Gd it. Sometimes it’s annoying, being right. An idea has been forming in my mind for a while. I may be just an indoor cat, but I have seen the many faces of the LORD, and I know there are strange things in the world. Lauren thinks she knows everything, but she doesn’t. We are not like a staircase. We’re like the horrible doll on the mantelpiece. Lauren and I fit inside one another. When you tap on one it reverberates through all of them.

Think, think!

When I opened the refrigerator door I was angry. Maybe angrier than I have ever been. I didn’t feel the cord connecting me to Ted. I was myself, alone.

So I make myself angry. It’s not hard. I think about Ted and what he’s done to Lauren. It’s really difficult to think about. She was right about one thing; what a stupid cat I am, really. I believed his lies, didn’t want to know the truth. I just wanted to sleep and be stroked. I was a coward. But I don’t want to be a coward anymore. I’m going to save her.

My tail bristles, becomes a spike of rage. The fire begins at the tip, spreads down the length of my switching tail, into me. It’s not like the heat when Lauren hurt me. I made this feeling. It’s my fire.

The walls begin to shudder. The crashing sound begins far away, and then it is all around me. The hall shivers like a bad TV picture. The floor is a sea, tossing.

I pad to the front door, slipping and yowing. Just because I am deciding to be brave doesn’t mean I’m not scared. I am so scared. What I see through my peephole isn’t really the outdoors. I understand that now. Now, I see with a shiver that the three locks are not fast. The door is unlocked, of course. I don’t have to go up, I have to go out. And everyone knows how you get in and out of a house. I give a little row. I didn’t really want to be right. I stand on my hind legs and pull on the handle with my paws. The door swings wide. The white flame greets me. I am blinded; it’s like being inside a star. The cord is a line of fire, burning about my neck. What will happen? Will I burn up? I kind of hope so. I don’t know what’s out there.

I step out of the house. The cord burns hot as a furnace, surrounds me in a forge of white heat. The world tosses and flips. Blinding stars suck me out into nothing. Nausea rises and I choke. All the air is crushed from my lungs.