Chapter 6: The Missing Cat

Chapter 6: The Missing Cat

Three weeks.

Three weeks had passed since the night of the party, a chasm of time that had swallowed the woman Alexandra Vance used to be. The vibrant, witty graphic designer had been eroded away, leaving behind a gaunt, hollow-eyed creature of routine and fear. Her life was now a meticulously choreographed dance of avoidance. She slept on the sofa. She worked in frantic, unproductive bursts, her focus constantly fractured by the strain of listening for a sound that was not there. She kept her apartment immaculately clean, as if imposing order on her physical space could somehow cleanse the festering wrongness that had taken root within it.

The silence was the worst part. The entity had grown quiet after the terrifying incident with the computer monitor. There were no more open doors, no more misplaced objects. But this absence of activity was not a comfort. It felt like the unnerving stillness of a predator digesting its meal, confident that its prey was trapped and the next hunt could wait.

The constant, aching void in her life was the absence of Max. His food and water bowls remained by the kitchen counter, scrubbed clean but accusingly empty. Every time she saw them, a fresh wave of guilt and grief washed over her. He had vanished the night of the party, and while her rational mind clung to the flimsy hope that he had slipped out the door during the chaos, her heart knew better. His disappearance was tied to the grinning thing under her bed. It was a piece of the same impossible puzzle.

She was on her way back from a rare, necessary trip to the grocery store, her head down and shoulders hunched, when a voice broke through her self-imposed isolation.

“Alexandra, dear?”

It was Mrs. Gable from 27B, a kindly woman with a cloud of white hair and eyes that crinkled with concern. “I haven’t seen you in ages. Is everything alright? You look like you haven’t slept in a month.”

Alex forced a smile that felt like cracking plaster. “Just a big project at work. You know how it is.”

“Of course, of course.” Mrs. Gable nodded, then hesitated, her expression shifting to one of tentative helpfulness. “Dear, I don’t mean to pry, but I was thinking about your little cat… Max, isn’t it? I saw a cat down in the service alley behind the building yesterday. A little black one, just like him, but ever so skinny. I called to him, but he shot off like a rocket the second he saw me.”

The world, which had been a smear of grey, snapped into sharp focus. A jolt, pure and potent, shot through Alex’s exhausted body. Hope. It was a feeling so foreign she had almost forgotten what it was like.

“Black? You’re sure?” Alex asked, her voice tight with a desperate urgency.

“Oh, yes. Sleek and black, with those big green eyes. He looked terrified, poor thing.”

That was all it took. The apathy that had encased her for weeks shattered. This was something she could do. A task. A goal. A tangible action in a world that had become an intangible nightmare. Finding Max was a way to reclaim a piece of her old life, a piece of herself.

“Thank you,” Alex said, the words full of a genuine warmth that surprised even her. “Thank you, Mrs. Gable.”

Back in her apartment, she moved with a purpose she hadn’t felt in an eternity. She didn’t just put away her groceries; she slammed the cabinet doors with a satisfying finality. The passive, terrified victim was gone, replaced by a woman on a mission. Her graphic design skills, so useless for the past three weeks, were suddenly relevant again. She designed a simple, clean “MISSING” poster, Max’s most charming photo featured prominently below the bold text. She printed twenty copies.

She taped them in the lobby, the mailroom, the laundry room, and by the service elevator, her movements crisp and efficient. She spoke to the doorman, who promised to keep an eye out. For the first time in weeks, the fear was secondary, pushed to the back of her mind by the driving force of her love for her cat.

After plastering the building, she returned to her apartment. The search outside had yielded nothing. Now, she had to do the one thing she’d been avoiding. She had to perform a final, definitive search of her own space, to be absolutely certain he wasn't trapped or hiding somewhere inside.

Her search started in the living areas, her calls of “Max!” echoing in the silent apartment. She checked inside the sofa, behind the media console, in every kitchen cabinet. Nothing.

Finally, there was only one place left. The loft bedroom.

She stood at the bottom of the short staircase, her resolve faltering. She hadn’t been in that room for more than a minute at a time since the night of the scuttling. The memory of it—the light, dry patter of small feet, the intimate scrape of a fingernail beneath her pillow—made the muscles in her back tighten. It was enemy territory. The entity’s den.

For Max, she told herself, gripping the handrail. He could be hurt. He could be trapped.

The thought propelled her forward. She took the stairs two at a time and entered the room, a chill crawling over her skin despite the stuffy air. The room was just as she had left it, pristine and unnervingly still. She checked the closet first, pushing aside clothes with a frantic energy. Then behind the dresser. Under the armchair in the corner. Nothing.

There was only one place left. The place where it had all begun.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic bird trapped in a cage. Her breath came in short, shallow gasps. She remembered her mother’s first rule—don’t give it attention—but her need to know, her desperate hope to find her cat, was more powerful.

She dropped to her hands and knees, the cold floor a shock against her skin. It was a horrific echo of that first night. For a split second, she saw it again: the grinning, upside-down face, the bloodshot eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the image away.

“Max?” she whispered, her voice a pathetic tremor.

She took out her phone, switched on the flashlight, and forced herself to look. The bright, white beam cut a cone through the darkness, illuminating a landscape of dust bunnies and the distant wall. She swept the light back and forth, her hand shaking.

Nothing. Just an empty, dusty void.

A sob of disappointment and relief caught in her throat. He wasn't here. He really must have gotten out.

As she started to pull back, the edge of the flashlight beam caught on something. A small, familiar shape, almost hidden behind one of the thick wooden legs of the bed frame. Her heart leaped.

The beam found it and held it. It was Max’s favorite toy, a small felt mouse with a little bell sewn inside that he loved to bat around the apartment.

But it was wrong. Horribly wrong.

The grey felt was torn to ribbons, shredded as if by dozens of tiny, sharp teeth. The stuffing was pulled out, matted into ugly clumps. And the whole thing was… damp. Not wet with water, but with a slick, cold dampness that made her stomach turn. She knew instinctively it was saliva.

The little bell was gone.

Alex stared, her mind refusing to process the sight. This wasn't a toy that had been lost and forgotten. This was a desecration. A trophy. It had been placed there deliberately, under the bed, in the exact spot where the entity had first revealed itself.

It was a message.

The fragile bubble of hope that had sustained her all day didn't just pop; it imploded, creating a vacuum that was instantly filled with a black, suffocating certainty. Mrs. Gable hadn’t seen Max. She had seen a stray cat. Max had never left the apartment.

The entity hadn't just scared him. It hadn't just chased him away. The violence inflicted on the tiny felt mouse was a clear, unambiguous statement. This was what it had done to him.

The psychological warfare was over. The game had changed. This wasn't just about her sanity anymore, about surviving a terrifying haunting. The creature in her apartment was not just a trickster or a parasite. It was a predator. It could affect the physical world. It could harm, and it could kill. It had taken something she loved and had left this brutal little effigy as a taunt, a declaration of its power.

Grief, raw and absolute, tore through her. But beneath the grief, something else was kindling. A cold, hard ember of rage. The rules weren’t working. Ignoring it wasn’t starving it. It was letting it win. It was letting it hunt in her own home.

She scrambled back, away from the bed, her eyes still locked on the shredded toy. Her mother's cryptic warnings, her rules for a game Alex didn't understand, were not enough anymore. This was a war. And she needed a weapon. She needed answers.

With a newfound, chilling calm, Alex stood up, walked out of the bedroom without a backward glance, and picked up her phone. Her thumb, steady now, scrolled to her mother’s name. This time, she wasn’t calling for comfort. She was calling for an explanation.