It was raining that morning. Not the cinematic kind of rain—no thunder, no heavy downpour—just a slow, miserable drizzle that turned the streets to soup and left everything smelling like wet pavement and rust.
Hale had barely slept.
He'd woken up at least four times in the night, each time feeling like someone was watching him. Each time, the room had looked normal. Silent. Still. But that crawling sensation in his spine told a different story.
He dragged himself to the kitchen, eyes half-lidded and shoulders slouched. The old toaster sputtered, sending out smoke instead of warmth. Of course it did. Nothing was working the way it should anymore.
He opened the door to toss the burnt toast out into the bin.
That's when he saw it.
A cat.
Sitting on the porch, soaked but calm. Its fur was matted down, one paw slightly lifted like it had been there a while. But what struck Hale wasn't the way it stared at him—unblinking, as if it knew him.
It was its face.
One eye. Just one. The left socket was sealed shut, fur growing where the eye should've been. But the other eye—sharp, amber, unsettlingly human in its intensity—did not look away.
And on the cat's chest, barely visible through the wet fur, was a faint mark. A curved line. Almost identical to the one under Hale's collarbone.
His heart stuttered.
He stepped outside, barefoot on the wet concrete. "Hey... where did you come from?"
The cat didn't move.
It didn't run. It didn't hiss. It simply turned and walked past him into the house like it belonged.
Hale stood frozen for a second, glancing both ways down the street. No one around. No other animals.
He slowly closed the door and turned back toward the hallway.
The cat was already sitting on the rug in the living room, grooming itself like nothing was out of place.
Barney noticed it first at school.
"You look worse every day, Hale. You trying out for zombie auditions behind my back?"
Hale tried to shrug it off. "I found a cat."
Barney blinked. "That... explains nothing."
Hale hesitated, unsure how much to say. "It had this weird mark. Like mine."
Barney's joking expression faltered just a bit. "Okay. That's creepy."
Then he stopped in his tracks and snapped his fingers. "Wait—hang on. Was that the same cat I saw yesterday?"
Hale turned to him slowly. "What?"
"At your window. For like half a second. Amber eye, no eye patch but—definitely giving 'ghost of a pirate's soul trapped in a furball' vibes."
"You saw it?"
"Yeah," Barney said with a shrug. "Thought I imagined it. When I looked again, it was gone. Thought maybe I was dehydrated or hallucinating a Disney villain."
Hale didn't respond.
Barney elbowed him. "If it starts speaking Latin or levitating furniture, call me. I'll bring popcorn and holy water."
That night, Hale lay in bed staring at the ceiling.
The cat—he hadn't named it—was curled on the foot of the bed. He could feel its warmth through the blanket. There was comfort in its presence, but also something strange.
The longer he stared, the more thoughts twisted in his head like tangled string.
What if this wasn't a cat?
What if the mark wasn't just a coincidence?
He rolled over.
The mark on his chest burned.
Worse than before.
He ripped off his shirt and rushed to the bathroom.
The mirror didn't lie.
The line had extended again. The curve was deeper now, forming the beginning of something circular. Intricate. Like a sigil. A seal.
His breath hitched. He touched it with trembling fingers.
Still no pain.
Only that pulse. That sensation that something inside was... changing.
He glanced down—and his reflection blinked.
But he hadn't.
For a moment, it wasn't him in the mirror.
It was someone else.
A flash. A blur. Pale skin, hollow eyes, a grin that was too wide—
And then it was gone.
He staggered back, gasping, knocking over a bottle of mouthwash.
The bathroom light flickered.
From the hallway, a soft sound echoed.
The cat meowed.
But it wasn't the usual sound.
It was low.
Almost human.