By day, she is a study in stillness.
She sits folded neatly into herself, paws tucked, eyes wide and polished like quiet questions. Light brushes her whiskers and she accepts it without moving, as if innocence were a skill she practiced. Visitors lean closer. What a sweet girl, they think. She wouldn’t hurt a thing.
They are only half right.
Because when the house exhales into sleep—when the last lamp clicks off and the walls soften into shadow—her mind wakes fully.
Somewhere behind those gentle eyes, gears begin to turn.
At precisely 2:47 a.m., she considers the hallway. At 3:02, the mysterious crime of the rattling door handle must be investigated again, just in case it has changed since yesterday. At 3:18, gravity itself requires testing: pens from the nightstand, one by one, pushed thoughtfully into the dark.
She pads across the bed with surgical precision, stepping only on the places guaranteed to wake her humans. A whisker twitches. A tail flicks. The scheme advances.
When her owner groans and pulls the blanket over their head, she pauses—ears forward, face angelic—before releasing a single, perfectly timed mrrrp, equal parts question and demand. Are you awake? You should be.
And when morning finally arrives, she returns to her pose, curled and calm, eyes soft with false virtue. Sunlight finds her again. The world sees only the portrait: a harmless cat, serene and pure.
But she knows the truth.
Tonight, she has plans.
