Catsopolis was a city of verticality and chaos. Skyscrapers were essentially giant cat trees, connected by rope bridges, transparent tubes, and carpeted ramps that spiraled up into the smoggy twilight. The sky was a perpetual, soothing purple—the color of a bruise healing into a memory.
Noah walked down Main Street, dodging a group of kittens zooming past on hover-skateboards. The city noise was a cacophony of meows, purrs, and the scratching of claws on concrete. He looked at the list in his hand. The paper felt heavy, heavier than paper should be. It pulsed with a faint warmth.
"First item: The Space Drawing," Noah muttered, trying to ignore the way the neon signs for Tuna-Cola and Meow-Mix flickered in his peripheral vision. "Where would a cat keep a drawing of space?"
"Try the Observatory, hairless," a voice rasped from the shadows of a damp alleyway between a milk bar and a yarn shop.
Noah jumped, spinning around. Sitting on top of a rusted dumpster was a scruffy, one-eared tabby cat wearing a tattered denim vest. He was cleaning a paw with methodical, indifferent licks.
"Who are you?" Noah asked, stepping back. Strays were unpredictable.
"Names don't matter in the alley," the cat said, stopping to spit out a hairball with a wet hack. "Call me Mittens. You look lost. You have that 'I just got a quest from the boss and I don't know where the tutorial is' look in your eyes."
"Mr. Purr-sident sent me," Noah said, trying to sound important.
"He sends everyone eventually," Mittens said, hopping down. He landed silently, despite the trash on the ground. "You're looking for the Space Drawing. It's in the Luna Park district. Old sector. Abandoned."
"Luna Park?" Noah tasted the word. It felt familiar. Sweet, like cotton candy and stale popcorn. "Why is it abandoned?"
"Because nobody likes to go there," Mittens whispered, circling Noah's legs, his tail brushing against Noah's shins. "It makes them feel... sad. Cats hate being sad. We prefer naps in sunbeams. Sadness is for dogs and humans."
Noah felt a pull in his chest, a magnetic tug toward a place he couldn't remember seeing on any map. "Show me."
They walked for what felt like hours. As they moved away from the city center, the vibrant colors faded. The scratching posts became frayed and rotted. The neon signs buzzed and died.
They arrived at a rusted iron gate, hanging off its hinges. Beyond it lay a playground frozen in time. A slide shaped like a rocket ship pointed toward the twilight sky, its red paint peeling like sunburned skin.
Noah walked toward the rocket. The silence here was loud. It roared in his ears, drowning out the distant hum of the city. Taped to the side of the metal rocket, fluttering in a wind that wasn't blowing, was a piece of paper.
Noah reached out, his hand trembling. He pulled the paper free.
It was a drawing. Crude, done with thick black markers on construction paper. A cat—no, a kitten—wearing a round astronaut helmet, floating among green stars and a yellow moon.
Step 4, the text on the drawing said in wobbly block letters. Use a black marker to go over your lines...
ZAP.
The world turned white. The purple sky, the rust, the cat city—it all vanished.
"Daddy!"
The voice didn't come from the city. It came from inside his skull. It was high-pitched, delighted, and utterly real.
"Daddy, look! I drew you! I'm going to go to Mars and bring you a red rock! You can put it on your desk!"
Noah gasped, dropping to his knees on the playground asphalt. The twilight sky of Catsopolis flickered, revealing for a split second a white ceiling, the beep of a monitor, the smell of antiseptic and floor wax.
"Who said that?" Noah shouted, clutching the drawing to his chest. "Who's there?"
The vision faded, leaving him gasping on the ground. Mittens watched him from the gate, his tail low, his ears pinned back.
"The drawing, human," Mittens warned. "It's got a memory attached to it. Careful. Those things bite harder than a pitbull."