Let’s take a look at my options.

Option one: attack, escape, swallow regrets. I’d rather not do this one since Flyby seems like a nice fella and I feel like if I put one claw on him I’d have like a gazillion cats and dogs on my tail ready to snap me in half.

Option two: sleep it off. I take a nap and in the morning while he’s trying to get me out of the house, I thrash until he has no choice but to let me go, effectively putting me back at square one. I don’t like this one because I don’t want my dad to worry all night.

That leaves me with option three, which I am already executing by putting sleeping pills in Flyby’s beer.

…Yeah, no, that was a lie, I’m just waiting for him to fall asleep so I can mission-impossible my way out of here. This wouldn’t be all that hard if it wasn’t for the fact that Flyby is apparently a robot and doesn’t need to sleep. Or maybe this is a huge coincidence, and Flyby is also a vampire. Either way, he has been watching cartoons since midnight for at least two hours. If I wasn’t an actual vampire I would probably have given up and fallen asleep already.

It’s excruciating. I can barely stand it.

But, I mean, there’s only half an hour left on this ogre movie, and I am very curious to know what happens with Fiona. I can wait a little longer, probably.

The living room is filled with the sound of snoring from basically every animal in it besides Flyby and myself. He’s got a beer (his third of the night) in his left hand and using the right to slowly stroke my back. And maybe you won’t believe me when I say this, but I’m absolutely not purring. Why would I even do that? It would be primitive, downright animalistic to let myself make such sounds just because he’s touching me in certain ways—I don’t even like to be touched!

“Purrrrrr…”

…Okay, maybe I’m purring a little. Just a little. But this is a one-time thing! The moment I get out of here this whole enjoying-touch thing is over and done with, you hear me? Yeah, exactly. Glad we got that one under wraps.

But, erm, I really should try to get going. It’s only a Wednesday, so dad should want to leave the house at around five or six. Hopefully, he hasn’t decided to stay up until I get home, but if he has, it would be cruel to force him to go sleepless all night.

That means that operation escape-the-keeper is now in effect. In no part because the wicked king just got eaten by a dragon and everyone danced. That has nothing to do with it.

For a second or so, I watch Flyby, trying to get a grip on what he plans to do now. To my chagrin, he puts on yet another movie just before turning to me and smiling. Okay, that’s it. Before I get sucked into some story about an animated rat, I take to my feet, stretch surreptitiously and jump off the couch, landing with cool swagger. Somehow, I kind of prefer this body.

My goal is to make Flyby pass out by any means possible.

Carefully stepping over tails and paws and snoring snouts, I make my way towards the bathroom. My first goal is to see if I can find anything to spike his drink with. Shouldn’t be too hard, characters in books do it all the time. Considering Flyby’s apparent nightly habits, he’s sure to keep a few sleeping pills on hand.

I stare up at the door to the bathroom. On the outside, there’s a small clay troll creature hanging by a nail, and I think it says ‘WC’ on it but the angle isn’t good enough to be sure.

I glance back at where I came from. I can’t see Flyby, so he can’t see me. Right. Perfect.

Turning back to the bathroom, I focus my everything on the door handle. I’m really lucky Flyby doesn’t have knobs on his door or this might have been even more difficult. All I need to do is jump and grab. That’s all.

That’s… all…

I swallow.

How high can cats jump anyways? I’m not even a full-sized cat. That should be enough to let you know that whoever dictates these powers is an absolute chump. In cat years, I’m like, 98! I should have a super adult cat body. Not an aged one, though. Don’t give me arthritis.

…Now that I think about it, maybe this body isn’t all that bad.

But that’s all beside the point. Right now, I just need to jump. Simple enough. I look up. The handle looms above me, like a metallic gargoyle. Right. I may not have seen all that many cats, but I have seen the krazy cat compilations on youtube. I got this. I just need to sit down, wiggle my butt a little, focus on the handle, and… jump!

I spring through the air, way higher than I should be able to, getting just high enough to futilely paw at the handle before successfully bonking my head on it.

I crash to the ground in a heap, once and for all disproving the old adage that cats always land on their feet. My head hurts. My paws hurt. But I won’t give up! Once more. One more time. I line up the handle with my nose, but this time, I take a step or two back, ready myself, and… jump!

Into the air again, this time far enough from the handle to avoid bonking anything into it. Maybe a little too far, because now my paws can’t even touch it. At least, this time, I have the presence of time to twist in mid-air to avoid tumbling to the ground. I land on all fours. For some reason, this makes me feel unnecessarily proud. Like, I know I’m not a real cat and I don’t even like cats especially much, but holy heck.

I hear a rat moan on the television and I glance back at the living room. Right. No time to celebrate stupid victories.

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I take a stance again. This time, not too close, but not too far away. This will be it. This time, I will succeed.

I jump.

The handle approaches quickly and I stretch out my arms, spreading my paws wide. The handle almost bonks my head again, but instead of panicking, I hook my arms around the handle, tensing my entire body into the act of gripping onto it. And for a second or two, I just hang here, arms around the handle, claws flexing and unflexing on instinct.

But just as the urge to celebrate begins to kick in, I realise something maybe not so good. I am indeed hooked around the door handle, but it isn’t falling down. Am I too light to turn a door handle? Am I really that small of a cat? That can’t be. That’s impossible. I-, I’m a big boy, I swear! It just so happens to be that I grow a bit slower than everyone else!

“M-, maoooo…” Unable to actually cry, I give a small, animalistic wail while I hang on like a certain cat-themed poster.

I hear Flyby stand up and I turn my head to watch him appear in the doorframe. He doesn’t look especially disappointed in my failure, but he does seem slightly entertained by my hijinks. It makes me want to scratch his face. “Oh, what trouble ‘ave you gotten yourself into now?”

He picks me up by the armpits and presses me against his chest. “You want to go into the bathroom? Whatever for?” Doing the smartest thing I’ve probably done all night, I give no answer. “Well, alright. Not much in there for a little kitty like you. Here ya go.” And with that, he opens the impossible gate and puts me down, inadvertently sealing his own doom…!

I tap down on the floor, and once he’s gone back to the rat cartoon, I slip inside the bathroom.

It’s ordinary. Not dirty, not exceptionally clean, just normal. Smells like soap. Not sure what else it’d smell like. Moving easily, I jump atop the counter and quickly, with no effort, slip into the sink without screeching in ungodly fear. For a second or so, I just lie in the sink, eyes wide, mouth slightly open. Okay. Not especially graceful, but at least it isn’t wet or anything. I pull myself up.

The cabin opens easily and without any sound, presenting me with a plethora of various thingies. Razor blades and lather, unopened soaps, toothpaste, and… a few different pill boxes. With my front paws on the lowest part of the cabinet, I stand up on my hind legs to get a good look at them. There are maybe four or five different kinds of pills, most of them over-the-counter. Ibuprofen and the like. But there is one that isn’t, and my eyes hone in on it with gleeful certainty.

Xanax. Just like I wanted.

I bat at it with my paw until it falls out of the cabin and into the sink, at which point I carefully pull out one of the metallic sheets. Three of the ten tablets have been used, and I’m about to make it four. I’d like to bring him, like, three pills, but I literally don’t have opposable thumbs, so my only chance of carrying it anywhere is to put it in my mouth. Risky, but I don’t exactly have any choice. My only other options would be inside my ears (unsure how that would even work), and…

I glance at my tail.

Yeah, no. Mouth it is.

I press down on one of the encased tablets until it pops out. I stare at the little white pill as though it’s gonna stand up and dance the macarena. Even for a cat, I must look really blitzed right now. Alright, let’s just not think about it!

I bend down and scoop the pill into my mouth. It doesn’t really taste like anything except dryness. It’s like I’m licking a piece of bone. But it won’t last too long, so it’s fine.

Leaping down from the counter, I pad through the door and back into the living room. For some reason, stepping over the dogs and cats feels easier now. Hm. Wonder why. Either way, with a fantastically planned and executed jump, I find myself back on the couch. “Welcome back, Juvie,” Flyby says, quickly giving me a nose-to-tail stroke. It’s nice, but I suppress the urge to purr. Instead, once he looks back at the screen (the rat is now in a jar), I carefully move toward the other side of him.

I feel like a stalking panther or something, just by the way I jump onto the back of the couch before making my way over to where he’s holding the beer. He’s fully engrossed in the movie. There has been no better time than now. I’m not sure if cats can grin, but that’s what I’m doing. Mentally, at least.

One step, two steps. Closer, closer.

The beer looms before me the size of a barrel. I don’t like the smell but I endure.

Flyby straightens out slightly, so absorbed he can’t tell what I’m doing at all. Smug in my assured victory, I poke out my head and open my mouth, fully expecting the tomato-sized pill to just slide out of there. But nothing comes out.

“M-, mau?”

I feel around in my mouth. There is something there, but it’s barely the size of a coin. Goosebumps spread across my back, making my fur stand on edge.

He turns to me. “Juvie, everything alright?” But I’m staring straight ahead, not hearing him, my mouth half-open. Apparently, he knows his animals, because as soon as he sees me with such an expression, he grabs a firm hold of me and sticks a finger inside my mouth, soon pulling out the half-dissolved Xanax that was supposed to be in his beer. “What in the-,”

His eyes widen and, still holding me, he flies to his feet, the abrupt movement causing the dogs and the cats to awaken, all clamouring around each other in surprise and distress. Flyby moves over them with casual stress, making his way to the bathroom. He tears open the door with one hand, holding me in the other, and I don’t need to see his face to know where his eyes fall. Namely, on the opened Xanax packet. He looks down at me, meeting my wide eyes. “You really want to meet the vet early, don’cha?”

I can’t really say anything in reply before he throws on his shoes and his coat and stomps out of the apartment. Again, I’m squeezed inside his coat, except this time I’m less afraid for my life and more so for my freedom. I mean, sure, if I was a normal cat who ate a Xanax tablet going to the doctor would probably be a good idea, but I’m actually not a cat at all, and I have a feeling that a doctor would be able to find that out somehow.

More importantly, if I just transform back into a human, a single Xanax tablet won’t be any trouble anymore. That is why, when Flyby stops at the front door to fish his keys from his pocket, I do the sensible thing and slip out from under the coat.

I tap down on the floor.

He whirls around to face me. “Hey, Juvie, wait-,”

But I don’t, and by acting on my instincts, I speed off, up the stairs, out of his view. The only thing I’m left with is a grumble on his end. I fly across the stairs like a shooting star, up and up, higher than I should be able to. My paws hurt, but I keep going. Eventually, I reach the sixth floor, where I quickly avert from the stairs to fly down the hallway until I get to my door. Considering the bathroom fiasco, trying to open it manually won’t really help. Yowling until someone opens up is a surefire way to get caught. In that case…

Echoing footsteps approach in the staircase. Right, I have little time.

I turn sly eyes on the letter slot in the door.

One well-placed jump lodges me halfway through the slot, with my legs stuck and my upper body through. All of a sudden, I feel very pathetic. Couldn’t I have been a bat-vampire? Or a mist one? Turning into smoke sounds cool. Then I wouldn’t have to deal with doo-,

“Juvie?” Flyby calls, closer now.

Oh, yeah, I’m in the middle of a chase scene. Let’s see here, hrmmm…

I press my paws against the door, stretching out my back, straightening my legs, and with a ‘pop!’ I tumble through the slot and into the darkened apartment. I’m panting a little. I look back at the door, seeing the little metal slot close. Right. Good.

I look around the room. It’s dark. I feel weird. My stomach is grumbling and my head feels heavy. But I can hear snoring, and not from dad’s bedroom. No, with his upper body draped across the dinner table, dad apparently fell asleep at the table, his head buried in his thick arms. I expected something like that, but it still hurts.

My legs and arms feel like congealed porridge, but I still force myself to jump up on the table. Dad sleeps really deeply even in the worst places, but my attention is focused on something else. There’s a plate and a sandwich on the table. I sniff it. Cheese and ham. My favourite. A small note next to it says ‘for when you get home, -dad’ and now I feel horrible again. My chest is tight. Lump in my throat. All of that. But this body doesn’t allow for that, so instead I just stifle my sniffing and jump down from the table, over to the couch, where I grab a simple blanket.

Dragging it all the way over to the dinner table and then over dad wasn’t easy, but it’s the least I can do. Right as I sink my teeth into the sandwich, ready to drag it somewhere safer, I hear him mutter, “Thanks, Luis…” clearly still asleep.

I can’t answer, so I don't.

I pull the sandwich with my back to my room. I’m lucky I keep the door open during the day. Better make that a real habit.

My body feels horrible and I want to cry and I wish I’d never been a burden on my dad but I still force myself to stuff down the sandwich. The butter and the ham and the cheese taste good but the bread is horrible and I want to spit it out but I just swallow it anyways. I feel like an invader in my own home.

In the end, after forcing down at least three-fourths of the sandwich, I have no choice but to jump back on my bed, burrowing myself under the covers, promising myself between hiccuping meows that I’ll finish it tomorrow.

And like that, I go to sleep, only mildly assured that I won’t wake up, and only somewhat hoping this to be true.