Chapter 4

Weeks passed, and Junhong still hadn’t been able to escape the apartment. Amber had gotten very good at foiling his every attempt to slip between her legs. After the fifth day he gave up, mainly because he realized that she anticipated him trying to escape, and figured that if he waited a bit she’d let her guard down.

Instead he mulled over the revelation that had been Amber’s hatred for him. If– no, when– he turned back into a human being, he would do everything in his power to change her opinion of him. He knew he’d have a long way to go before that would happen, though. He wasn’t even sure he’d even have a job by then; he had, after all, been missing for over a month now and his boss was not really the forgiving type (though she did have a soft spot for him, something he used to take advantage of quite often).

His ears twitched when he heard the familiar footfalls indicating that Amber was approaching the door, but he didn’t move from his curled-up position on the couch. He lazily opened one eye as the door opened, revealing a downcast expression he was not used to seeing on Amber. He was even more surprised when she came and picked him up, sat down on the couch, and laid him back down on her lap, mindlessly petting him.

Clearly something had happened, and he was getting more and more curious as minutes passed and she said nothing.

Finally, she broke the silence.

“Hey boy, I think I did something really bad,” she started quietly. “Like, life-changing bad.”

Junhong looked up at her, blinking. This, he did not expect. “What’d you do?” he asked, though it only came out as a meow to Amber’s ears.

She finally looked down at him. “So you remember that at work? I may have destroyed his life unintentionally.”

Suddenly Junhong was at full attention. She was talking about him. Did she know something about his situation?

“I met up with my uncle today, and he was asking about Junhong, whether I’d seen him recently. I mean, I said no, cuz he’s been missing for, like a month now. But he kept asking questions, like where Junhong usually hung out, places he frequented, things like that. I mean, I have no idea. I avoided him as much as possible outside of work,” she muttered that last part more to herself.

Junhong was confused. Why was her uncle asking about him? What did he have to do with all of this?

“I mean, I know I told him about Junhong before; I’ve complained about him plenty of times before. But why is he so interested in him? I mean, I told him he went missing.”

Junhong suddenly had a very bad feeling about this. Was it possible her uncle had something to do with what happened to him?.

“Uncle did mention he had made a new discovery, though he hadn’t been able to test it. I wonder what it was…” She sighed. “I just hope that my theory is wrong, because I really don’t wanna feel sorry for that bastard. Or be indirectly responsible for his disappearance. Uncle wouldn’t do that, right?” she asked, as if trying to reassure herself.

Now Junhong knew he had to get out of the apartment and find that alley cat. All the signs pointed to him being an experiment of some sort, and chances are that Amber’s uncle was the one responsible. It would also explain why he had been chosen, of all people.

Amber slept fitfully that night, Junhong noticed, because she tossed and turned so often that he gave up sleeping next to her, like he had gotten us