Chapter 1 - Volume 1 (1/2)

Volume 1, Chapter 1: I Became a Cat

I could see a scene within the light.

It’s like… the time back when I was a child, submerged under the pool and looking up toward the sky… I saw a scenery that gave me a vague nostalgic feeling.

The scenery flows along and changes.

Like an old film, the blurry scenes continued to be replaced, one by one.

A man holding [My] small hands…. A woman, holding [Me] in her arms…. Boys and girls that were even a little bigger than [Me].

From the window of a bus, I saw large buildings and small stores drifting by.

From inside of a train, I saw a seemingly never ending railroad and  townscape.

The scenes continued to change, and [I] had grown bigger and was attending a school with other children wearing the same uniform.

Chatting with friends, exchanging texts late into the night…. Sitting together with siblings on the sofa, watching a borrowed movie. Our parents returning home, and everyone enjoying a meal together.

This scene full of happiness abruptly turned [White].

White walls, white floor, and lying on top of the white bed under the same white colored sheets, what was reflected in [my] eyes was the pure white ceiling….

The shaking hands that were lifted up were as thin as the withered branches of a tree.

The scenes continuously shifted, but that white world remained….and amidst the broken and hoarse sound of someone crying…. [My] world slowly went black.

***

Was I… seeing a dream?

Somehow, the dream felt nostalgic…and distant.

I wonder…where is this place?　I can’t see a thing, it’s as if a dim… mist is hanging over me. It feels just like staring into the sun with my eyes closed… oh, maybe I should just open my eyes.

When I thought about lifting my eyelids, the scene of my surroundings jumped into my field of vision.

What I saw wasn’t a grass-covered plain, nor the interior of a room, but instead, there was nothing but an emptiness that spread everywhere; cracked earth as far as the eyes could see and a plain dark sky.

Simply put, there was nothing but rough gray earth, not even a weed in sight. An empty world.

“……………”

The atmosphere would have been complete if a cold wind was to blow dead, withered leaves across my vision at the moment. I wonder if that describes what I’m feeling right now.

Leaving that aside… I wonder,  how am I seeing all of this…?

I don’t remember opening my eyes. When I concentrate, I’m seem to be able to see in all directions at the same time. Of course, that includes seeing myself….

“………………!?”

I unintentionally let out a scream…or I tried, but my voice wouldn’t come out.

After all… I have no mouth…. Not to mention a mouth, I don’t even have a body.

R-right…I’ve calmed down a little.

By the way, when I said I had no body, that was just a bit incorrect. As proof of that, even now the form of my body is responding to my fluctuating emotions; scattering and undulating.

Something like a gassy, misty, light brown-ish aggregation…that’s me.

Haha… I want to laugh. Although it’s nothing to laugh at.

Is this a dream I wonder……?

It could be that the world of light I’d been seeing until just moments ago was the real world, and this was just a bad dream.

But, reality is cruel, and the sensations I felt through this mist-like body of mine was telling me that this was [Real].

All of a sudden, when I acknowledged this form to be my [Self], I strangely came to accept it without any discomfort and calmed down.

Could this be… that?

Thinking of it using the knowledge gained from that world of light, it could be summed up as the mind affecting the body while at the same time, the state of the body influencing the mind… or something like that.

After all, the ups and downs of emotions don’t show such a big change in the [body] of the average human.

I don’t have a heart so I don’t feel my heart beating, and I don’t feel suffocated from the lack of breathing. With this body, I doubt whether I would feel even pain or hunger.

I have nothing to look forward to…. I son’t even have eyes, so I can’t cry!

F-for the time being… I should, at the very least, hold on to my sense of self. I’m a bit late in thinking this but, I wonder who I am?

My name…can’t remember it. Yes, I am nameless. I could simply pick a name from my past memories, but I have a certain feeling that it just wouldn’t do.

Incidentally, I also can’t remember the names of family or friends. Even worse, I’ve even forgotten their faces.

Okay…moving on.

I do have memories up to wearing a uniform, so I was probably a student. Considering the amount of my past memories, I was probably a high schooler. Although it’s all a dream.

The gender is…a girl right…?　I was wearing a skirt uniform in my memories, and personally, it feels much more acceptable.

Good good, my sense of [self]is gradually coming together… oh?　The color of my body somewhat deepened? In addition, I feel like the density of my mist has become thicker.

For the time being I son’t feel like anything has gone wrong, so I’ll continue to recall the memories in the dream to further secure my sense of self.

Doing this and that took quite a while…or so I felt.

I mean, the sun hasn’t ever risen, and as expected, I didn’t get hungry, so there was no way for me to measure the time.

It’s good that my sense of self has become firmer due to recalling various things, but a new problem appeared: I have nothing to do.

To be honest, feeling anxious, irritated, or going mad from loneliness… such things seem likely to happen, but with my current body there are no signs of it happening yet.

When I recall the last moments from the memories of the dream, I wonder if I’ve died and fallen into hell….

Although speaking comparatively, it’s a hell completely without the agony.

Of course, there is also the theory that this is all a dream. And of course, the source of that wishful theory is me.

“……?”

I noticed something. More specifically, something triggered my senses, it was like a combination of sight, smell and sound.

That “something” leaped with a *pyon* kind of feeling.

I surrendered myself to the sudden itchy tempting sensation that arose. I reflexively launched myself forward to extend the mist surrounding my body and slapped down on that something with a *pechin*(smack) sound.

“……………”

O- ohh… I’m quite surprised at how I reacted like a cat that’s discovered an insect, if I may say so myself.

Leaving that aside… what was that…. I did catch a glimpse of it just before hitting it, and it did certainly look like an [Insect], but I don’t know what it is. Somehow, when I struck that [Insect], it disappeared into mist.

Upon disappearing…there was the scent of something like sweet honey.

For some reason, that scent gave me a faint satisfaction, even though the current me had no sense of taste nor hunger.

It was a somewhat nostalgic scent and flavor…. It was like the time I was a child in that dream world, sipping honey from a small flower… it had that kind of nostalgic feeling.

*Uzu… Uzu… Uzu…*. My gaseous body trembled as if excited by something, and  driven by that sensation, I began wandering about my surroundings.

But really…how am I moving around?

From the previous feeling of striking down that insect, I’ve understood that I do have a certain degree of physical strength, but without needing to crawl, my body instead moves by floating towards the direction I want to go.

To a certain extent, I can bring out the same burst of speed as the first time I moved. However, although I could move by slowly skimming across the surface of the ground, I couldn’t manage to fly… what a pity.

And while moving about….ah, found it. The second Buggy-kun discovered.

I’m just a bit lonely, so I wonder if I could keep it as a pet…? But…..

*Pechin*

“………”

When I got near to it, my body once again flew forward and smacked it… just like a cat. My lack of self-control is rather shameful if I do say so myself.

There’s something irresistible about that sugary honey scent.

In the first place, it was in the wrong for provoking my cat-like instincts, hopping up and down like that in front of me.

I suddenly realized something. The first insect had a flowery honey-like scent, but the second one had… to describe it, it smelled a bit fruity.

*Uzu… Uzu… Uzu…*. I should keep on searching for a little longer….

From then on, my hobby and daily routine came to consist of searching for these Buggy-kuns.

I- it’s not like I want a snack or anything, alright?

“……!”

*Pechin, pechin*

“………!!”

*Pechin, pechin pechin, pechin*

Mmmm, delicious. Of course, when compared with the sweets I know from the dream world, this is in every way a very modest taste, but it serves as a good compliment to the cat-like hunting work involved.

I think that it’s that when you gather your own food, it’s much tastier, probably.

I’ve noticed something else, too. The larger insects are better tasting.

Let me tell you, I don’t have a hobby of directly eating insects. Recently, rather than smacking them, just touching them is enough to make them disappear, and since they leave no dead remains, it doesn’t leave an unpleasant residue afterwards.

I’ve noticed this while on the move, but there were some things that were about the size of a mouse. When compared with the other insects, it was much more cautious, and unless it approached me first, it was unexpectedly quick in escaping.

This time for sure I’ll make it my pet~~… but even though I tried putting some spirit into it, it vanished the moment I touched it.

Appearance-wise, it was mostly identical to those black fur-balls that appear in a certain movie I saw in the dream world, being chased around by a pair of sisters that lived by the countryside in a remotely located house.

I really wanted one… a pet.

Still, the flavor was good. I’d say that it tasted similar to cherry or wild strawberry.

As I passed away the days in that manner, a change appeared in my body.

Eating too many snacks made me fat… is not what happened. Instead, it appeared that my body started as light brown colored was turning into a deeper shade resembling chocolate, but just recently, it turned curry-like.

…I wonder why I’m using food as the standard for comparison.

I’d prefer to think that the color has become a hair-like brown.

I wish it had turned into a milk tea color to look cuter, but life just doesn’t go the way you want it to.

When the color changed, at the same time the density of my gaseous body further increased, becoming all syrupy.

Oh, am I evolving into a slime?　…Or so I thought, but I was wrong. My body didn’t become sticky, but became like iron-sand.

But…have I evolved with this?　It’s harder to move now that my body is heavier.

Ahh~~… I let a Mouse-chan run away again.

Is it possible that I really did get fatter…?　Hey, hey, did I really get fatter……?

While in the midst of being torn between the desire to diet and the seduction of snacks, for the first time, I came across another existence other than me.

“……!?”

For some reason, my body twitched in shock.