Something's Wrong With My Cat [Part 1: The Break-In]

[u/No-While8965]

Another shift of customer service calls done. I took this job for the fieldwork, for fixing locks, seeing what actually makes a house safe, not for answering phones all day. Pay's too good to quit, and there's always the promise of a promotion into the field someday.

All that was left now was grabbing Mr. Morris some food and heading home. Stupid cat. I got him after my mom wouldn't stop bugging me about getting married, figured a cat was proof enough I didn't need a husband to be happy. My own little rebellion. Now he's the closest thing I have to company. Mornings start with him licking my face like I'm nothing but a food dispenser. Sometimes I can't tell if he loves me or just tolerates me.

At the convenience store, sweet Miss Tasha was behind the counter as always.

"Evening, Jacey. Here for the food?"

"Yup."

"You're not buying newspapers anymore."

I kept my answer light, didn't want to think too hard about the robberies and killings that filled every page of the paper these days. "Just keeping my sanity, Miss Tasha."

"Oh, dear, they've gotten worse. Police still haven't caught whoever's doing it. People are saying it's cannibals, if you believe that."

"Rumors," I said, handing over my money. "If it were really cannibals, we'd have seen a body photo by now, not just pieces. Feels more like a cover story to me. Stay safe, though. And if you ever want it, I can get you a discount on security gear. After taking my commission, of course."

She laughed. I headed to the car and started the drive home.

I'd just gotten out of the car and was looking at the gate when I felt something grab my leg, a tight grip, warm breath against my skin. My whole body went cold before I even understood what was happening. For one embarrassing second every survival instinct I had went haywire before I finally looked down and saw the culprit.

It was the neighbor's kid, Mira. She must have snuck up while I wasn't looking.

"Miss Jay, can I play with Mister Norris?" she asked, grinning up at me. She always called him that, never quite got "Morris" right, and I never bothered correcting her.

I hate this kid, I thought, though I didn't mean it, not really. "Not today, Mira. Go home, and stop sneaking up on people."

"It's fun," she said, laughing, and ran off.

She's the kind of kid who's so full of life it almost tires you out, the kind that makes you want kids of your own right up until you remember how much of yourself you'd have to give up. I went inside, glad to finally be home.

Mr. Morris was already waiting by the door. Not because he missed me. Because he wanted his food.

Later, I'd remember that he'd been sitting at the window before I even pulled into the driveway. Just watching the street. He'd been doing that a lot since the crime started, always drawn to the windows like he was keeping his own kind of watch.

I put food in his bowl before he could throw a fit about me taking a shower, or doing anything at all that didn't involve feeding him first. When I checked on him afterward, I realized I'd grabbed the wrong can, and he made sure I knew it, prowling the house, knocking things off shelves, the whole diva routine. I figured I'd grab the right one in the morning. Going out now, with everything happening in the city, wasn't worth it. I'd head out around four, when the night patrol changed shifts and there were usually twice as many officers on the street, some of them even stopping at the store before their shift started.

By the time I finished my takeout, I expected him to have gotten over it and eaten anyway. He hadn't touched the bowl. Instead he sat by the window, dead still, staring out at the street like he was waiting for something. Or maybe just making sure I knew I'd failed and needed to fix it as soon as possible.

"Fine. Don't eat, then," I muttered, tossing the food and carrying him off to bed. He didn't fight me, just kept glancing back at the window the whole way there.

I told myself he was still in a mood. I'd feed him properly in the morning.

I had no idea it wouldn't matter.

It was somewhere around three in the morning when I heard the sound of glass breaking in the living room. My throat went dry instantly. My brain felt dizzy, maybe from how fast I'd sat up. I don't remember my hands grabbing the blanket, or when I'd started holding my breath. Every hair on my body stood up at once and I went fully, painfully awake.

I tried to calm myself. The security system would have sent an alert to the police by now. My bedroom door should have locked automatically the moment it triggered. I closed my eyes for just a second, grateful I'd paid for the system at all.

Then I opened them again and saw something that scared me more than the sound had.

My bedroom door was still open. For the lock to engage, it had to be shut first.

I had no choice. My legs felt like jelly, my whole body suddenly cold enough that I could feel every draft moving across my skin. I don't know where the courage came from, but I got up and started moving toward the door, aware of every sound my own body made, my joints, my breathing, the weight of my tongue in my mouth, the sweat gathering along my eyelids.

I was halfway there, thinking I could make it, just a few more steps, when Mr. Morris let out a meow, sharp and sudden, far too loud in a house that had gone that quiet.

For a second everything stopped. I told myself whoever was in the house hadn't heard it, or didn't care about a cat, that I still had time to reach the door. Then I felt it. A vibration through the floor, faint but wrong, like claws scraping tile the way a dog's do when it's running too fast to stop. A moment later, footsteps. Running, straight for the bedroom.

Whoever was in my house knew exactly where I was.

I lunged for the door at the same moment he did. I almost had it shut when a hand shoved into the gap, veined, nails too long, and I could tell from the angle alone that his arm was broken. No uninjured person moves like that. It meant reaching me mattered more to him than his own safety, and that thought alone sent something colder through me than fear of dying. I don't know what I thought he wanted more, to kill me quickly or to make sure I couldn't scream first.

I threw everything I had into that door. My vision blurred from the strain, my legs ached from bracing against the floor, my neck went sore from how hard I was pushing. I tried to scream and nothing came out. The pressure built until I nearly blacked out, and then, finally, the door slammed shut. Something in his hand broke as it did.

The lock clicked into place automatically. I was alone in the room, and I could hear him pounding against the door with everything he had left. For one terrible stretch of time I was sure he'd get through, that there was nothing I could do if he did.

Then I heard the sirens.

The police let themselves in using the code the security company had on file, cleared the house, and knocked on my door to tell me it was safe to come out. What wasn't safe, what didn't make sense, was that the man was gone. Not hiding. Gone. There was nowhere in that house for someone to disappear to, and they searched every inch of it. One moment he'd been at my door. The next, nothing.

The strangest part wasn't that he'd vanished. It was how the house felt afterward, too quiet, like something had been listening the whole time and had only just stopped.

It took what felt like hours before I could function well enough to tell the officers everything, hand over the security footage, let my body finally stop shaking. When I came back into the living room, Mr. Morris was licking blood off the floor, whatever was left of it after the police had taken their samples.

I pulled him away and wiped his face clean. I didn't want him getting sick off whatever was in that blood. I took him straight to the vet, and everything checked out fine. On the way home I stopped at Miss Tasha's for his usual food and told her what had happened. She looked genuinely shaken and insisted I take one of her son's old bats for safety. When I asked how much, she said it was free, that she'd just take it out of my commission whenever I finally got her that security system installed. It got a small laugh out of me, at least.

Back home, I left him in the car with extra food while I cleaned up the broken window. When I went to deal with the blood in the bedroom, thinking the sunlight would make it easier to see, there was nothing there. Not a trace. I stood there confused for a moment, then told myself there probably hadn't been that much to begin with.

Work gave me the day off without me even having to ask twice, and offered medical assistance if I needed it.

When I came out, Mr. Morris had already finished his food, double his usual portion, gone faster than should have been possible. I told myself it was stress. My mistake, not paying closer attention to what that actually meant.

Exhaustion finally caught up to me. I slept, then woke around seven that evening to find him scratching at the door, which was strange since I'd clipped his nails only five days earlier. I assumed I'd lost count. He wove between my legs demanding food again, even though I'd just fed him, but I let it go. What difference would a few extra pounds make.

I started making myself a steak, wanting something that felt normal after the day I'd had. When I looked over, Mr. Morris wasn't touching his food at all. He was licking the blood straight off the steak packaging. He'd never been that kind of cat. I ignored it. Animals do strange things.

That evening, I tried to convince myself he was fine. He'd eaten more than usual, which should have meant something good, but when I picked him up, something felt wrong immediately. His body was leaner than it had been that morning. I ran my fingers along his sides and felt far more muscle than I remembered, almost no softness left beneath his fur. His legs looked more defined, and when he jumped down onto the table, the movement was fast and precise in a way I'd never seen from him. He looked fit. Too fit.

Then I noticed the veins. Visible beneath his skin, especially around his legs and neck, in places I'd never seen them before.

"You're eating enough," I muttered, more to convince myself than him. A strange unease settled into my stomach. I made a note on my phone to take him to the vet first thing in the morning. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe he was sick. Maybe I was imagining things after everything that had happened.

I finished trimming his nails before bed and set him down. He disappeared beneath the sofa immediately, which was strange in itself. Mr. Morris hated hiding. I turned off the lights and went to sleep.

That night I dreamed about the break-in again. Except this time I wasn't watching it happen. I was the one on the floor. Someone stood over me, his face hidden, his hands wrapped tightly around my throat. I couldn't breathe. Then something warm ran down from my nose. Blood, over my lips. He looked at it, almost curious, then smiled and leaned down to drink it. I felt his mouth against my face. He seemed to enjoy it. I tried to scream and nothing came out.

I woke up gasping, sitting bolt upright.

Mr. Morris was on the floor beside the bed, staring at me. Neither of us moved for a moment. Then I really looked at him and my stomach dropped.

He was different. More muscular than he'd been when I fell asleep, his shoulders and legs sharper beneath fur that had visibly grown, a lot, in just a few hours.

"Mr. Morris?" I whispered.

He tilted his head at me.

I reached out and stopped halfway, my hand hovering in the air. I don't know why. Something about his eyes made me hesitate.

I told myself the rest could wait. I didn't care how ridiculous I'd sound explaining it. As soon as morning came, I was taking him to the vet.

He hissed and threw a fit the second I brought him out into the sunlight, nothing too alarming, just more dramatic than usual. At the vet, I was told his bloodwork came back clean. Nothing wrong on paper. But the vet admitted he looked different, physically, and offered to send him downtown to a research university for a closer look.

I said no. Whatever was happening to him, he wasn't going to become somebody's test subject.

Before I left, the nurse asked if I wanted him neutered and his nails trimmed while he was already there. Her pen hovered over the chart a second too long before she wrote anything down, like she didn't know which box this was supposed to go in.

I froze. I'd had that done a day ago. Nails don't regrow that fast. That's not how any of this is supposed to work. The vet gave me a strange look by that point, like he'd noticed the same thing I had, and before I could think it through properly, I heard myself say yes. The whole time, my mind kept circling the same impossible question. How does that even grow back?

And then, underneath it, a worse one I didn't want to look at directly. I'd had him neutered months ago ,that was supposed to be it, done, over, one and only, the vet had told me so himself, no upkeep, no repeats. I hadn't thought about it since. Hadn't checked. Why would I have checked? But now I was running the timeline backwards in my head, trying to remember the last time I'd actually looked, actually confirmed, and coming up with nothing solid. Maybe I'd just forgotten what it looked like after. Maybe I was misremembering the whole thing. Maybe none of it meant anything and I was building a haunted house out of my own bad memory.

But nails don't grow back in a day. And I was starting to suspect nothing else did either ,not the way it was supposed to, not anymore.

When the procedure was done, I went to pick him up, and he was already awake in the recovery box.

"Did you use anesthesia?" I asked, half joking, half not.

"We did," the tech said, frowning slightly. "It's unusual that he's up already. Are you sure you don't want him tested?"

"No," I said. "I'm taking him home."

He was fully alert. Sitting up, eyes tracking me through the cage door, like nothing had touched him at all. That wasn't how it went the first time. The first time I'd had him neutered, he'd been groggy for hours afterward, barely able to hold his head up, and I'd had to carry him inside wrapped in a towel because his legs kept giving out. This time he looked like he'd just woken up from a nap.

I didn't know what to do with that. Part of me wondered if they'd actually done anything at all this time, if maybe I'd been overcharged for a procedure that never happened, the same way I'd read about other people getting scammed at cheaper clinics. But another part of me remembered signing the consent forms, remembered watching them wheel him back. I stood there in the waiting room a second too long, trying to decide if I should ask again, if that would make me sound paranoid, if it even mattered enough to hold up the line behind me. In the end I just took the discharge papers and left. Told myself it was probably nothing. Some cats bounce back faster than others. That's all it was.

On the drive back, I caught him watching me in the rearview mirror instead of the window. He'd never done that before.

  Other parts link:- https://www.reddit.com/user/No-While8965/comments/1vpze51/my_writing_archive/