“Ugh. . . wha—where am I?”

With a throbbing headache, I found myself in a metal wheelbarrow filled with hay. I tried lifting myself out, but I had virtually no strength, so I had to slide around as if I were a slug. As I looked around the area during my grand life as a slug, I pieced together that I was in an abandoned warehouse of some kind. There were some metal boxes, however most were opened and emptied. Eventually, I got out of the wheelbarrow, slamming my head onto the concrete ground.

I felt the warm gush of my own blood enveloping my forehead. My panic quickly dropped the warm sensation into that of horror. While landing, I noticed that there was a glow on my head, but I couldn’t care about that right now. At a snail’s pace, my hand moved to provide pressure on my head when my world suddenly blackened.

With my eyes opening I was a bit peeved waking up again within the same hour. My annoyance washed away as I remembered my injury.

“Meow!” I shouted. What. . . did I unironically say meow? Wait, that's not the issue here.

My legs moved first my front right, then my back left, and followed by my front left and back right. What the hell do I mean my front and back legs are moving! Completely flustered, I raced to the wheelbarrow which was now much larger and imposing. I stared at it and what stared back was a cat with grey fur and lime-green eyes. W—where’s my bleeding, why am I a cat! I looked at where I fell, there was no more blood. I sat down with my hind legs crouched. My eyes squinted to narrow on my reflection.

“Meow. . .” I really am a cat, even when I try to say words it just ends up being cat sounds.

But what happened to my bleeding? I touched my forehead to inspect it when—this time—I felt like I was rapidly growing. I was morphing, and at the end of it I was staring back at my human self.

“Oh sweet baby Jesus I’m me.”

My injury is gone? I got closer to the wheelbarrow to inspect my forehead. Instead of blood, there was an eight that was glowing blue on my forehead. 

“What the. . .”

I tapped my forehead to see what it was about. Instead of rapidly growing, I was shrinking, decaying almost. By the end, I was a cat once more.

“Meow.”

I quickly reverted back to my human form. The number on my forehead had changed from eight to seven.

“I see, so that’s how it works,” my head nodded in affirmation. “What the hell is this! I can turn into a cat seven more times? Where the hell even am I, I can’t even remember what happened before I woke up. Tch, I swear to god, if there’s a god, he. . . Agh, he better pray to god the least I do is kill him!”

Then, my ears twitched. It was not a sensation I enjoyed, but I assumed that my cat-like senses somewhat transferred to my human form. Ear twitching means danger, right? But what could be so bad around here— There was a gunshot fired.

I accidentally let out, “eep!”

My eyes widened as the door was slammed open and people swarmed the warehouse. It was late in the night so they couldn’t have seen me yet, but what the hell am I going to do if they did. It dawned on me, being able to turn into a cat actually had purpose if, by some shit-luck, you encounter the mafia. I felt no tension for the situation; I begrudgingly tapped my forehead. Sure enough, I turned into a cat. 

When the men got to the wheelbarrow, they immediately saw me and pointed their guns at me. My heart was beating faster than Sonic, but I acted as calm as I could when I tilted my head at one of them.

“Meow?”

One of the two shouted before picking me up and coddling me. It was a weird and warm sensation as he patted my head and scratched my chin. He eventually put me on the ground and started rubbing my belly and—wait! I am not going to let this bald munchkin cuddle me like a Build-A-Bear. Well, I suppose one more minute of this wouldn’t—no! This stupid feline brain. 

I wiggled around to show that I was discomforted.

“Aww,” he said, but then the rest of his words was a foregin sound to me.

He said one more thing while waving his hand to shoo me away. I nodded and dashed the hell out of there. Thinking about it, I’m not too sure why I nodded since I’m trying to act like a cat, but it felt right at the time.

I continued running until I saw lots of people gathered in an area. It should be fine to change back here. As I cruised my way to an alley to change back, there were some people who noticed and watched me as I entered the alley as a cat and left as a human. The onlookers were completely confused.

“What, never seen a man turn into a cat before?”

They shook it off and turned back to the event because they didn’t want to let their mood be soiled by this form-changing-behemoth. I joined them and saw a rock band playing “The Final Countdown”. On the stage, there was a sign that had “Asia” written; was this a parody band of Europe? I couldn’t tell from the lyrics because they were speaking in their language.

Sighing, I walked away. Where the hell do I go from here? 

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“I guess I’ll roam around and go site-seeing.”

I whistled as I coasted around. It was night time right now. Most of the buildings I saw were colored somewhere between orange and yellow. The—coincidentally—orange-yellow street-lights had painted the city as a pretty and soothing area. Does that mean this is Rome? That’s the only place I can think of that’s like this. Where the hell is Rome anyway, France?

My thoughts consumed me and after hours of walking I realized that my legs ached and my stomach was on the brink of embarrassing me.

“Maybe if I change forms it’ll make me full,” I said aloud, not caring if anyone heard as no one knew English. “Changing forms healed me so I can’t see why it can’t make me full again.” Then again, I can only do it six more times now.

I stood still thinking of what to do when someone who appeared old and senile walked up to me.

“What’s up?” Ah right, he can’t understand me—

“Are you hungry right now?” He said in perfect English.

Color drew from my face as I awkwardly laughed, “hahaha, y—yeah I am, why?”

“I know a place where you can eat, I have a discount because I’m a regular. I can pay for you, I’m hungry myself.”

What’s the worst that could happen. “Are you sure, I don’t mind you taking me there, but I can pay myself.”

“Can you? You don’t seem like you have any money.”

I immediately coughed violently, “sorry, uh yeah. We can go there I guess.” Completely forgot that I was dropped here with no memories or money.

He was wearing a hood so I couldn’t pick out any discernible features beside his general short and hunched figure. He led me down many alleys and each time we got to a new street, it looked more old and run-down. I’m going to die here, aren’t I? I swatted away the thought. You can’t think like that, he’s giving you a free meal. It could just be in a questionable part of town. 

“Your head, what is that number?” He asked.

Oh crap, other people can see it then. “It’s uh, it’s a tattoo.”

He nodded before leading me down a flight of stairs where there were two men in suits standing in front of a closed metal door. He showed one of the two a card and got them to open up the doors.

It’s too late to say my prayers isn’t it. Wait no! Maybe the food is so good that it has to be hidden like this! 

“What’s wrong?”

“N—nothing.” I walked in after him.

The site I got to witness was an underground market filled with shops, stands, racks of items, the works. It was pretty in a degrading way. We continued walking into a small room with a bar and some chairs. The room had no lights and the windows were broken. All of a sudden, the door closed and locked. Future me is going to grill me. From the shadows came out two men, they held onto my arms to prevent me from making any moves.

I stared down at the old man.

“Before you steal my organs or something, let me flip you off first. C’mon, I can’t do anything even if I had an arm free.” My heart was beating faster and faster and time felt as though it was slowing.

He chuckled, “whatever.” He spoke in another language.

The grip on my right arm loosened.

With a massive grin I couldn’t hide, I put up an aggressive middle finger, “wolf wolf mother fucker.”

I twisted my body—straining my core in the process—to slam my forehead with my forearm.

I heard shouting in. . . Italian, that’s the language. My body quickly morphed into a cat. Run, run, run, run, run, run, run! My thoughts were somehow louder than my heart while I was jumping onto a chair, then table, then off into the window. More yelling filled my ears, but I did not care.

I ran as fast as my quad-pedal form allowed me. I dashed my way through all of the people. I couldn’t escape through the way I came in, they had to open the doors. I ran aimlessly to lose myself in the crowd until I saw a small broken window up above a stand. Below the window was a food stand. There was a tarp that I could get on to get to the window. The thing was, I had to jump onto flames to make it high enough. There’s no other options.

Steeling myself, I ran and hopped onto the grill. Everyone was shocked, the chef tried to push me off and bystanders were either watching in awe or trying to record me. My flesh was burning, but I persisted as I managed to get onto the tarp and lunged my way into the window. Slamming my hand to my forehead, I shifted back to a human, but this was to heal. I changed back to a cat once more as this form makes it harder for them to spot me. I’m not the only cat in Rome after all.

Running around, I eventually saw a large imposing figure that stood above all. The Colosseum. I decided to make my way there, there would be a lot of people there and they can’t do anything to me then if there’s so many watching. The pretty street lights meshed with the ancient buildings to form a blur as I got closer to where I wanted. I kept on turning my head to check where the men were, but I didn’t see anyone. Suddenly, I slammed into a leg and it probably hurted me a lot more than whoever I bumped into. I diverted my attention to the person and. . .

Why does she look familiar? I stared at a woman who looked like she was no older than twenty. She had brown hair chopped below her shoulders and hazel eyes.

“Oh, it’s a cat?” She spoke in English and squatted down to pick me up.

I was inspecting her, where have I seen her before? It wasn’t long before I realized she wasn’t petting me or anything like that, she was also inspecting me.

“Meowww?”

She smiled and got up, “dad, can we adopt him? He’s so cute!”

The man she was next to was just barely taller than her. While they were talking I thought about the events from tonight. I started with nine lives, and now I have. . . four? Three? I’m really bad at math. . .

“We’re already leaving by tomorrow morning though.”

“So? There’s got to be a shelter open somewhere here. I’ll go and put him in and then when I’m done, you go in and offer to buy the cat!” 

“Laia, they’ll keep him for weeks at least to see if there’s a previous owner before they’ll let someone adopt.”

“Just buy the whole adoption center for all I care.”

“Why do you want this cat so badly anyway, you’ve never cared for animals before.”

“Hmm, I can’t say. I just feel like there’s something more intelligent with this cat than others.”

My heart dropped, but I tried not to show it. She looked at me and her smile grew a bit brighter, whether it was because I was cute or she was toying with me I wasn’t sure. It can’t hurt to get adopted by her, can it? That’s what you were thinking earlier when you almost got your organs removed, dumbass. No no, there’s something different about her though.

I growled which caught her off-guard.

“What’s wrong?”

“Meow.” 

It can’t hurt, I don’t have any memories. For now, I’ll follow her as her pet and see what happens.