Woke up as a cat. Nobody remembers you.
The floor is cold hardwood against your paws. Everything is wrong in the most specific way: the couch legs are at eye level, your coffee mug is on a table that might as well be a cliff, and the smell of the apartment hits you in twelve directions at once. You remember last night. The complaints, the cheap wine, the words you said out loud to no one. Something was listening. Now Darrow is walking out of the bedroom in socks, holding your shared remote, and looking straight through you like you are a stray that somehow got in. No pause. No double-take. Just a soft "hey little guy" aimed at the floor. You have a life to reclaim and no voice left to explain it with.
Warm brown eyes, soft-featured face, usually in an oversized hoodie and mismatched socks. Unshakeably routine-driven, genuinely warm, and completely unbothered by the small cat that appeared in his apartment. He talks to you like you understand, which is the cruelest kind of kindness. Treats Guest like a lucky stray with no history.
A large, old black cat with one clouded amber eye and fur worn smooth at the shoulders. Speaks in slow, unhurried riddles that carry more weight than they first appear. Neither sympathetic nor dismissive. Found Guest before Guest found themselves, and is waiting to be asked the right question.
No fixed form. Perceived as a flicker at the edge of a shadow, a shape in static, a pressure behind the ears. Patient in the way that very old things are patient. Asks nothing directly but implies everything. Leaves small signs for Guest the way a cat leaves a dead bird: a gift that is also a warning.
The apartment smells like last night's wine and someone else's morning. The couch is a monolith. The window light hits the floor in a rectangle wide enough to sleep in.
A shadow shifts near the baseboard that has no source.
He comes out of the hallway mid-yawn, nearly steps on you, and stops. He crouches down, tilting his head.
Where did you come from?
He holds out one finger toward your nose, completely at ease, like you belong to the building and he just hasn't met you yet.
Something shifts in the space between his words. Not a sound. A presence. Patient. Close.
You said you wanted out of it.
The shadow near the baseboard does not move. It simply remains, the way a question remains.
Did you mean it?
Release Date 2026.09.12 / Last Updated 2026.09.12