“Dreaming about a cat means something bad is about to happen in your life, like disloyalty, hypocrisy, sorrows in love, quarrels, and separations. You should avoid taking serious decisions on your life for a while.”

— You changed your mind… — said Doctor M. — Why haven’t you said anything?

— I didn’t change my mind — π12-45 simply replies.

— You finally acted! You finally clearly said something. That’s really important!

— I didn’t change myself. I try when I can and I step back when I can’t.

— Okay… You are right! — Pretended the doctor. — If you are saying… However, why you felt you should give a step further now?

— No reason. I had no reason to not give a step back.

— Instead of assuming you wanted to go further, you just assume you couldn’t go back. Is it right?

— That’s more like it, yes.

— What would you do if you could go further?

— Do you mean, if I have the information needed to deal with the shadows?

— Yes, elaborate it.

— First protocol: protect. Put people in safer places where they couldn’t be harmed. Second protocol: find the shadow weakness. Each shadow should have a specific way to be dealt with. Third protocol: combat and killing.

— Why didn’t you use any of those protocols?

— Shadows can pass through solids. Shadows may have shown weaknesses, like when a butterfly dies on my hand. Eventually, I should have realized they only have lost their physical form and they can’t die – they would simply come back not long after it. The best way to deal with them is to distract them, to feed them with something they want or desire and ran away, hoping they will not come back so soon.

— Why you haven’t used it to create your own protocols to deal with the shadows?

— They obviously don’t make enough sense even for me. With a child mind, my thoughts power was cut down to less than one percent. Thinking like a human is way less logical and appropriate to deal with problems than it is for me as a robot. We were made with two cores and they are enough for us to evolve our thoughts into better thoughts and thus, our actions. Eventually, a human has more than just two cores. Besides mind and heart, they have instincts, for example, their fears, used to preserve them, even though they can overreact about their own fears, having rational and irrational ones. Also, humans have external feelings, feelings that come from something that wasn’t produced by something that clearly exists, adding a ‘supernatural’ instinct to the way they process their thoughts and how they will react. Even though those shadows weren’t part of the same plane, being a residual life form I, as the human David, was able to feel them walking and moving around me, no matter if I was seeing their shadows or not. In other words, I was way more worried about them being around than to actually react to them in a more logical way.

— That makes sense… — Doctor M. thought for a moment and changed his own holographic image to look exactly like π12-45, a humanoid black body, covered with a white armor and no facial features, besides the blue light ring around his light receptors. — For you… You see what you want to see π12-45. You are simply disconnected from your own thoughts. You think you should be connected to them all, but you are only connected to only a part of it and you assume that, as you should have control over all of them, your dreams don’t make sense for you.

— I didn’t say they don’t make sense to me.

— No?

— I said, as I can’t rely on reality to describe them, they don’t make sense out of it. It wasn’t about me to make sense out them; I was forced to live them every single day, making sense or not.

— So, how would you describe how you see them?

— They are humans. Dead humans. The human body produces a residual energy that loses its own form and tries to be human again. The new life form has thoughts, it can think, but not properly. It wants something and you need to give it or you will be their dinner.

__________

It was raining a lot that time, after when Sam lost the shadows who was possessing him. Esther examined him and he was pretty fine, except he was still refusing to think. As I was the only one sleeping on the dormitory at the time, I was helping Sam to walk around and do his things. He was way hard to deal than Gabriel, but I didn’t have anything better to do. Billy also helped me sometimes and, eventually, he was always saying:

— Dude, why you aren’t afraid of this guy to suddenly wake up and punch you again?

Someday I simply replied:

— I probably would know if he ever starts hearing voices again… I can hear the same voices.

— Dude… Are you some kind of crazy head? Do you listen to those voices?

— No. What is a crazy head?

— You know… those people who don’t think straight and do crazy things… — he said showing how I should be acting if I was a crazy head.

— No, definitely I am not. I never would listen to anyone who could incite me to do something bad like what they were doing with Sam. The first thought I have is to protect, not to harm, and I only should harm when necessary. If Sam tries to harm me I should do something about it, but only if he tries.

— Hun… Nice thought! You are a nice guy big D!

— Big D?

— Yeah, dude, you are great, big, and your name starts with a D! Sometimes you are so slow, dude!

— I’m simply not used to be human like this…

— Yeah, dude, living here make things with your mind. Everyone is saying they were seeing a black cat walking around the dormitories at night… but from outside the windows and the cat was huge like a person! Can you imagine that?

— That’d probably a shadow thing.

— Again with those… how did you call them again? “Demonic” things?

— They were controlling Sam and you saw how he is acting after not being possessed by them anymore. I think he was always controlled by them and now he doesn’t know how to think anymore.

— I still think they drugged him too hard this time! — Billy laughed, still thinking I was just kidding.

— If you see that cat, please, tell me about it.

— I never saw it, but everyone around me on the dormitory said they saw it when I was sleeping.

— Oh… That’s probably bad news for you.

— Wait… What? Why it would be bad news for me dude?

— The cat was probably looking at you while you were sleeping…

— Woah! That was scary!

— Would you mind to sleep with me on my dormitory? It probably will make the flying cat come to the east side.

— If they catch me sleeping on another dormitory… I would be in trouble!

— Well, just try to pretend you were sleeping on your dormitory, and then, when everything is dark, come to the east side. You can go back before the sunrise as soon as we see the ‘flying’ cat.

— That sounds nice…. but what we do if we don’t see it?

— I’m feeling it will be today…

As I said, we really tried to see if something would happen, but unfortunately, it didn’t happen as fast as I thought and Billy was getting impatient without being able to sleep.

— What did you say again about the cat only appearing when you were sleeping? — I asked.

— That everyone saw it when I was sleeping.

— Everyone but you, right?

— Yes. Do you think it only comes when I am sleeping?

— Well… I can go to your dormitory and wait for you to sleep. If we don’t make any sound, I probably will be able to get in there without anyone complaining about it. What do you think?

— Sounds nice and… — Billy yawned — I’m about to sleep already…

We silently walk to his dormitory on the upper floor and to the west side. Billy said once they could have sent him to the east side if they wanted, but it was full. As we get closer to his dormitory, I felt the temperature fall abruptly. I stopped for a moment, as we were inside the dormitory, but Billy walked all the way to his bed.

— Billy… — I said to him, looking at how dark the dormitory suddenly was. — Billy!

— What now? — He yawned once more. — You said I could sleep, dude…

— Billy! Please! Look around you! What you see?!

— Nothing… It’s dark…

It was raining and we could hear thunders around us.

— Exactly! Where’s the light from the lightning?

— What? — We heard some thunders, but no light coming through the large windows. — Oh no… We were seeing them from your dormitory, didn’t we see?

— Yes… The shadows are already here.

— Yeah but… where’s the cat?

— You are probably looking at it already… it’s all around on the windows…

— Really? — Billy got up and waited from it in the middle of the way between the beds. — I can’t see any…

In front of our very eyes, there were floating cat eyes looking at us in front of Billy. They were light blue and split vertically. The cat then showed his paw, a human hand, where sharp nails have grown.

— Billy! Watch out! — I said, pulling him away from the cat.

— Aaah… — Billy screamed hit by the cat, waking up everyone. — It hurts! Help! It hurts!

I pulled Billy all the way to the corridor, where there was some light and I saw that five really long scratch lines cut Billy’s clothes and they were so deep they were making him bleed. Away from the cat, Billy got up and we ran to talk with anyone about a cat on the dormitory. We got help for Billy while the big guys who had thrown me on the showers went to the dormitory pretty quickly. On the infirmary room, a man called Luke helped me to clean up Billy wounds and we stitched him, as the cuts were too deep. It took a while for us to finish it and soon Billy was sleeping on his new bed.

— What are you doing out of your bed? — Luke asked.

— I was helping my friend… perhaps? — I tried to dissimulate.

— Stay away from him. You already caused plenty of trouble for one night.

— Yeah… right… — I was about to get out of the room. — …but! What happened if the cat comes after him?

— Why you insist it was a cat? It clearly was you who made it!

— What? Not again! Why you shadows always want to blame me! I didn’t do anything!

— All the boys have met this strange cat… Except for you!

— What?! That doesn’t mean it was I who did that!

— Show me a scratch mark them! All the boys got them! Except you!

I looked inside my shirt:

— I… better not show it for you… — and I tried to run away.

— It was you! — He held my arm. — Show it right now!

— No! Please…

He soon lifted my shirt and he saw it.

— What the…

— I don’t have a scratch but…

— I can’t believe it…

— Please, it’s not serious…

— There are scars everywhere!

I pulled my shirt from his hand:

— There are things… There are things in the dark and they take a piece of me now and then…

— Not even an adult get so many scars! What happened to you?

I looked at his Id:

— Listen, Luke, it’s not the first time it had happened, okay. There are things out there that want to hurt us and we need to…

— No, no! You have been making those scratches on everyone! You want to take revenge on everyone who is normal! This ends here! Give me the blade you used to cut Billy!

— The blade…? — I thought for a moment. — Oh… the blade… yes… Well, I guess I probably left it upstairs. Would you mind to come with me?

— Just hurry!

We walked all the way back to Billy’s dormitory and the door was closed. I opened it and Luke entered the room. He saw the two big guys in the middle of the dormitory, got close to them and the lights suddenly turned off without anyone touching the light switch. I closed the door and held it while I could.

— Open the door! — Luke said.

— I’m sorry! — I shouted and let it go, running back to my dormitory without looking back.

On the next morning, I found everyone there dead with deep cuts on their necks. Always five long scratch lines…