Everything started when I noticed the black-haired girl.
She was cute, for a human anyway. See, I was just your everyday normal black-and-orange calico stray ghost cat wandering around the human world. I didn't really understand the point of the colorful pelts the humans pulled on to keep themselves warm when all they needed was a cat. Or a fur coat. So this human caught my attention because of the colorful things humans used in the snow-time.
This one wasn't wearing any. Most humans wore these big fluffy things they called "coats" in the winter, but this one had a simple blue "sweatshirt" on. And get this, she was wearing "jean shorts", too! Humans wore those in the sun-time! She probably couldn't see me, because I wasn't too keen on getting chased down my humans for being a stray, but I was gaping at her. This one, I liked this one. Sure, she was stranger than the other humans, but so was I. Ghosts tended not to like me because of my... abilities.
So I got up from my perch on a snow-covered fence and meowed loudly, "Hey~, human!"
She turned at the sound of my meow, and her eyes widened when she saw me. She probably hadn't seen me earlier. I showed my fangs in a big yawn and a nice, catty smile as I meandered my way over to her. I rubbed against her legs, leaving strands of my fur behind. She turned her big blue eyes on me and she smiled as well, if you could call what those humans do a smile. A blue mist escaped her mouth, and she glanced aroudn nervously. I batted at the mist with a vague interest.
She scooped me up suddenly, my paws to the air. I didn't like that, but I let her do it anyway. Hey, a free ride is a free ride. Don't judge. She went running, and she didn't seem to mind that I shifted positions in her arms to sink my claws into her "sweatshirt" sleeve. The names humans think up, I swore they would be the death of me to remember. Well, the death of my afterlife.
Yeah, I was aware that I was no longer alive. I didn't know how I died, almost no ghost did, but I knew I was dead. For one, I could feel it in my insides. Namely, I only had the basic ones. Digestive system, nervous system (yeah, to whoever came up with the idea that ghosts can't feel pain, you were wrong), even a very, very, very basic respiratory system. My heart didn't beat, not as far as I knew. Well, I could make it beat, but that took work and I didn't really like to do work.
The girl carried me quite a way away from where I had rubbed up against her for petting, but that was alright with me. I had been thinking about leaving there anyway. She set me on the ground, where I purred and rubbed up against her legs more. She needed a nice dose of my fur to keep her warm, I decided. There was no way her short, colorful pelt would keep her sufficiently warm. So I donated my fur to the wonderful cause. She smiled and pet my back, and I arched my back so that she could reach the place where the itchies I couldn't get to were.
She scratched there, and I purred louder. She picked me up again, and that time I was content with a belly rub on the way to wherever we were going. We entered this big warehouse-looking place, and she came face-to-face with a big black-haired male who looked a lot like her. Except, of course, they had two very distinct, very different scents. The big male radiated disappointment, and the girl began to radiate annoyance in retaliation. Apparently, these humans were smart.
"Dani," the boy began, " you know you're supposed to come here right after school." I understood exactly what almost all of those words were. What did "school" mean? Was that the place where all the kids went for a very long time to sit and stare at other people or to stare and scratch at paper?
"Dan-ny," the girl sighed, "I got held up. My ghost sense went off and there was this cat..." She held me out to the boy, who pulled back a little. I meowed to let him know that it was okay, I didn't mind being touched. Especially not by this girl. Dani, the boy said her name was. But his name was also Danny?
"No pets, cuz," Danny said, rubbing the back of his neck nervously, "you know that. He could get in some sort of accident around the house..."
She pouted and held me close, and I flicked my tail to let her know she was holding me a little too tightly.
"But Danny," she whined, "he was all alone in the snow and he's really friendly."
The two argued for a while, all the while I followed the conversation to the best of my ability. I found Ghost a little easier to understand than English, and they were speaking English. Sometimes, they switched into Ghost but they very quickly noticed and switched back. Finally, the boy sighed and "face-palmed". That meant he lost the argument.
"Fine, keep it," he sighed. "But you have to name it, you have to take care of it, and you have to make sure it doesn't run into anything dangerous. I'll go tell Mom and Dad." He slunk away, looking very shamed indeed(probably because he lost the argument to a girl who was younger than him), and he went down a set of stairs where fun sounds of whirring drills sounded. I wanted to go too, but the girl carried me up to a room and I decided that laying on her chest was a much better idea. She still needed to be kept warm, after all, and who better to do the job than a nice little ghost cat like me?
Two older people soon came barging in, one in a blue pelt and the other in an orange pelt. "Danny" was right behind them, looking smug.
"Danielle Jessica Fenton, you will get rid of this cat this instant!" the blue woman shouted. I pinned my ears back and cowered on "Dani's" lap. She held me protectively, like a human should, and pouted. She was refusing to give me up, that was for sure.
"But he's sweet and smart!" she protested. I wanted to break out into cattish laughter; I was smart, all right. Much smarter than she realized.
The man looked about to shout something, but then he said 3 simple words: "Where's the cat?" Oh, this was priceless.
"Dani" looked confused. "He's right here on my lap."
The woman frowned. "Danny, Dani," - why were their names so similar?! - "you shouldn't have scared us like that. There's no cat in here."
The two adults left, and once the teenagers were alone I broke into catty laughter. It sounded mostly like a human coughing, but it got the point across.
"He's right here," the black-haired boy muttered, rubbing his hand over my fur.
"Do you think maybe he's a ghost?" Dani said nervously. "I mean, my ghost sense went off as soon as he rubbed against me... but I just thought a ghost was near..."
Danny gave her a look. "A ghost was near. This cat," he deadpanned. She turned bright red, and I rubbed up against her face to let her know that if she was cold, I was right here.
"Right," she said, petting me distractedly. "So... what do we do with him?"
"If he's dead," the boy jumped as an orange-haired girl came into the room, "then you should send him back to the Ghost Zone." The girl wear wearing a blue, thin pelt in her hair, a long black pelt over her torso, and long blue "jeans" over her legs. She was very sensible to me.
"Jazz," my human complained, "but he's so adorable! Maybe he'll show up on camera..." The girl took a picture, then scowled. "No, he doesn't show up on pictures..."
The boy shrugged. "Well, hopefully he's smart enough not to come back here after we put him in the Ghost Zone."
My human stared at him. "Danny...!"
"No buts," the boy was firm. "He goes back."
I didn't really fancy going to the Ghost Zone. So I walked over to the boy and gave him a sharp nip on the finger. I scowled up at him, and after a few more nips (during which he tried to grab me), he gave up.
The orange-haired girl looked at me incredulously. "I can sort of see him. He's more like a really, really, really invisible shadow. He's pretty big, and really fluffy..."
My girl nodded. "Yeah, that's him." She thought for a moment. "I wonder if he already has a name?"
To her surprise, I turned back to her and gave a sharp nod. I looked around for something to write with, though my penmanship wasn't very good in this form. No thumbs meant that I couldn't grab anything. Finally spotting the "desk", which was really just a table that humans wrote on, I hopped up on it and took the pencil in my mouth. Twisting my head, I managed to write out, very poorly, four simple words.
My name is Illusion.
