Misty found a greasy box that she hoped would help mitigate the rain, but so much leaked through that the water reached the inner layer of her fur. She could barely feel the cold, however, because the feeling of loss beating through her heart was so overwhelming.

It was gone. Everything she had based her entire life on was gone.

There was no more Fang. There was no more First Bite. Forever.

And yet, she was still alive. She still existed, although there was no part of her left.

Carefully, she picked at the collar on her neck. Normally, she slipped it on and off with the help of a friend, usually Brinkley. But now that she was alone, she decided it was time to make a few taboos.

Cats of the alley were superstitious when it came to their thumbs. “Keep that secret” her mother would say “Or they’ll come for you—the Laquems: monsters that wear human clothes. 

"They’ll eat up your humans, they’ll take you away, and you will never come back.”

But Misty was desperate enough to risk the worst, so she prepared herself mentally for the surprising pop of her joints, and pulled out two thumbs. The feeling was uncomfortable, but not painful, like losing a baby tooth.

As far as she knew, most cats never learned how to do this, at least the ones from her colony. But her first love, a fat persian named Clovis, had a knack for finding himself in the middle of illicit and dangerous places. 

He came home one day with a broken tooth and two opposable thumbs. Her mother fell into a panic, while Brinkley, who had a deep rooted anxiety of even the sun, merely yawned it off.

“Clovis, you dumbass...” He sighed, popping the thumbs back into place.

Gingerly, Misty unclasped the link around her neck and held the collar in front of her. Yellow streetlights reflected off of it’s tinmetal tag, showing the address of a house printed mechanically with human font and her name, clearly scratched on by a cat.

She had received it not too long ago.

“It’s yours, Fang.” Brinkley had told her, the day it was given to her. “I know it is.”

“Brinkley, did you write this?” Misty told him as she first looked at it’s face. “The address is across the street, from a cat breeder who prints these like paper. Do I look like a show cat?”

“It doesn’t matter.” Brinkley had said. “It’s yours. That’s your name. That’s your collar. That’s your home.”

“No humans want to keep me, Brinkley.” Misty sighed, “And I don’t know if I want that life.”

“Get yourself a life without the sky.” He told her. “Living outside like this...isn’t it killing you?” He asked this completely seriously, without any hyperbole. “Because it’s killing me.”

“You’re too attached to your old life.” Misty told him, admiring how the dark stripes around his eyes were like little feline glasses. “Must’ve been a pretty cushy life if you never saw sunlight. Were you one of those brats in the skyscrapers?”

Brinkley looked up at her with his minty gray eyes that smiled every time they met her own. He had a sophisticated sandy coat, gifted with precious little toes dappled with white and a charming permanent smile behind a snowy muzzle. It was a wonder that no one had picked him off the street already.

“Did you used to be fat, Brinkley?” Misty sniffed.

“I used to be very fat.” He smiled back, looking fondly over at her. “You like fat guys.”

“Fat guys always leave me.” Misty sighed, remembering Clovis, “They leave me for human beings that feed them better. You’d do the same, don’t deny it.”

“Misty.” Brinkley insisted, eyes alight. “I am not going to leave you. Not for any human’s house. You’re stuck with me, whether it’s as a friend or as your court jester or...whatever else, if you’re ever ready...”

It was an unspoken thing between them. That maybe one day, they’d be right for each other. But she had waited too long.

A shadow crossed her path, and she quickly pulled herself out of this memory to put her collar back on, placing back her thumbs with two snappy pops. Peeking a head out from her cardboard cabin, she saw a lumbering figure. His winter coat was like a human, but he had a smell like her own.

“Laquem?” She whispered to herself in fear, until she recognized the smell as the sleet turned into rain. “It can’t be! Is that Brinkley?”

The shadowy figure turned a corner, and so she did she. Ignoring the slush between her toes, she ran towards where his body lay under a yellow parking lot lamp.

“Brinkley!” She cried, sprinting to his side and digging him out from under a sea of fleece. He was barely breathing, covered in blood. “Hang on! I’ll drag you to a vet, maybe they’ll be nice!”

“Mrrow Fft! Misty!” He groaned.

“Stop cussing!” She hissed back. “You’ll get adopted and live under a ceiling, just like you wanted, OK? Just hold on, please!”

“Now, now there, your Highness.” He wheezed through coughs, reaching a paw over her own as he tried to speak.

“That’s not funny, not now, Brinkley. They’re all gone, everyone is all gone. Nothing is left, I’m not your damn Highness anymore!”

“Promise me. Don’t let the moon see me go. I won’t give it that satisfaction. That absolute bastard.”

He coughed through his words again, a guttural whisper, a mix of vowels, nothing coherent left his throat. Blood was on his lips from an internal injury she couldn’t see under his fur, but she could hear it bloom through his lungs.

“No! Don’t die on me!” She begged, trying to apply pressure to his wounds with the coat, but it was sopping through. He was so wet, so cold, and they were both so alone.

“Please don’t die!” She cried, feeling his blood seep through her pawpads, the smell of blood that had never left her throat from the alley, was now filling her chest.

“Please!”

As she screamed, a screech of brakes behind her made her look up in a fright. 

A car! Here? At this time of night!?

It couldn't be a car, the squeal of brakes held thousands of tons. She recognized the noise was the same as a long commuter train. But, that couldn’t be possible.

Misty had lived next to this parking lot her entire life, it did not have train tracks. 

But she followed the length of a train with her eyes, and saw that it passed through a fence and building behind her, as if it wasn’t corporeal at all. With a quick squeak of rubber the doors opened and a long beam of light fell onto the parking lot and across Misty's face. 

Out of the cabin stepped two figures, nearly human in size and clothes, but smelling like something else.

“...Laquems...” She whispered, as a chill climbed from her toes to her single ear. Whatever was here, was more terrifying than any monster in her alley. The superstitious nightmares of her childhood were given flesh.

***

Ahzila Vlumane tapped on the metal poles that stretched floor to ceiling along Miranda’s private train cabin. Furiously, Ahzila paced while trying to memorize flash cards, and Miranda was doing her best to be patient and ignore it. It was taking every single fiber of her being.

“Miranda, did you seriously take this test at one point? Can’t you do something about it? Make it illegal to have a test this stupid?” Ahzila hissed, pulling out a purple knife and taking a knick out of a pole.

Miranda Hanshicock was calmly writing letters, serene and peaceful, like a Singer Sargent painting, if Singer Sargent were painting outfitted cats the same size and stature of a human being.

Under her pressed jacket, she had a long and shapeless shift of light pastel blue, a rare color she was able to choose herself. Most cats were never given a choice, since no one knew how to operate the Loom anymore. Yet, Miranda was an exception to every rule.

While maybe the Achart had all died, and with them, so died any knowledge of how the Loom worked, Miranda had a lot of money. Not only did she manage to have such a precious thing dyed, she was even so lucky that it still worked afterward. 

The polished cat looked over with blue eyes the same color as her clothes, a still and calculated glare in her feline glance.

“Why do you waste your time and energy, girl?” Miranda asked, the harsh fluorescent lighting of the cabin illuminating her white fur and broad face. 

She was a chinchilla breed cat, but not by the strange human definition of selective breeding—for her, it was only by pure coincidence. Truth was, the collar on her neck was decieving. Miranda had never seen a human with her own two eyes. Not even her ancestors. Her line was ancient.

“Why!?” Ahzila huffed, hands on her hips, which were mostly covered by a long structured leather coat to cover her maroon robe. “It’s not obvious? I’m doing this because I want to have a future.”

“Be glad you’re still alive.” Miranda answered, looking back down at her letters. “They’d have thrown you to Earth in shackles. Be grateful I still had some mercy left over.”

Ahzila was grateful, but she wasn’t happy about it. Consumed by angry calico energy, she took another bite out of a plastic seat with the gemstone knife.

“If I pass this test—which I will—I’ll be working with Patrick instead of working for you.”

“Oh my.” Miranda said, without an inflection to her voice. “Is that supposed to be a two weeks notice?”