Tom noticed the cat during his first week in this old apartment building.
It was a gaunt black cat that always crouched in the shadows at the end of the hallway, its pair of bright yellow eyes fixed intently on Tom’s door. Tom was a programmer who lived alone and rarely went out. He tried feeding it cat food a few times, but the cat never came near him; it would only let out a low purr—as if it had shards of glass stuck in its throat—whenever he turned away.
“Ignore it—that cat’s creepy,” the elderly woman living next door, who also lived alone, warned him. “It only stares at people who ‘live alone.’”
Tom didn’t take it seriously—until that late, rainy night.
He worked overtime until 2 a.m. When he got home, he found the cat crouched on his doormat, soaking wet, yet not a single drop of water had touched the mat. It tilted its head, its mouth twisted into an eerie grin, as if it were laughing.
Tom slammed the door shut and locked it from the inside.
The next day, he found a tuft of black cat hair on the doormat, but upon closer inspection, it wasn’t hair at all—it was several strands of extremely fine human hair stained with dried blood.
He began to suffer from insomnia. Every night around midnight, he could hear the sound of fingernails scraping against the wooden door, accompanied by that spine-chilling purring. The sound didn’t sound like a cat; it was more like a person desperately trying to suppress a cough.
A week later, Tom decided to move out. He packed his bags, and before leaving, he glanced outside through the peephole.
The hallway was empty; there was no cat.
He breathed a sigh of relief and dragged his suitcase downstairs. As he passed the first-floor lobby, he saw the black cat crouched on the mailbox, staring quietly at him.
Tom hurried out of the apartment and got into a taxi. After the car had driven two blocks, he reached into his pocket out of habit to grab his phone.
Instead of his phone, his fingers touched something wet and cold.
He stiffly looked down.
The black cat had somehow ended up curled on his lap; it was tilting its head back, staring at him with its bright yellow eyes. Its mouth was slightly open—no tongue inside, just a row of human teeth as fine as needles.
“Meow.”
It made a sound.
Tom jerked his head up to look in the rearview mirror, only to find the taxi driver staring intently at him—the driver’s eyes were also a deep, golden yellow.
