Chapter 2: The Unblinking Gaze

Chapter 2: The Unblinking Gaze

Elara didn’t call the shelter.

She told herself it was because Jinx was still settling in, that it would be cruel to uproot him again so soon. She told Liam she’d left a message and was waiting for them to call back. Both were lies. The truth was a cold, hard stone in her gut: she was too afraid to let him out of her sight. It was a nonsensical, paradoxical fear. The very thing that terrified her was the thing she felt compelled to watch, as if looking away was the more dangerous option.

The days were deceptively normal. Jinx would doze in patches of sunlight, looking for all the world like a perfectly ordinary, if bizarrely assembled, cat. Elara would work at her desk, the rhythmic click of her mouse a comforting anchor to reality. She’d catch herself tracing the lines of a logo, only to glance over and find Jinx’s head lifted, his gaze fixed on her. He wasn’t asleep. She wasn’t sure he ever was.

But the nights were when the apartment’s thin veil of normalcy was shredded completely.

The first night after his arrival, she’d woken to find him at the foot of their bed, a compact shadow against the duvet. Unsettling, but understandable. By the third night, it had become a ritual of dread. Elara would drift off into a shallow, fitful sleep, only to be pulled awake by a primal sense of being observed. Each time, she’d open her eyes, and he would be there.

He was never in the same place twice.

One night, he was perched atop the tall dresser, a feline gargoyle silhouetted against the pale city glow filtering through the window. His enormous, round eyes were twin voids in the darkness, reflecting no light, seemingly absorbing it. They were locked on her.

Another night, a floorboard creaked somewhere in the apartment, and Elara’s eyes snapped open. The room was empty. Liam snorted softly in his sleep beside her. Relief, fragile and fleeting, washed over her. She rolled onto her side, pulling the covers up to her chin, and her breath hitched in her throat. He was on her nightstand, not six inches from her face. He hadn't made a sound. He just sat there, perfectly still, his oversized ears twitching slightly. His gaze was so intense it felt physical, a pressure against her skin. She lay paralyzed, her heart hammering against her ribs, until the first gray light of dawn crept into the room and he finally, silently, hopped down.

The game of ‘Red Light, Green Light’ was no longer a game. It was a hunt, and their home was the hunting ground.

The long hallway that connected the bedroom to the living room became a gauntlet. Elara would walk down it, the back of her neck prickling. She’d risk a glance over her shoulder. Jinx would be there, twenty feet back, frozen with one of his big paws raised. She’d turn away, walk faster, her heart thudding a frantic rhythm. Another glance. He was ten feet away now, his body low to the ground, his unblinking stare burning into her. He never made a sound. The polished hardwood floors that used to creak under her own weight remained utterly silent beneath his paws. By the time she reached the living room, her breath would be coming in ragged gasps, and he would be sitting just outside the doorway, as if waiting for the next round to begin.

“He’s just playing,” Liam insisted one evening, after she’d nearly dropped a stack of plates when Jinx appeared silently beside the kitchen counter.

“It’s not playing, Liam,” she said, her voice strained. “He follows me everywhere. He never makes a sound. And he never, ever sleeps. He just watches.”

Liam sighed, running a hand through his hair. He was tired. The stress of his job and the fractured sleep were wearing him down, leaving little patience for what he saw as flights of fancy. “El, cats are nocturnal predators. That’s what they do. They stalk things. You’re just not used to having one around.”

“And the fur?” she pressed, her voice rising with a desperate edge. “I told you about his back. It grew back in hours, Liam. And it’s a different color! And his claws—”

“He probably just had a scab that fell off,” he reasoned, his tone infuriatingly calm. “You’re exhausted. We’re both not sleeping well with him in the room. Maybe we should just shut the bedroom door tonight.”

Their argument was quiet but sharp, fueled by her mounting terror and his stubborn rationality. To Liam, it was a weird cat and a stressed girlfriend. To Elara, the world she knew was slowly tilting on its axis, and Liam was refusing to see it. That night, feeling a bitter mix of anger and defeat, she agreed. They closed the bedroom door, shutting the creature out. For the first time in a week, Elara felt a sliver of peace. She fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, the first real rest she’d had in days.

She woke abruptly in the suffocating dark. The silence in the room was absolute. Something was wrong. The air was cold, heavy. She reached out a hand for the lamp on her nightstand, her fingers fumbling for the switch.

Click.

The soft lamplight flooded the room, and Elara screamed.

Jinx was sitting on Liam’s chest, a dead weight on his sleeping form. His head was cocked, his eyes fixed on her. The bedroom door was still shut. The windows were locked. There was no way he could have gotten in. Yet there he was.

Liam bolted upright with a choked gasp, sending the cat flying. Jinx landed on the floor with that same impossible, weightless silence and scurried under the bed.

“What the hell?” Liam panted, his hand over his heart. “What was that?”

“He was on you,” Elara whispered, her body trembling uncontrollably. “The door was closed, Liam. It was closed. How did he get in?”

Liam stared at the closed door, then at the empty space where the cat had been. For the first time, Elara saw a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes, a crack in his pragmatic facade. He got out of bed and checked the door. It was firmly shut, the latch clicked into place. He checked the windows. Locked.

“I… I don’t know,” he finally admitted, his voice rough. He looked at Elara, truly looked at the pale, terrified woman huddled in their bed, and his expression softened from fear to concern. “Okay. Okay. You’re right. This isn’t normal.”

Neither of them slept for the rest of the night. They sat with their backs against the headboard, a lamp burning defiantly against the shadows, waiting for the sun to rise.

The next morning, the exhaustion was a physical ache in their bones. The apartment felt alien, hostile. Liam moved with a new, cautious energy, his eyes constantly scanning the corners of rooms. The truce between them was unspoken; they were on the same side now.

He walked into the kitchen to make coffee, stopping short at Jinx’s food bowl on the floor.

“Hey, weirdo,” Liam said, his voice low and devoid of its earlier affection. “You didn’t touch your food yesterday.”

He bent down and picked up the small ceramic dish. It was still full of the expensive, grain-free kibble they’d bought for him. Jinx sat a few feet away, watching the exchange with his usual unnerving stillness.

Liam filled the bowl with fresh food and set it back on the floor. Jinx didn’t move. He simply stared at the offering with what looked like disdain. Then, he slowly lifted his head, his black, glassy eyes meeting Elara’s from across the room.

A low sound rumbled deep in his chest. It vibrated through the floorboards, a guttural growl that had nothing to do with contentment. It wasn’t a purr. It was the sound of a deep and hollow emptiness. It was the sound of a different kind of hunger.