Selene pressed her back against the wall, every muscle rigid. The sound those faint, deliberate footfalls still echoed in her head. But the apartment was small. One bedroom, one kitchen, one living space. She would have seen someone by now.

"Get it together," she muttered, her voice thin and trembling. "Storm's messing with your head."

The cat twitched its ears, As if disagreeing.

She rubbed her temple, pacing slowly across the room. Her bare feet brushed the scattered envelopes on the floor, their edges damp with spilled rainwater from her shoes by the door. She crouched to gather them, eager for something,anything that grounded her in the ordinary.

That's when she noticed it.

The top envelope. The one with no return address.

She didn't remember bringing it in.

The paper was slightly warped, as though it too had been caught in the storm. Across the front, in thick black ink, her name stretched in an uneven hand: SELENE MARCH.

Her stomach dropped. She hadn't received hand-addressed mail in years.

The cat jumped down from the couch, padding silently to the table. It brushed against the envelope as if urging her to open it.

"No," she whispered, shoving the stack aside. Her heart was beating too hard, too fast. She hadn't even looked at the bloody window again. Couldn't.

Her thoughts spiraled: the storm, the handprint, the dead phone, now this envelope. It was too much. Was she imagining all of it?

Her breath hitched. What if the bloody handprint wasn't even there?

Driven by a desperate need to prove herself wrong, Selene forced herself back toward the window. Each step felt like wading through water. Her reflection met her first, pale and wild eyed.

She looked past it.

The window was clean.

No handprint.

Selene staggered back, gripping the frame with both hands. She wanted to laugh, cry, scream all at once.

The storm outside battered on.

And the cat purred.

Selene sat on the edge of the couch, the unopened envelope balanced on her knees. The cat had curled itself nearby, fur still damp, eyes half-closed yet strangely alert like a sentry pretending to sleep.

Her hands hovered over the envelope. The inked letters of her name stared back at her, black and uneven, as though scrawled in haste or in anger.

For ten long minutes she did nothing. She told herself she wouldn't open it. That it was a prank, junk mail, some mis-delivery. But the silence in her apartment stretched too long, too thin. The envelope demanded to be opened.

She tore the flap.

Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded once. No letterhead. No date. Just four words written in the same heavy, smudged ink:

DON'T TRUST THE CAT.

Selene blinked, heart hammering. Her first reaction was absurd laughter, short and sharp, cut off almost immediately. It was ridiculous. Insane. Who would write this?

The cat lifted its head. Stared at her with burning golden eyes, as if it understood.

"No," Selene whispered, clutching the note tighter. "No, this is crazy. This is"

The lights flickered again.

And when the room settled, the envelope was gone from her lap.

Vanished.

Selene leapt to her feet, scanning the floor, the couch, her own trembling hands. Nothing. Only the paper remained, limp and wet with sweat in her palm. The envelope itself had disappeared.

Her chest heaved. She backed away from the couch, knocking into the table again.

The cat hadn't moved.

It just kept watching.

Selene pressed her back against the wall, clutching the damp paper so tightly her knuckles whitened. The words DON'T TRUST THE CAT burned in her mind. The storm still raged outside, but in here, it felt too quiet, as if the walls were swallowing sound.

She risked one glance toward the couch.

The cat hadn't moved, but its eyes gleamed like molten coins in the dim light. It blinked once slowly then tilted its head. That tiny movement felt deliberate, almost human.

A chill shivered down her spine.

Her rational mind screamed for explanations: someone slipped the letter under her door, she hallucinated the handprint, the storm was messing with her nerves. But the envelope vanishing? The way the cat looked at her? None of it fit into reason.

She backed toward her bedroom door, intent on locking herself in until daylight. But just as her hand touched the knob, a sound rooted her in place.

Purring.

Deep, steady, resonant. Too loud for a creature its size.

Selene turned, heart slamming against her ribs. The cat was no longer on the couch.

It was sitting by the window.

Watching the storm. Watching her.

And in the glass's reflection, Selene swore she saw a second figure standing behind it just for a flicker, gone when she blinked.

She stumbled into her room and slammed the door shut.

The note slipped from her hand.

DON'T TRUST THE CAT