The days of our youth felt as if they had passed only moments ago. I remember the day I first returned to Floating City with perfect clarity. Jimmy carried me in his arms as we arrived, running errands for the ship. Once we reached the port, I slipped away on my own, caught off guard by the scents that drifted through the air. Half-forgotten, but still familiar.

  It wasn’t unusual to find cats scattered across the streets, some picking through alleyway bins, others dozing beneath rusted balconies. Most would leave you be, as long as you kept to yourself. But there were those who guarded their corners of the city with tooth and claw. The hiss, the low growl rising like thunder in the throat, those were the first signs you had strayed too far.

  I had wandered into one of the narrower alleys, roped in by the scent of grilled mackerel. When I spotted the pale flesh tucked near a crate, I rushed forward, hunger quickening my step. But just as I reached it, a scruffy cat with dark blue fur dropped from the shadows. He landed in front of me, back arched, needle-like claws gleaming, tail raised like a blade. His hiss cracked through the stillness, followed by a deep growl.

  But there was something about him that stirred a memory. Not in the mind, but deeper, like a sound vibrating through old bones. I knew him, somehow. Or had known him, once.

  “You don't belong here,” he said in a warning tone. “You're a ship cat.”

  I held my ground, flicked my tail slowly from side to side, a gesture of peace, not challenge. “I wasn’t always one. I was born here. This city is as much my home as the ship.”

  “But this alley is mine.”

  “Oh?” I tilted my head, nose brushing the air, the dirt beneath my paws. “I don’t smell anything that says so.”

  The cat narrowed his eyes. “Watch your tongue,” he said, calm but firm.

  Then he did something I should have expected. A cat like him was never subtle. But I had been too long away from my own kind. Life aboard NOAH 1 had softened me, dulled the edge that once kept me alert among others. His gesture caught me by surprise.

  He peed.

  He walked to the wall, lifted a hind leg, and let the stream fall without hesitation. I stood still as it trailed along the floor, weaving slowly toward the fish I had been so eager to claim.

  The scent reached me first. It rose thick and sour. It carried on the still air like a message. I bent low, searching for a corner untouched, but the odor was everywhere. It settled into the space around us. It seeped into the fish, into my thoughts. It was not pain, not exactly. But something close. The fish no longer felt like mine. But, beneath the sharpness of the piss, something changed. Something stirred in the back of my mind. That scent. I had smelled it before.

  We’d been together since we were kittens, buried in trash, sick and dying. Our mother’s body lay in the road, split clean in half by a rickshaw, damp and wet with blood and beginning to spoil. The smell clung to everything. Our father was a ghost. We never knew his face, never heard his voice.

  And then that stench. Piss, sharp in the air. The little one beside me shivered, his fur slick with cold, his cries soft and broken. He wasn’t calling for help. Just trying to understand why everything hurt.

  “Ziggy!” I called out, the recognition blooming in my chest like a spark catching dry leaves. I sprang forward, paws barely touching the ground, hoping he would still remember me.

  He stepped back at first, cautious, his eyes shadowed with doubt. But when I brushed my tail gently across his face, I saw it happen. A blink. A breath held. His nose twitched, and something deep behind his eyes began to stir.

  “Dinks?” he whispered. “Dinks!” His voice cracked with joy. “Oh, my dear brother. It has been too long.”

  He rushed to me, pressing his head against mine, and for a moment, the world faded around us.

  “I go by Page now,” I said, smiling through the tightness in my throat.

  “Page?” He laughed, warmly. “So you have a fancy name now. From street cat to aristo-cat!”

  *****

  That memory of our reunion stayed with me. Sharp, but blurred at the edges, like a half-dream, a half-nightmare. When I stepped into the dark shed, where only a sliver of light slipped through the crack in a frosted window, a pair of gold eyes lifted from the shadows and met mine.

  “Ziggy,” I said. “Brother.”

  As I padded closer to him, another pair of eyes appeared in the dark. Green, watchful. An orange cat stepped between me and my brother. A paw pressed gently but firmly against my chest, and a quiet voice told me not to come any closer. It wasn’t safe yet. The cat was one of the guards.

  “Oh, I’d say it’s perfectly safe,” said a familiar voice.

  I looked over the guard's shoulder and saw Flynn standing beside Ziggy. The rat wore a strange contraption fitted over his ears, and a long tube trailed from it, ending in a silver disc pressed against Ziggy’s chest.

  “What are you doing to him?” I asked, slipping past the guard to approach Flynn.

  “Checking his heart, of course,” Flynn replied, lifting the silver disc from Ziggy’s chest and unplugging the strange contraption from his ears.

  “And how is he?” My voice wavered. A tightness bloomed in my chest as I braced for the answer.

  “The heart’s steady,” he said. “But I could hear the blob moving inside.”

  Ziggy let out a low groan, his head rolling to the side. “I can feel the tendrils,” he said, his breath raspy. “They're in my veins... in every part of me.”

  “But… you can help him, can’t you?” I turned to Flynn, my throat tightening. “I know that there’s still something we can do.”

  The guard’s voice was dry. “You know there’s nothing left to do. It’s too late. But I promise it will be quick for him.”

  I spun around to face the orange cat. My back arched and a growl rose from my throat. “Come any closer and I will pull every whisker from your face and drive my claws straight into your eyes.”

  He hissed but didn’t move. “We cannot afford to take chances. If it puts the rest of us at risk, we act. You know that.”

  “Then give us time. Let us try something.”

  “Time is a dying currency, Page. We don’t trade in hope anymore.” He stepped back toward the door. “Say what you need to say.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  The rat’s expression darkened. “First, let’s see how far it’s spread,” he said quietly.

  He dragged the black tube toward a large brown leather bag. It was almost as big as I was! He climbed up its side with surprising ease, hauling the tube over his shoulder. Then he vanished into the bag’s dark mouth. Inside, I heard a soft rustle of papers, the faint clink of glass.

  While Flynn searched the bag, I walked back to Ziggy. He had slipped into a corner and sunk slowly against the wall. I wanted to say something. Anything. But what words could I offer? You’ll be alright, Ziggy. I just know it. Hold on tight.

  They sounded like something from a story someone else told to feel better for a while. They weren’t real. Hope, when stripped of truth, tastes like ash. We both felt the truth. The moment sat between us. It crept under our clothes and settled into our bones, that dread of knowing. There was no way around it now.

  All I could do was turn my eyes away from him; just for a second, because the heat behind my eyes was rising fast, and I didn’t trust myself to hold it in much longer.

  Ziggy exhaled. “Wanda brought the kittens this time.”

  Their voices carried through the door. Papa! We want to see Papa! Wanda hushed them gently, promising it wouldn’t be long. She told them Uncle Page just needed a little time alone with Papa. At that moment, I understood. She had brought them here not just to visit, but to say goodbye. This was likely their last chance to see him.

  “The kittens wanted to see you,” I said. “They said it’s been too long.”

  “I want to see them more than anything. Just not like this.”

  “What happened?” I asked. “How did it get to you?”

  “At the apothecary. When we found those tanks filled with the blobs. One of them got to me. I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t believe it myself. And then came the explosion. After that... everything’s a blur. I thought it had all been a nightmare.”

  Moments later, Flynn popped his head up from the top of the bag, nose twitching. In both paws, he held a small bottle filled with a strange, neon-blue liquid.

  He worked the cork free with his teeth. It came loose with a squeak and a soft pop, like a bubble breaking.

  “Alright, drink up,” he said, bringing the bottle toward Ziggy.

  Ziggy eyed him warily. “What exactly is that?”

  “I call it ‘Glow and Show.’ It shows what’s wrong beneath the surface,” Flynn said. “We'll be able to see the infection.” He gave Ziggy’s nose a light tap, and when Ziggy opened his mouth, he gently tipped the neon-blue solution in.

  A soft blue glow lit up under Ziggy’s fur, tracing the map of his veins like river paths in moonlight. It moved smoothly until it reached his abdomen, where it began to slow. There, a dark shape bloomed, tendrils twisting outward through his legs and neck. A few delicate strands had begun to creep into his skull.

  Flynn stepped away from Ziggy. “Hard to believe it’s spread so far but you’re still you. You're still thinking clearly.”

  “Only just,” Ziggy said, “I feel like I’m slipping. Sometimes I feel it clawing at the inside of my skull.” He lowered his head in shame. “It got to me once. I remember striking one of my kittens. I don’t even know why. But it was like someone else moved my body.”

  I moved to respond, but before I could speak, the door opened and four small bodies spilled into the shed, full of energy, laughing and chirping with joy.

  “Papa! Papa!”

  They stopped short in front of Ziggy, staring at him with wide eyes and tilted heads. They were confused by the light glowing beneath his fur.

  “You're glowing blue,” one of them said softly.

  “Why are you glowing like that, Papa?” asked another.

  Wanda followed close behind, ready to scold them. Her tone was sharp at first, but when she saw Ziggy’s glowing body, she fell silent. Her mouth parted, but no sound came out. Her body grew tense, tail stiffening, her fur rising like frost-bitten grass, but she took a breath and began guiding the kittens back out, using her nose to give them a nudge.

  She blinked, shook her head, and began nudging the kittens back. They cried out in protest, whining in confusion. They didn’t want to go. But she was firm, and eventually they obeyed, peeking back one by one with eyes that had begun to understand something was wrong.

  Wanda turned back, her face scrunched like she was trying not to cry.

  “Oh, Ziggy,” she breathed, barely able to say his name. She faced Flynn and stepped forward, voice breaking as she begged, “Please. They say that you’re a healer. You have to do something. Save him. We’ve got four little ones. They can’t grow up without their father. They need him.”

  The desperation in her voice deepened as she pressed her forehead against Ziggy's, gently rubbing and then giving him a tender lick on the cheek.

  “There might be a way,” Flynn said. “I can’t promise it will work or even that we can trust it. But given how little time we have left... we don’t know how much longer Ziggy can keep control.”

  “Then tell us,” I snapped. “Stop dragging it out.”

  Wanda nodded, her eyes pleading. “Please. Anything.”

  “There’s a machine,” Flynn began, “that might be able to fix him…so to speak.”

  “A machine? Where?” Wanda and I said in unison. I could feel a small flame of hope catch in my chest.

  “It has to be in the Cure Shops,” I said.

  “Yes... and no,” Flynn replied.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Yesterday I was sent to dismantle the old radio network at Council Hall. Oh, I was quite upset at the assignment. Do you know how long it took us to build that thing in the walls and floors?” Flynn said, clearly frustrated. “Oh, well, nevermind. While I was down in the basement, I found something strange. It didn’t feel right. One of the rooms was full of tanks—huge ones—filled with jellyfish and other sea creatures. There were cages, too. Mostly dogs. Some cats.”

  I felt my fur rise. “Dogs and cats? What were they doing with them?”

  “They must have come from the Shelter. It didn’t make any sense. In the middle of the room were three large white machines, shaped like giant eggs, each one connected to the others with a silver wire at the top.”

  My ears twitched and my head snapped up. Egg-shaped machines. I had seen them before. There was no mistaking it. I’d seen them on that submarine.

  “Then three sea beings entered,” Flynn went on. “I watched through a crack in the wall, trying to understand what they were doing. They took a dog and a cat from their cages. Neither animal resisted. They were sedated. One sea being, its arm hanging at an odd angle as if broken, stepped into a machine, while the other took control of the panel. Then there was a sharp, electrical sound. A loud crackle! Then, there were sparks along the wires.

  “A white flash lit up the whole room. It was blinding. I had to retreat and cover my eyes. When I looked again, smoke was pouring from the third machine, the one where the sea being was in. And what I saw next... I still don’t know how to explain it or make sense of it.”

  “What did you see?”

  “The sea being... it looked even stranger, if that’s possible,” Flynn said. “Its face twisted from fish-like into something almost canine. The jaw jutted out, the teeth grew longer, serrated. Its hands morphed too—claws like a cat’s. But the broken arm? Completely healed.”

  Wanda shuddered and her fur bristled. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

  “What choice do we have?” I said.

  Flynn cleared his throat. “If I had to guess, I’d say the machine did something to improve its body, no doubt. Repaired the damage. Strengthened it. But whether it can remove something internal like the blob… I don’t know. But it might be our only shot.”

  “Then we try.” I nudged Ziggy. “You’re not dying today. We go now. The egg machine is our only hope.”

  Ziggy tried to smile, but it faltered before reaching his eyes. “There’s something you’re forgetting. The machine needs a sacrifice.”

  I didn’t hesitate. “Then it’ll be me. I’m ready, Brother. If this saves you, so be it.”

  Ziggy looked at Flynn. “What happened to the animals? The dog and the cat?”

  Flynn hesitated. “Well... I mean, I saw what they turned into, but maybe it was a malfunction, a one-time thing—”

  “Tell us.”

  Flynn’s eyes dropped to the floor. “They turned into... mush,” he said quietly. “One single, red, pulpy mass.”