After I finished my note, I turned and warily made my way to the edge of the desk. I was trying to decide if I could jump straight down to the floor, or if I'd need to hop into the chair first. I know, I know— cats jump down from things like desks all the time. But you try staring down at a drop more than five times your height and telling yourself that it's totally fine to jump. The knowledge that it would be ok did absolutely nothing to spur my muscles into action.

I was still staring down at the floor when I heard a knocking on the window. I turned my head and was more than a little shocked to see that black cat from Friday night was sitting at the windowsill staring at me.

What was he doing here? Had he followed us? And here I'd always thought cats were kind of dumb.

"Evan!" the cat called. His voice was muffled through the glass, but I could still hear him, no problem. "Evan, open the window!"

I shook my head. Not a chance in hell.

"This is important," Comet insisted. "Evan!"

I froze, continuing to stare at the weird cat outside as something dawned on me. He'd called me Evan— a couple times, actually. How did he know my name?

"How...?" I asked slowly. I tried not to get my hopes up as I waited to see if the cat could understand me. No one else could so far. But then, no one else had been a cat, either.

"How what?" the cat asked. "How did I find you? I followed that human... Although, it did take me a while to figure out which room was hers..."

Well, that was something. Though, I'd kind of figured that. But more importantly, he'd understood my question. At least, the first word of it. He hadn't waited for me to finish. I shook my head and asked again, "You...know...my...name?"

It was the longest sentence I'd said in three days. It sounded a little stilted, and it was kind of hard to get all the words out together. Still, it was a question, and it was definitely understandable.

"Oh." Comet looked surprised. "The humans were calling that when they were looking for you. Is that not your name?"

"It...is," I said, nodding.

He regarded me quietly for a minute before asking, "You're a...normal human, right?"

"Now?" I asked, glancing pointedly down at my front paws.

"I meant before. You were of average intelligence, weren't you?"

I hissed before I could stop myself. It seemed to confirm whatever suspicions he'd had.

"Perhaps the transformation affected his mental capabilities," a feminine-sounding voice said.

I watched as a short-haired cat with white fur and brown paws jumped onto the window ledge, apparently from the room next door. I wasn't sure if she'd been there the night they'd cursed me, but it seemed like a pretty safe bet.

"Those kind of effects should only last a day or two," Comet scoffed.

"And what day is this?" his friend asked, matching his tone. "Day two."

Seriously? Did I really have two cats standing outside my window debating how stupid I was? Well, at least I wasn't dumb enough to sit here and listen to this!

I turned away from the window, ready to jump down onto the floor. At least having the two of them standing there watching me helped solidify my resolve to bypass the chair.

"Wait! Evan!" Comet called out, "We still need you to—"

"To what?" I snapped, whipping around to face them. They needed the moron to help them? Well, they should have thought of that before they decided to insult me! I wanted to ask them exactly that, but all I managed was, "You need...moron?"

That seemed to stun then both into silence. Good.

Even so, I didn't actually leave the desk. 

I still didn't want to have anything to do with these two. And I certainly wasn't remotely interested in doing them any favors. But I did need to know what they wanted from me. Maybe it'd give me a clue on how to reverse this; any information at all could be helpful.

"We shouldn't have said that," the white cat said, sounding contrite. "Let's start again, shall we?"

She sat down and I grudgingly did the same.

"My name is Lady Rainbow Butterscotch the Third. You may call me Butterscotch— or, no— Rain. Rain's much better," the cat said, nodding to herself. "Call me Rain. Now, what we need from you—"

"Wait," I said, not even waiting for her to continue. "Lady...Butter...scotch?"

Despite all these two had put me through, I found myself smirking.

"No, it's Rain!" she practically screeched.

"Rain.... Right..."

"Her human named her when she was six," Comet said. Whatever. As if there was any excuse in the world that could make that name sound better.

I wanted to make fun of her some more, really get her all riled up. It would serve her right, after all. But it was still hard to string long sentences together, and not really worth the effort. Besides, even more than that, I wanted to know why they'd done this to me in the first place and what I could do about it. So instead of commenting on her ridiculous name, I asked, "What do...you want...from me?"

"The school that you and all your friends go to is under attack," Comet said.

He had my attention.

"There are a series of ley lines that run through the southern quadrant of the school. And for years, the Corvidae Conspiracy has been trying to access the power they hold." Comet told me.

"The what?" I broke in.

"The Corvidae Conspiracy. They have agents all over campus, looking down on us every minute of the day. We try chasing them off, but they come back as soon as we turn our backs. We've been able to thwart their more obvious power-grabs, ruffle a few feathers. But it has come to our attention that they are much closer to tapping into the ley lines than we'd initially thought."

Ok...but what did they want me to do about that? The thought that they wanted me to help stop some group of cultists from destroying my school was a little much. I was just some kid who couldn't even organize his life enough to keep his grades up. What qualifications did I have?

"We need someone to sneak in to Corvidae Headquarters and stop them."

"No one...else can?" I found that hard to believe.

Comet didn't say anything, which didn't exactly fill me with confidence.

"No," Rain said. "It's got to be you."

"Yeah? ...Why's that?" I asked. I really wanted to believe that they'd chosen me for a reason— that I was somehow uniquely qualified for the job but just didn't know it yet. Maybe there was something in me that only these peculiar, somewhat ominous cats could see. Then Rain had to go and open her mouth.

"...Our last agent...disappeared," she said slowly. Oh. So, they needed someone disposable. So much for being special.

"Oh, ok," I snarked. Their last agent disappeared? That wasn't going to be a problem at all. "...Then let's go."

"Really?" Rain seemed to perked up. She turned to Comet. "That was easier than I'd anticipated."

I snorted. Obviously, sarcasm wasn't big in the cat world.

"Look...not going...anywhere...with you," I said, since I apparently needed to spell it out for them. "So, just...change me back...and find...other fall guy."

"It's not that simple," Comet said.

"Really?" I asked. That was news to me. I was pretty sure they could just get everyone together and do the opposite of whatever they'd done in the first place. How hard could that be?

"Of course we'll change you back," Rain said, trying to sound assuring. But I wasn't fooled. Then she added, "After you help us."

There it was. Of course they were trying to blackmail me. Really, was I supposed to expect any better? Still, this whole thing sounded just a little bit above my pay grade.

I must have looked as skeptical as I felt, because Comet spoke up.

"We'll provide assistance," he assured me.

"Either way, you don't really get a choice," Rain said, as if she didn't see the problem I was having with this whole thing. "The lunar eclipse is three weeks away, and we have to stop them before then."

"Why?" I asked. The two cats glanced at each other, exchanging some secret looks that I couldn't decipher.

"In three weeks, those ancient pathways will fill with magic, and the Corvidaes' plan will finally come to fruition. They'll tear down the school!" Rain stared at me triumphantly, as if she'd just laid down the most devastating argument known to man— or, cat.

"There are...other schools," I shrugged.

Rain's face fell. Her shoulders hunched and her whiskers drooped. It was almost sad to see her deflate like that. Almost.

"Do you really think they'll stop at just this school?" Comet asked, picking up where she'd left off. "Once they gain a foothold at the school, they'll use it as a base to spread throughout the world. There'll be no place that's safe."

I sat there for a long time, trying to process all this. It seemed ridiculous— not to mention near-impossible. But apparently, if I wanted any chance to get back to my normal life, I was going to have to do a little undercover work.

I could feel a kind of growl bubbling in the back of my throat. It wasn't really intentional, and I wasn't even sure if it was because I was mad. I was pretty sure that it was mostly nerves. But before I could even begin to figure out what to say to all this, I heard the sound of keys in the lock.

I turned around, expecting to see Olivia walking through the door. So I was more than a little surprised to see her roommate standing there, staring at me.

Word count for round two: 6,216

Total word count to this point: 8,361