Record 52 – Dreams That Are Not Dreams

The others slipped into sleep one by one. First Lima, curled tight like a fallen leaf. Then Ridge, his breaths slow and steady. Repsik lasted longer, blinking heavily beside me until his head finally dropped against his paws. Even Soot, who tried to stay awake out of stubborn pride, drifted off in the corner with his claws still half-unsheathed.

I stayed awake.
At first because of habit.
Then because of fear.
Then because my mind refused to slow down.

When I finally closed my eyes, I expected darkness. Maybe a quiet memory of warm blankets or old sunlight on a windowsill. But the moment sleep took me, the dreams came hard and bright. They didn’t feel like dreams at all.

They felt like someone else’s memories.
Memories that didn’t belong to a cat.

I saw bright screens flashing too fast to follow.
Human silhouettes – blurred, moving, shouting without voices.
Maps covered in red zones that pulsed like open wounds.
A voice repeating in a cold, mechanical tone: “Cycle hold… cycle hold…”
Then a rush – the sensation of falling asleep too quickly, like being pushed into darkness.
And pulses of white light traveling across buildings, leaping rooftop to rooftop like a signal running through a nervous system.

I woke with a sharp gasp, my heart racing so fast it hurt. Dawn hadn’t arrived yet. The stairwell was dim, thick with shadows. No one else moved. No one else stirred.

But I felt something inside me.
Something new.
Something wrong.
Something human.

It was a terrifying truth, quiet and cold:
My mind wasn’t fully my own anymore.
Something had leaked into it – slipped through the cracks when the world changed.

In the half-light before morning, a tiny emergency LED on the wall clicked on by itself. Just a brief flash. A pulse. A single blink, like an eye acknowledging me.

I saw it.
And it saw me.

I didn’t tell anyone what I dreamt.