1 01 - I'm a cat?

Everything was so blurry. I could hear children and adults screaming, animals grunting in pain. The scene was completely red and I felt my body getting hotter and hotter, until suddenly... everything stopped.

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"Where am I? And... what kind of smell is this?" Ataz thought as he struggled to get up from a cold and uncomfortable floor with his small and fragile body.

He felt like he had been crushed by a tree. He couldn't support himself without his arms shaking, running out of strength and making him fall again.

Ataz felt a very strong pain in his head, so he tried to put his hands on it in an attempt to stop it. "My head is hurting so much. I don't remember anything that happened. Except…" Before finishing his thought, his eyes started to fade and then, lowering his hands, he noticed something strange about them; they were small and hairy.

"WAIT!? What happened to my hands?" he thought, trying to move his now little paws that were in front of his face. When trying to see his entire body, which was now full of black fur, he was even more startled to realize something else. "Is this- Is this a tail?" Ataz had acquired a big, hairy tail next to his little body.

Confused, he looked around and noticed how his size had decreased. To try to get over to a puddle that was nearby, he pushed with his little arms to get up and tried to walk with his little hind legs to the puddle, however, Ataz was no longer a human, so he started to unbalance and ended up falling on top of the puddle, making his black hair now more gray and dirty.

Ataz raised his head grumbling and sat down. The first thing he thought of was to use one of his spells to clean himself, since now he was all wet and it would take time for him to be clean again. But when quoting a magic cleaning spell, nothing happened. Ataz was confused and thought that maybe he could have messed up the spell somehow.

He thought about it and repeated it again, making sure this time he was doing it right. Nothing happened. "Am I out of energy? But it doesn't make sense. I would feel it if I'm discharged; it's a different feeling from the tiredness of the body. Maybe I'm just forgetting something and..." Looking down, he saw his reflection and realized that now he had become a soft, fluffy cat, losing the stature he at least remembered having had.

"... and I'm a cat? What's going on?" he said indignantly as he looked at the reflection of his image in the puddle. Ataz felt frustrated. He couldn't control his magic, which before was something so simple for him and now he wasn't even in the body of, however, something else had also changed.

Ataz's hearing and vision had become more accurate, making him immediately notice the appearance of a small insect among some dirty boxes thrown in the corner of the alley where he seemed to currently be. "At least I didn't become an insignificant worm," he consoled himself.

Turning to the bug he said, "It is a pity for you to have appeared right now in front of me. You should be honored that I am considering killing you, because... you are the first of many who will perish to build my strength."

Ataz once again felt powerful; he felt that the world would be his again. He stared at the poor insect that was there looking for food. With a eerie smile on his face, Ataz said, without any hesitation, the words: 'Fogus Spectros'. He felt something as if his magic energy was present, but nothing happened. A magic incantation that would normally make anything turn to ashes, now it couldn't harm even a small insignificant insect.

Ataz rolled his eyes, remembering that he could no longer use his powers from before and tapped his feet on the ground in frustration, causing the insect to startle and run into the middle of the boxes again. "I know there is still some magic inside of me. I almost can't feel it, but I know there is still a bit of great power left over. And yet, I can't understand why it is that I can't use it... And why is it so weak?"

For a while, Ataz was quiet and listened to the noise of children playing and adults passing by where he was. He instinctively tried to get up and walk to the end of the alley he had woken up in, but because he was no longer in a human body, he immediately fell to the floor again due to his failure to grasp the function of his own anatomy.

Even though Ataz found out that he had ended up becoming a cat and acquired some of the senses of one, he still didn't know how to act or think like a cat. He couldn't understand that he needed to move his 4 legs to walk. It was instinctive for him to try to lift and move his legs like a human. He needed to at least try to move like an animal, but the frustration at being weak and helpless now was so great, he couldn't understand it.

"I couldn't even get rid of that insignificant insect that appeared in front of me..." Before even finishing his thought, something big and black passed in front of the alley where the cat had woken up, causing an uncomfortable noise which made Ataz wince and instinctively jump. Startled, he tried to move,despite however clumsily it may have been, behind some dirty boxes lying there alongside him.

"What kind of demon is that?" He thought as he looked through one of the holes in the box.

When that thing had passed on, Ataz was confused but also excited about what he would face in the future. He really wanted to see what had just happened in front of his eyes. Then Ataz looked at the small balls of fur that now had replaced his hands and started trying to move leg by leg in order to walk.

First he moved his front legs and then his rear legs. Anyone looking at the cat from a distance would have felt sorry for it, believing that Ataz had a problem with his legs; the way he walked was so weird. When he reached the end of the alley, he put his paws out and it was then that he realized: he was no longer in his same time.

It was probably the far future by now. Nothing was like what he had seen before. There were women in short clothes, and men in tight dark clothes. Ataz couldn't even imagine what these were; such things hadn't existed at the time he was born, and seeing women wearing such short clothes or even pants was absurd for him; it didn't make sense.

Moving his paws clumsily, Ataz started to leave the alley. Right in front of him, something caught his attention. Across the street, it was possible to see a bakery with a large window that went down to the floor, and through it, he could see several colored breads and cakes exposed through the glass along with a wonderful smell that came from there. Ataz stood for a while, looking at the amount of food in front of him, and admired the luxury of that bakery, since in his day, glass was extremely expensive to manufacture on a large scale like it had been here in addition to the amount of food that was being displayed.

'This looks delicious. I'm so hungry,' he thought as his belly growled loudly. Ataz was mesmerized and then placed one of his paws on the hot asphalt of the street, but as soon as they touched, a car immediately passed in front of him, making him back away scared and decide to change his path.

Looking to the left, he found some other storefronts. A sign written 'See your future here - Cartomante Diniz' at the end of the street, caught his attention. Ataz started to think that maybe this "magician" might know how to help him with the problem about his magic. He struggled with his fragile body to move in the direction of the sign and started walking in his clumsy way over to it.

Before he could get close to the sign, he heard some children running after him. This caused his ears to rise and he tried to speed up his pace more. Ataz barely had mastered his paws yet, so it didn't help much to try to run.

When the children got close to him, a little girl with light eyes who was with the group said, "Look, guys; there is a kitten!"

One of the boys pushed the girl aside and came closer to Ataz, who was still trying to awkwardly walk away. The boy said ''What an ugly cat; he's all weird. What's wrong with this animal?''

Ataz was still staring at the child. He showed no fear or anger; Ataz just stood there thinking about all the magic he could use to end that boy's life just for daring to face him. The cat's gaze became cold. He couldn't find a soul behind the cat's eyes. The boy avoided looking deeply at Ataz. He felt that that cat, even though it looked fragile, had something strange about it.

To impress his friends, the boy decided to mock Ataz even more. "You are so strange! Why don't we tie him up over there under the forest tree so nobody needs to see this freak?"

The children next to him laughed and another boy answered, "He's really dumb; he doesn't move. Look at that ugly cat.'' When saying this, the child pushed Ataz back with his foot, which caused him to fall, since he did not have good control of his paws.

All the children laughed and started pushing the unfortunate cat to the corner of the sidewalk. Ataz was confused and extremely angry. He tried to use his powers, but they were proving useless. He even tried to scratch at the little miscreants, but Ataz was in no way able to expose his sharp claws from his paws. Ataz finally tried to shout for the children to get away, but from his mouth, only a high-pitched meow emerged.

"What the fuck? You don't even know how to meow? You really are a freak. Let's get this over with,'' said the first boy who had poked Ataz.

"What are you going to do, Hector?" The little girl who first spotted Ataz approached with concern.

"Shut up, Maria. This is not something a girl like you should go sticking your nose into," Hector shouted at the little girl with light eyes next to him.

Ataz was cornered. He was trying to move to the other side, but some of the boys who were with Hector pushed him back. With a stone in his hand, the boy bent down very close to Ataz and said, "Calm down, kitty. You're just an insignificant animal. No one will miss you."

After hearing this phrase, Ataz was furious...