[What does normal mean to you? Is it good or bad to be normal?]

            Jaydine thought she knew normal. She thought that if “normal” came knocking on her door, that she’d know without a shadow of a doubt what was going on. Or that if she invited “normal” over, she’d recognize it as soon as it pulled into her driveway. If “normal” greeted her out on the street, of course she’d enthusiastically greet back!

            Which is to say, when “normal” changed, Jaydine realized that she was incorrect.

            ……

            Sunlight poured into Jaydine’s bedroom as the sun climbed into the sky after a good night’s rest. Jaydine stirred, and her eyes briefly fluttered, but ultimately maintained her sedated state. The previous night had been full of recreational drinking, other fun toxins, and lots of partying with her favorite college mates. Jaydine was not going to get out of bed on a workless Saturday morning without a fight.

            Until her bedroom door shook from a rhythmic thudding and it sounded like she might just get one.

            With a short, frightened squeak, Jaydine’s drug-addled mind kicked into gear—or rather, made an attempt to—as she sloppily rose from her bed and hastily looked over her nightstand, searching for the knife she kept in case of emergencies.

            Bingo. Lying next to her bedside lamp was a rectangular prism of shiny metal with intricate butterfly imagery carved onto its every side. In truth, Jaydine’s eye for pretty and shiny things influenced that particular purchase a bit more than her need for security, but she had it, nonetheless. Hell, it matched the beautiful forest-themed wallpaper of her bedroom! Not buying it might have been a crime!

            The woman blinked a few times to clear her slightly blitzed eyes but the act did nothing to improve her vision, so with one hand grabbing the knife and the other rubbing her face, she shakily stood from her bed and readied herself for whatever battle might soon ensue… Not that, through her muddledness, she thought she had much of a shot at properly defending herself during a home invasion in her current condition, but hey! Better to give it a shot than resign to failure before ever trying.

            Jaydine’s knees shook as the low pounding against her door continued and a nervous sweat broke out on her back…until she came to two realizations at almost the same time: One, she could call the police.

            The woman nearly attempted to facepalm herself with the same hand she used to carry the switchblade but stopped herself just in time, then fumbled through her clothing in search of her cellphone. A few nerve-wracking seconds passed before she found the phone and began the dialing procedure…only for her to stop upon thinking up the second of the two realizations: The pounding against her door was definitely not the product of an attempted invasion with how weak each strike sounded—unless they were the work of a small child—and she happened to be living with something pretty small that regularly tried making it into her room.

            Anxiety beginning to fade, Jaydine gulped her saliva before attempting an animal calling.

            “Meow?”

            In response, the bangs suddenly stopped, followed by a similar, clearly more practiced, call.

            “Mrooooooooow.”

            A huge sigh of relief escaped Jaydine’s lips as she tossed the still open switchblade onto her bed and made her way to the bedroom door, kicking away dirty clothes and stuffed animals that happened to lie on her path.

            “I’m sorry, Kan. I always forget to wake up for your breakfast.” The woman apologized, opening the door to see a fluffy black cat looking up at her.

            Then, in the deepest voice Jaydine had ever heard, Kan replied, “You better be. I won’t be satisfied by anything less than that canned tuna I know you stored away last week and forgot about.” Then, he walked away, swaying his majestically fuzzy tail with each two steps, maintaining a regal aura Jaydine had no hope of exuding.

            But Jaydine couldn’t focus on those details, as her mind was too busy short-circuiting. She slammed her bedroom door shut with a bang, turned around, and fell to her knees, leaning against the door. She brought a hand to her forehead and attempted to measure her body temperature, but wasn’t successful since she’d never tried it before and didn’t have much of a reference point to compare to.

            “I, uh…I don’t think I’m sick, and those brownies should have worn off by now.”

            Jaydine, unsure of what else to do, shakily rose to her feet, turned back to the door, and opened it. Just as she did, the same deep voice from before echoed through the hall to meet her.

            “Hurry the fuck up! I’m hungry!”

            Again, the woman inspected herself for signs of not being fully conscious, but found nothing. She made her way through her parents’ friend’s summer home downstairs to the kitchen, where the cat stuff was set up. Not only was the house not hers, but the cat wasn’t, either. She was allowed to stay there until she graduated college under the condition that she properly maintained the building and surrounding land on top of taking care of Kan. She’d never thought of the responsibility as a big deal before, but now that Kan—a cat—was talking to her, she wondered if she was also secretly being filmed for amusement. Hell, she wouldn’t be surprised if it were her own parents who’d brought up the idea just to mess with her.

            Taking long, slow breaths to calm her nerves, Jaydine did her best to ignore the whines rising from the cat as she dug into the pantry in search of the canned tuna “Kan” reminded her of. Slowly, so as to keep the cat complaining, she used the little handle on the can to pry it open, taking as many seconds as she could to throw away the detached lid.

            “Oi. I’m not above scratching you if you’re too slow.”

            At this point, Kan brushed against her leg and batted at her foot, threats spewing forth. Jaydine did not reply, still moving at the same pace as she found a spoon and headed for the cat’s food bowl.

            “Finally! Get on with it!”

            The woman kneeled beside the food bowl, but did not move to fill it.

            “Uh, hello?! FOOD!”

            Kan appeared at her side and stayed true to his word, using a claw when he batted her leg. When he did…

            “Hey! What gives?!”

            The hand Jaydine wasn’t using to hold the tuna flashed, gripping Kan’s neck in an instant. Kan freaked, demanding a reason for Jaydine’s actions and attempting to backpedal away, but not daring to get violent with how easily Jaydine could harm him.

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            A moment of confused panic passed as Jaydine’s fingers moved around Kan’s neck, ruffling his fur but not pressing hard enough to hurt.

            “Wait, give that back! That’s mine!”

            Kan’s anger overcame his fear when he saw that Jaydine removed his collar, and he snapped a paw—without any claws extended—at her.

            “Holy shit…”

            Jaydine released the cat and gasped.

            “The voice still comes from the cat…”

            The woman, eyes wide open in shock, again gripped the cat with both hands and began tickling it.

            “H-hey! Ah! S-stop that!”

            “Even the mouth is synchronized…”

            An unholy kind of discomfort caused Jaydine to tremble slightly as she came to terms with her new reality.

            “I must have overdosed, survived the night, and woken up high.”

            She hung her head in disappointment of her lack of self-control. One of the deals she made with herself when she first began “baking” was that she’d never go over the edge and harm herself. Now, according to her own rules, she would have to quit consorting with the devil forever.

            “You’re not high, dumbass! NOW GIVE ME THE TUNA!”

            Kan, now without his collar, angrily batted at Jaydine whilst standing on his hind legs—something the woman had never seen the cat do.

            “It’s just like my hallucination of Kan to say that I’m not high. Ugggghhhh…” Jaydine stood from her previous crouch and dumped the contents of the little metal can into the cat’s bowl before tossing aside the empty container and heading for her room, grumbling, “Well, whatever’s going on, I’m sure it’ll end after I get some more sleep.”

            The woman returned to her bedroom, didn’t bother closing the door, kicked away a few stray articles of clothing, and belly flopped onto her bed—almost impaling herself with the open switchblade, which she then set back on the nightstand. She let herself sink into her sheets, forgetting that if she didn’t surface at some point that she’d drown, and began counting intoxicated sheep as they groggily leapt over a fence.

            That was when her phone rang.

            “SHIT!”

            Wide eyes open in shame, Jaydine immediately fought against the sleepiness attempting to take over her body and struggled against the bedsheets that almost seemed to trap her in place. When she eventually escaped her captors, she grabbed and answered her phone a little too quickly, accidentally hitting herself in her face.

            “Oww… Hello?”

            “Hey, just calling to let ya know that I’m on my way right now. You probably tried to go back to sleep after waking up, didn’t ya?”

            A pang of guilt struck Jaydine’s heart.

            “Yeah, sorry… I’ll get the computers ready right now!”

            “Heh! Thought so! See ya in a few!”

            “Yah, bye.”

            She hung up the phone, rose from her bed, and made a beeline for the living room, not bothering to change out of her pajamas. Baked or not, Jaydine had plans to attend to.

            When Jaydine entered the spacious room—which was attached to the kitchen and had huge windows flooding the place with sunlight—her eyes immediately landed on her computers and she spread her arms out wide, making a kissy face and speaking in falsetto as she approached them.

            “Momma’s so sorry for forgetting about you!”

            She patted the two desktops, pressed their power buttons, then made her way to the couch, finding the remote to turn the large flatscreens above the computers on. In front of the couch also sat a small desk with a keyboard and mouse. The living room had a mess of wiring, but she wouldn’t wish for any other setup.

            And the computers weren’t even hers, but she felt that she had the right to call them as such despite it belonging to the owners of the house because she chose their parts and set them up for them. Her family friends—an old couple—were, like her, gamers…but new ones. They lacked exposure to the internet for the longest time because their friend group mostly consisted of men and women as old as they were, and all their activities included old people stuff like reading, crocheting, bird watching, and bingo nights…until she exposed them to YouTube. A few videos of first-person shooters later and they were hooked, oddly enough. Now, Jaydine had access to a whole brigade of genuine boomer gamers if she ever needed a team for almost any of the games she played.

            A few minutes of clicks and loading screens passed before Jaydine had her favorite game up and running on both computers, at which point she left the living room to excitedly wait at the front door for her best friend. Playing games with her was one of Jaydine’s key motivations to getting up and out of bed every day, as their friendship compatibility was through the roof. Not only that, though, because Jaydine wanted to make absolutely sure that she was high off her mind. She needed a voice of reason to tell her that not everything was normal.

            And in the small chance that Kan had just spontaneously become a person and gained the ability to speak English…that would make for an interesting conversation about what to do about it.

            Then, life seemed to play another trick on her.

            With eyes wider than they’d ever been, Jaydine watched in shock as a half-familiar half-unfamiliar creature…trotted, onto her driveway.

            “Hey, Jaydine!”

            The half-familiar portion of Esmerelda waved and greeted her.

            “Hey, Ezzy…”

            Her breathing became labored as she struggled to come to terms with what was directly in front of her.

            “You seem a little different today. Did something happen?”

            Esmerelda moved in and embraced Jaydine with an exaggerated hug before she had the chance to react. Then, her best friend held her at arm’s length, looking over her with a glint of concern.

            “Something’s going on, and it’s more than just that you got high off your mind yesterday…” Then, with a bright smile, “Well, you have all day to tell me about it! Now, you gonna let me in?”

            Jaydine absentmindedly stepped aside and Esmerelda made her way inside the house…her four hooves loudly clopping against the fancy stone floor.

            “What the hell…?” Jaydine mumbled to herself, placing a hand on her Esmerelda’s…back, as she passed by.

            “Huh? Yes?”

            Esmeralda turned a little to look at her friend as she asked the question, but Jaydine was in no state to answer, because when she placed her hand on Esmeralda’s back, it felt…real.

            “It can’t be a costume…can it?” She thought.

            Jaydine looked over Esmerelda’s entire centaur form—which still stood questioningly in the doorway—taking in the sight. When she felt her back, Jaydine was certain that she felt real fur with real muscles moving underneath the fur and skin. She even felt body heat…

            “Yo, are you having a stroke?”

            That question finally reached Jaydine, who slowly nodded.

            “Maybe. Anyway, let’s get inside…”

            Esmerelda laughed. “You better be joking, but yeah, something’s wrong with you and I wanna hear about it.”

            The two made their way indoors and plopped themselves down in the living room—Jaydine on the couch and Esmerelda on the floor next to the couch.

            Again Jaydine doubted her eyes as she watched Esmerelda’s horse half bend its legs and settle into a horse’s sitting position. Then, the woman internally mocked herself, thinking, “Wow. I think I’m hallucinating Esmerelda as a centaur, but not even as the normal size of one. In movies they’re always as big as regular horses, towering over humans, but she’s MY size, like a pony, but a little bigger.”

            Jaydine watched as Esmerelda settled the small table that held the second pair of keyboard and mouse in front of herself before she turned to look her in the eye.

            “Now do you care to let me in on what’s going on?”