The walk upstairs is short, the stairs are simple stone and the walls still are stone, but have some chipped paint on them. At the top of the stairs is a doorway, it is intricate and made of some material that I can’t identify, it is intricate, but looks as if parts of it have been sanded down and recarved. There are small wisps of purple swirls in it, somewhat like on the necklace, but they seem more restrained, going in a more clear and perfect flowing pattern.

Actually, these purple swirls have seemed to be almost everywhere, everything I look at has them. Even before I think they were on literally every object and person, but the patterns always had a constraint to them, except on my necklace-turned earring.

Inside the room upstairs are more devices similar to downstairs, but there are many that seem unportable, either rooted into the stone or so big that they would require assembly in the building.

At a desk made of similar material to the doorway a woman sits, she has a collection of devices and flasks. The flasks contain various different things, there is also some syringes and plastic-like storage containers.

As we enter, I notice a a strong metallic smell coming from the direction of her. I think she is the Alberta person that was mentioned earlier. At first I thought she might be Bert’s sister, but her hair is a dark black, and her features are quite different from Bert.

She has sharp features and black eyes, with almost perfectly clear skin, her skin is almost pure white. She has clothing reminiscent of the victorian era. So she looks like a vampire, even has some pointy canines to go with it.

As she smiles she starts to talk, “how peculiar, you seem to be cursed to appear half cat, or maybe… What do you think Herbert, what were you able to find out?”

Bert responds while walking closer to her, “I don’t know exactly what he is. If he is cursed, then it must be quite powerful and complex. He has excellent senses and has some very very mild behaviors that mimic that of a cat. It is possible that someone irrevocably altered him and his nature, although I don’t know how. He is quite certain that he is what he appears to be.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Alberta looks back at me and then tells Bert to “Get lost” while she experiments on me. Herbert leaves me with the possibly evil Alberta before she shoots me one million questions.

“What are you? Do you know? How did you become like this? What were you before? Why do you look like a cat? Why don’t you have wiskers? Why do you only have different ears and a tail? Why don’t you have the ears you had before as well as these?”

She then paused for breathe, looked at me again and then asked, “Or were you a cat before and then got more human elf or gnome like traits?”

This was a lot of questions, like too many. I stared at her and then started speaking, “Before we start shouldn’t we introduce ourselves? You’re Alberta, and I’m…”

I realize that I actually haven’t told anyone my name, nor has anyone called me by it. What is my name? The cat’s was Fuori, as they declared it so, but…

I don’t remember my name.

Actually, I don’t remember much of my past, who was I?

Wait… I know.

I remember.

I am Fuori

Fuori

That’s who I am.

So that’s what I’ll say

The influx of information from a while ago had already confirmed this.

So why am I worrying?

I realize that I’ve just been standing here after saying “I’m”, so I should just say it. I say “Fuori” and look at her and she just stares at me.

And I stare back

She then answers “Alright, you already know this, but I’m Alberta. So, were you anything before this?”

I nod and then answer “Human, I think?”

Then she grabs out a new crisp journal and some papers and pens. She then starts writing, presumably about me.

She then goes one by one asking me a series of questions, many of which I had to ask clarification on, as they had to do with magic in some way. Most of these questions I said no or I don’t know as my answer.

The questions were all said with a practiced clarity, they were almost elegant in their structure, but her tone was cold and sterile, like she was examining my past as a scientist.

I think she is some type of scientist, or at the very least academically inclined. I get the sense she is very good at dumbing concepts down for others, but that skill is useless when someone knows so little about the concepts.

She also goes a little into depth about her theories, I think mostly about curses and demons, with many words that I have no experience with.

She sounds a little bit how I imagine conspiracy theorists think they sound, but with probably the background to back it up.

Although, she could just be spouting nonsense If she picked up on my non-understanding.

Eventually she stops with her spiel and tells me that she’s is going to run some tests on me.