Part 2
Cala stared out at the rain.
A week had passed. After the first day with the incident down at the pool, nothing more interesting had happened. More of the usual crawling around and finding new things was what she spent her time doing after that. And there wasn't anything interesting left in the building of particular significance. Rooms had been looted by her. Discoveries noted.
She took a breath and it caught in her throat. Terrible sting. She fell over coughing hard for perhaps the hundredth time. Her chest ached. Her throat was raw.
She looked over at something beside her, to her right. A small bottle. She lifted it in her tail, bent over and pried the top off between her teeth. Held out a fin and shook the bottle. Two pills spilled out... eh, that'd do. She screwed it back up, set the bottle down and sat back up. The pills were tossed in her mouth and chewed on thoughtfully. Meant to just be swallowed whole, but she had grown quite fond of the bitter taste. The pain faded away and she looked out at the rain.
Yup. Discoveries. All those cabinets and the amazing gems kept from children sight. A shame, really; those worked really well to keep her calm, and why anyone would want to hide those away she could only wonder.
To her left, she looked at a bucket full of knick-knacks that she planned to take along with her when she could finally leave.
Her tail reached out and she pulled one object out from among the rest. It was bright pink and made of rubber; oblong and wobbling in her grasp. It was an adults' toy, she had concluded. Didn't know what it did. When she had tried to imagine what anyone could do with it... her imagination came up blank. It was just such a weird thing. Waving it around idly, she scratched her head with a fin. Just, absolutely strange.
A squeak sounded off behind her, then some spastic shuffling. Cala looked behind her to see Jasper on the receptionist's desk, playing with a quite beaten-up rubber ducky. He whacked it off, sending it flying in her direction, while himself falling off the back of the desk. He looked to be in quite the tizzy today. Silly kitty... they were such great animals, but sometimes they just acted really, really stoopid.
Cala picked up the ducky in her mouth, then got up and bounced her way over to the desk. She hopped on top and dropped it over the edge. Jasper scrambled with it then took off running down the hall.
"You're such a silly kitty, Jas. Hee!" she said.
She went back toward the window and lay down again. Her tail went to the bucket and pulled something else out. Salt water taffy. Someone had been hoarding bags of this stuff away, and she had gotten sick from eating too much of it... probably more times than she would admit. She only took a few out this time, though. No need to whip out the pain pills again after just a few minutes.
...
She yawned.
She glanced at the clock. Jeez, it's been... at least five hours since she slept last! She glanced back through the doors. The rain didn't look like it was going to stop anytime soon. She yawned again as she looked at the bucket. Not going anywhere. She picked up her pill bottle and left the room, heading for bed.
Bouncing on the base of her tail hurt a bit for her, but she had found it was the fastest way to get around. Besides, with that medicine it didn't really seem so bad.
"Come on, Jas. We're heading to bed."
The cat peeked his head around a corner to look at her, his ears twitching.
↷
Cala slept fitfully in her slimy bed. The sheets were coated from the pillowcase to the foot of the bed in oil, just the same as Cala's scales. Jasper slept on top of the comforter in a spot still relatively clean.
She woke with a little groan. It was hot and that made it hard to sleep.
She lay awake for a minute before she noticed the feeling deep in her gut. There was a twisting and something seemed to shift under the surface of her skin. It was one of those feelings that she had never had before the Event. It was still a bit unsettling to experience, and it kept happening more and more often.
She reached her tail up and gently pulled her sheets down, looking at her belly. She imagined that feeling she was having, projected it in her mind's eye at where her body extended slightly before narrowing into her curly tail. Could it maybe be... that... No, that wasn't right. It was just an odd thing. She pulled her sheets back up and closed her eyes, trying to get some more rest.
↷
The city was still dull. Lifeless. Gray.
It continued letting out a deluge from the sky, washing away. The rain was a never-ending barrier between her and the world.
She felt sick looking at it. She had been looking at that water for days. She had watched as it poured down upon the city and trapped her within a stinking, rotten building. It had done that for days. She just. She couldn't get the nerve up to face it. There was so much of it. It was everywhere.
Everywhere except where Cala sat, and she stared out at a city that she could never have.
This was terrible. Wretched. Her worst nightmare surrounded her and trapped her in the hell-hole she used to be proud to call her home. The place she had lived happily for all her life up until a week ago.
She wanted to leave so badly, but that was just too much to wish for. But still she sat there and stared out the window.
If only she could have left.
↪