to me. Or hey, maybe this isn’t about me.
Either way, I need to get her attention. They’re both facing away from the window.
Walking closer, I sit at the base of the wall and tense myself, readying to jump up, and then I’m in the air and bouncing off the window.
I have to do it a few more times before Gwen notices me, and her face becomes a mixture of fear and surprise and happiness and then I’m on the ground again. I jump a few more times and see her pointing to where the front of the building would be, and I get the message.
A few minutes later, she’s holding the dormitory door open for me with her foot and holding the bottom of her thick sweater open for me to jump into, but I shake my head and lead her to where my bag is stashed behind the dumpsters instead.
Or rather, where my bag should be.
It’s gone, and I just can’t even bring myself to care at this point. I let Gwen pick me up, and she helps me into her sweater. She curls a hand under my butt for support this time, and I cuddle myself up against her chest as she wordlessly walks us both back to our dorm room.