Melinda and Ginger

"Oh! Right! Uhm… I'm Larry by the way. You are?" he asked her and extended his arm towards her for a handshake. She gratefully shook it with both of her hands and said, "I'm Melinda. Yes, Melinda. You can just call me Linda for short. And that little grinch over there is Ginger."

"Is that your cat?"

"Yes! I told him to find another human but I never expected him to actually bring me a human. I found him in the garbage dumpsite foraging for food one day so I rescued him. But actually, he was so feral and had never known affection that he wouldn't let me pet him. He would hiss and scratch whenever I tried. It broke my heart watching such an innocent homeless kitty." She said all these very fast. She only paused to take a breath.

"And you know what? I called for a rescue team because, you know, I definitely didn't want to give up on him. He was put up for adoption but then not a single soul wanted to adopt him so I adopted him instead! Isn't it amazing?" When she was done talking, she then looked at Larry expectantly.

Meanwhile, Larry was utterly dumbfounded. 'I never expected her to be able to speak that fast.'

He's not really interested in how she met the cat. All he wanted to know was her name. But then she looked so passionate in his eyes that he thought it would be rude to cut her off.

He's studying psychology so he knows a thing or two about how to react to certain situations. Especially in situations that are rather awkward such as times like this. So he decided to go along with her antics.

"Oh! How nice of you! How old is he?"

She gave him a toothy grin thinking that Larry was "actually" interested in her cat. That was when Larry noticed that she has two large forward teeth. He did his best to look at her eyes instead, afraid he might offend her in case she was insecure about her teeth.

"To be honest, I don't know how old is he because I don't know his birthday because like I told you, I only found him in the dumpster one day. But the vet told me he was around seven years old at the time I adopted him. We've been together for eight years so yeah! He's basically a senior cat," she answered but then her expression suddenly turned solemn before it transitioned into that of sadness.

"Hey! Uhm… Is anything wrong? Uhh… Linda?"

She shook her head and wiped the corner of her eye. She's actually tearing up!

"Actually, we've only been together for eight years."

"What do you mean by that?"

"He died."

Exactly as soon as she said that, Larry felt a chill run down his spine.

"Huh? What do you mean he died?" He looked at the cat that was still licking its balls without any care.

"Yeah! I had a hard time accepting that but he died due to old age. I thought I'll never see him again. Who would've expected I would see him again in my dreams. Can you imagine that? Crazy, right? Well, you might not understand a word of what I'm saying. You're just an NPC after all."

Despite being mistaken as an NPC, Larry didn't have the heart to correct her. Besides, in his perspective, Melinda was the NPC.

"Right! It's cool."

"I know, right?"

Larry noticed that she was also wearing a dog tag necklace like him. He got curious. Because after all, Garry gave him one too.

"By the way, Linda. I hope you don't mind me asking. But can I see your necklace for a bit?"

"Oh! This? Sure! Ginger gave that to me yesterday."

"Ginger? As in your cat?"

"Yes! I know this is just a dream but Ginger giving that to me was the sweetest thing of all."

"I see. Garry gave me one too," he told her as he waved the tag in the air.

"By Garry… do you mean to say that stuffed toy?" she asked while pointing to Garry.

"You're right." Garry then waved at her making her gasped.

"A living toy?"

Surprised by the fact that a stuffed toy has consciousness, Melinda threw herself at Garry and inspected him. Garry didn't resist her and even showed off his witch hat.

Meanwhile, Larry inspected the necklace Melinda gave him. Just like his, it has two things written on it. "NIGHTS WITH THE FOOLS". But instead of the word three, hers was "Four" at the bottom.

'What do these numbers mean?'

He threw her necklace back at her which she caught with one hand.

He saw her speak something but it came off as a muffled and distorted sound. And then his surroundings pulsated followed by a jolt at the back of his head.

The world around him became hazy. And the next thing he knew, he was already lying on his bed with his alarm ringing.