1 Chapter 1

…Huh? Where am I? I remember there was a flash of light, and then I was in darkness, for a long, long time. So… where am I?

It smells musty, and the air is damp. I can hear water flowing in a rush. If I open my eyes…

Whoa. Why is everything in black and white? No, wait, why am I in some kind of… is this a sewer?

But even before that… why the heck am I so small?! Unless if this sewer is huge, I'm barely five or six inches off the ground!

I lift my hands up to my face to see if there's something wrong with my body. In front of my face are two adorable paws with cute leathery black pads.

When I stretch my fingers, five claws sprout outward. They look wickedly sharp to me despite my black and white vision. I turn my paws over to see short, thick, and beautiful black fur going from the tips of my paws up to my forearms and past my sight.

I look down as best I can at my chest to see more black fur surrounding a white patch. The patch is in the shape of a thick, pointy cross with short sides that point downward before they transition once again into black fur that covers the rest of my body.

I blink once, expecting the fur and paws to go away, but they don't. Maybe twice? Nope.

Uh… what's going on here? Why do I have paws, and why am I covered in fur? There's no way that I'm a cat, right?! I turn my senses in towards my body…

I definitely don't have the shape of a normal human!

I have elegant, pointy ears and a cute, short nose with long sensitive facial hair on either side of it, and if I look closely at my body there's… wait… what's that in the center of my body?

As a human, I could never actually sense my organs, but… it feels like there's some sort of a ball in my chest. I can feel energy coming from it, and that energy is spreading throughout my body. It's kind of like having a constant source of a five hour energy drink… what is it? I don't understand.

So… uh… am I really a cat now? Did I die and reincarnate into a cat? That only happens in novels! And what's with this energy ball in my chest? If it's how it is in the light novels, then that should be a mana core, right? Someone, anyone, please! Explain this to me! Right now!

Wait… if I'm a cat… doesn't that mean that I have a…?

Swish, swish.

Swish, swish.

It's hard to describe, but I can feel another appendage coming out of my back, just above my butt. It's somewhat similar to moving an arm, but it's more difficult to control and a lot weirder. It's a tail. I have a tail!

Speaking of, am I still…? Yes, I'm still a male! At least I don't have to have a gender crisis alongside my identity crisis.

Okay… so I'm a cat now. I'm a cat, but I have a name, don't I? What was it? I think it was actually similar to the word cat, something like Cather, or Cathis, Catlantis… Cathan! My name was Cathan.

I was named after my grandfather, a large, tough old man who built houses, liked to hunt, and drank a ton of alcohol. He always reeked of it. He had a rough accent from his homeland before he came to… I don't remember where.

Alright, so my name is Cathan. But how the heck did I become a cat…? I was definitely a human before, I know I was.

But I don't have any strong memories, just vague impressions that flutter through my mind. All I know is that I'm in a sewer and that I'm a cat, or probably a kitten, judging from my height.

A grown cat should be somewhere from 8 to 10 inches with about a pound of weight per inch. I'm around five or six inches, so I must be fairly young, only five or six months old if I remember my cat facts correctly.

Cat facts... Speaking of, didn't I have a cat? She had jet-black fur, and she was so enchanting with her intelligent yellow eyes. She was a natural hunter, and she always moved so elegantly. She would have this proud look on her face when she brought a kill back home. She was my best friend, and I loved her so much.... are those tears welling up in my eyes?

I wait for a few moments, expecting some kind of flashback, or maybe to faint and wake up with all of my memories in place, hopefully as a human. But nope, the world doesn't oblige.

I take a few moments to wipe my tears with my paws and to compose myself. I still feel a faint sense of sorrow and loneliness at the thought of my cat, but I can't afford to indulge in those emotions right now.

I'm in a strange place and in a strange body. My first order of business is to get the hell out of this sewer and figure out what's going on. Hopefully along the way something will jog my memory so I can recall just how I got into this situation in the first place. And there's also my family... I have to find them.

I examine my surroundings again as best I can with my somewhat blurry black and white vision. I'm in a large sewer, you could easily fill it with dozens of kittens and still have room left over.

I'm standing on a walkway that travels in either direction. The walkway is about a foot above flowing water that glows slightly. Weird.

The sewer walls are a combination of rough gray stone and dusty brick in places. The sewer tunnel curves like an archway, and the floor is littered with rocks but is otherwise surprisingly clean.

I look in either direction down the walkway, hoping to see an exit or a manhole. But as far as I can see, there's nothing in either direction.

First things first. Hellooo? Is there anyone out there? I try to call out to someone, anyone, but all that comes out of my tiny mouth is…

"Miaooo! Mew mew miao miao!" … silence.

Well, it was worth a try. In my defense, maybe there's another cat hanging around here that speaks my language. Though cats don't really have a language... eh, whatever.

Let's try walking then. Since either direction looks the same, I'll just go to the left, the direction the water is flowing. Hopefully it'll lead me out of this place.

Walking is a bit of a learning process. I step forward first with my front right leg, then with my back left leg. Then the other two legs. I repeat the process, and after a few stumbles and falls, I start using my tail in conjunction with my legs. I probably look like the most awkward cat ever.

It gets a bit easier after the first few steps, but I'm still not used to it. At least I can walk now. Well, I'll be honest, it's more like stumbling, but who's judging?

I need to find my way out of this place, that's first and foremost. What I'll do after that, I'm not sure exactly…

I need to recover my memories. Once I do, hopefully I'll know how I became a cat, and if I can get back to my family… but before all that I need to find some food. My stomach feels like an empty pit. I think that was one of my parents' nicknames for me actually, bottomless pit.

As for water… I look down at the water with my black and white vision.

The white of the water is stronger than anything else in my field of vision and is actually illuminating the area around it slightly. I'm not sure if it's safe to drink it…

Maybe I'll take just a sip when I'm thirsty and see what happens. This place is surprisingly clean, if a little dusty, even though it's a sewer.

As I walk I start to feel a faint vibration coming from the ground ahead of me.

If I recall correctly, a cat's paws are very sensitive to vibrations and whatnot so that they can detect their prey and determine distance.

So there should be something ahead of me… the question is, do I hide from it or do I find out what it is?

It's coming in my direction, for now I'll just find a dark corner to hide in to wait and see what's coming.

There's a small, dark hole in the wall to my left. I should be able to fit right in…

I snuggle into the wall and wait in silence, somewhat nervous as the vibrations become stronger and stronger.

Whatever it is, I think it's slightly larger than me, and it's close by.

I wait anxiously; if I were a human, sweat would be dripping down my forehead right now. Instead, my tail is twitching slightly and my ears are pulled back, both unconscious reactions to stress I guess.

A moment later and a large shape passes by. It's slightly larger than me, but its fur is matted with dirt and looks rather greasy and gross. It has red eyes, white fur, small ears, and a long scaly tail… it's a rat, a giant rat!

Some kind of bloodthirsty emotion wells up within me in conjunction with my hunger. My body is telling me to pounce, right now before it gets away!

I successfully resist the impulse, but my stomach gurgles audibly. The rat stops in place and turns around to look at my hiding spot. Its eyes widen as it looks at me looking at it! Awkward!