On a particularly rainy evening, inside one of many inconspicuous houses, laid Victoria on her bed, scrolling through a plethora of uninterested sludge. As thunder roared and lightning beamed, Victoria spotted something that caught her eye. A funny image of a cat displayed on her phone popped out, and Victoria jumped out of her bed and went to her desk. There, laid out on the table, were parchments of paper of varying sizes, a canister filled with supplies, and a medium-sized laptop placed in the center. She moved underneath to reveal a sleek, flat tablet made with art in mind. She grabbed her stylus, found in a locked drawer, and pulled a fresh new sheet to draw with. Suddenly, she remembered something she had forgotten to do.

Oh shit. She got her phone and pulled up a familiar profile. Sure enough, her boyfriend had gotten annoyed with her lack of response. She read his texts, with a slowly boiling trace of annoyance and large quantities of squinting. “Hey, you have kinda forgot about me today, so can I come by now?” She stopped reading and began typing. Hey, what did I say about personal space? And no, you can not come over, I don’t know how many times I must tell you this, you idi-. Just as she was about to finish typing, she heard the doorbell ring. She quickly ran to the front door to check who it was, and sure enough, it was her parents, back from their weekly parties.

“Hey sweetie, how has your day been going?” uttered her mother.

“I guess it’s been good,” murmured Victoria. She knew it was a fake question, as her parents were, in her head, essentially machines who did not care much about her opinions or anything really to do with her. She thought they believed she was her prop, even.

“Good, have you eaten dinner?”

“Yes, and I’ve been fine this whole night.”

“Was there an outage earlier?”

“No, there wasn’t,” Victoria groaned. Her mother was always nice, though it felt fake a majority of the time. Her dad was there, but he never commanded anything. He was always a bystander or a point to jump off of for her mother. She felt a bit guilty for thinking he was a prop. Suddenly, her mother snapped her fingers.

“Victoria! Hello!” her mother shouted, which was rather obscenely loud considering she was in front of her daughter.

“Um, yes!”

“Go back to your room, please.” She knew it was not a request. It was a command. Victoria eagerly went back to her room, and heard her parents go straight to the bathroom. She went back onto her phone to see a reply from her partner. “You never want to spend time with me! This is unfair to me and you know it. I don’t care if your parents are restrictive or whatever but aren’t they gone?” She typed back a snarky comment. She had never really liked her boyfriend, but her parents insisted, mainly because he was Hispanic. They were all obstacles in her life, especially in her creative life.

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She had been limited with time spent sketching, one of her few hobbies. Thus, she had to hide away, especially in this house, where many conservative ideas were held. Her parents even considered homeschooling her, possibly to isolate her from themselves for whatever reason they had. Either way, she was drawing a cat now, a Siamese, to be exact. She drew a large, fluffy body, with a feline head towards one end and a stocky tail to the other. She sketched the elbowed arms masterfully, as life-like as she could. She drew dilated pupils, pointed whiskers, and a small nose on to its head, pointed ears stuck on top it. She shaded the darkened spots on its body, and molded it to a correct shape.

She suddenly stopped, realizing it was midnight now. How long have I been on this? She turned off her tablet and snuck it back into its corner. She got up, and moved towards the bathroom to do some teeth hygiene. She heard her parents, now in the bedroom, sleeping. She closed the distance quietly and locked the door. While brushing her teeth, she looked at her reaction, and gained quite a few thoughts. Why am I short? Why are my teeth so yellow? Was my hair naturally red? After finishing rinsing, she moved to the living room to get some water. She swore she saw a shadow in the corner, as she tiptoes to the counter. She gulped down her water, before rushing back to her room.

Wait, my parents are asleep. And I am awake! But it's midnight and it’s school tomorrow . . . whatever. After deciding for quite awhile, she decided to stay up late to complete her drawn depiction of a cat. She completed the drawing already, but had forgotten to add shadows and shading. She made a large oblong towards the cat’s bottom, and shaded in the underside. She drew a background of a windowsill, with light glimmering inwards from the warmth of the Sun. She began to droop and eyelids struggled to stay open, but her masterpiece was completed. She decided to check her phone just one last time.

“Hey, I don’t know if you are awake, but I have a big surprise for you tomorrow . . .” she read. She didn’t understand what he meant by ‘surprise’, but she assumed it would be something lame. She got on top of her bed, closed the lights, and opened her eyes for the last time that day.

She dreamt about a ghastly figure, guiding her towards a rift, full of felines. As she gestured towards it, the dream changed once more, showing an hourglass that had holes from both ends, leaking grains of sand that swirled up to the top. Once again, she was back with the figure and the rift. As she moved towards it, she noticed the cats were rather strange. They had many eyes, their bodies contorted violently, and their bodies were distorted. She couldn’t dwell on this, for she was back with the hourglass. It had less sand in it, and it was leaking out towards her. She saw the rift once more, and the figure pushing her closer to it. The cat-like creatures became vile and gross, and were now twisting towards her in a manic fashion; their slimy grips amplified with each drizzle.

“Ah! Stop grabbing at me!” shouted Victoria.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” the cats shrieked, in perfect unison. Victoria tried to kick them away, but every movement seemed to drag her closer to the rift. The ghost continued to shove her into the writhing arms, and like a poltergeist, the figure could feel Victoria, but she could not feel it. Just as she was beginning to be consumed by the portal, she woke up. At the dead of night, she woke up to a horrifying visage over her. Her boyfriend had gotten into the room, and was staring directly into her eyes.

“It’s tomorrow now, and we have to talk.”