When Claire comes home, everything happens in a blur. From where the cat is lying on the couch, she looks calm and happy when walking through the front door. But in the next minute, the energy in the room shifts drastically and makes the ball of fur sit up on his tail.
Powerless, the feline watches the scene unfold: he witnesses Fred hugging Claire too tightly when greeting her and observes Lilly trying to forcefully drag her sister to the couch so she can play with her hair and braid it.
And almost immediately, Claire starts to be painted in black all over again. The cat's fur bristles as he watches Claire's overwhelming anxiety and unbearable irritation materialize in front of him: a growing mass of aggressive black spikes emanates from his young owner's chest. The cat grows tense when Claire's smell of agony reaches his whiskers and leaves a burning sensation on his wet and sensitive nose. The dark blades spread across her body like an evil octopus and prick at her skin, taking possession of her oh so slowly... The young girl's face twists uncannily as everything suddenly hurts. After that, the cat knows that she will have no other choice than to explode under the torture. Shout. Cry. Storm out of the room. Slam the door of her bedroom in a poor attempt to make her misery halt at the threshold. The cat mews sadly and hides under the console table, preparing for the attack.
After an hour or two and when no one is around, the cat walks up the stairs, jumps on the handle of Claire's door and makes it click open. His soft paws are silent on the carpeted floor and he ventures in the darkness of the room. He mews once, twice, in the hope that he will catch his young owner's attention; but Claire is unresponsive and does not move from her spot on the pile of clothes in the left corner of her room.
The small animal skitters towards her and rubs himself against her leg, purring. At that, Claire glides across the wall like a rag doll until she is laying very flat on the ground... and she opens her arms to let him work his magic.
He climbs on her chest and starts purring louder, pawing at her heavy heart for a while before he lies down again its beat. Claire raises a wobbling hand to pet him, her fingers passing through his shiny and comforting fur. Although he can still feel her heart pounding heavily through the thin fabric of her shirt, the cat closes his eyes in content when he notices that the black rays have subdued and made their way back inside the girl's abdomen in a cloud of vibrating yet somewhat tamed smoke.
