The café was ordinary—quiet music, low voices, the soft clink of porcelain. The kind of place where nothing important was meant to happen.
A cat lay on the counter near the register.
It had been there long enough to be ignored. Customers stepped around it. Staff worked as if it were part of the furniture. Its eyes were half-closed, breathing slow, distant.
A man approached the counter to place his order.
Behind him, a waiter paused, balancing a tray of glasses, waiting for the register to clear.
The cat's ear twitched.
It didn't look at the customer.
Its head turned slightly—just enough—its gaze slipping past the man, settling somewhere behind him.
Then it spoke.
Its voice was calm. Almost bored. Casual, like a passing thought.
"Oh.
You're still here."
The customer stiffened.
For half a second, his mind refused to accept what his ears had heard. Then instinct took over. His breath hitched, eyes wide, and he took two unsteady steps backward, nearly colliding with a nearby table.
"What the—" someone started.
The cashier froze, hands hovering uselessly above the register, mouth parted in shock.
Around them, conversations died instantly.
Chairs stopped scraping. Cups hovered mid-air. Every eye locked onto the counter.
Silence fell so hard it felt physical.
You could have heard a pin drop.
Behind the customer, the waiter's face drained of color.
The tray tilted.
A glass slipped free and shattered against the floor, the sound exploding far louder than it should have in the stillness.
Someone gasped.
Someone laughed nervously.
Someone whispered, "Did… did the cat just talk?"
The cat had already looked away.
It closed its eyes, shifted once, and went back to sleep.
Like nothing impossible had happened.
Like it hadn't just spoken.
Like the words hadn't been meant for anyone at all.
The customer stared at the cat, heart pounding, unsure whether to run or scream.
The cashier couldn't move.
But the waiter knew.
Still here.
Not a question.
A statement.
For a brief, dangerous moment, his gaze dropped to the sleeping cat. A thought surfaced—sharp, ugly, final.
Then it vanished.
Something quiet and absolute made it clear that touching the cat was not an option.
He cleaned the broken glass with trembling hands.
The café eventually breathed again.
People argued. People denied. People convinced themselves they had imagined it.
The waiter never returned.
And the cat was never heard from again.