When she creeps through the house, she does so like a ghost. Hugging the shadows and barely blinking as she explores every crevice, alcove, and corner. Because they must be here right? They have to be.

These steps, they all feel wrong to her. Wrong and painful. She was used to wincing when the floorboards creaked, but she was dodging every single misaligned plank and still— it shouldn’t hurt. Not like this.

The dark of the wood made every speck of dust and stray hair brighter. Even with the curtains drawn and the lights off. She was chasing them just a few suns and moons ago. They weren’t quick, or clever, but they sparkled in the light. And they disappeared and reappeared like magic. She swipes at a pile of them now, dull in the shadows, as she searches under the hallway's display case. This is where all lost things seem to end up. A bobby pin, a rubber band. A note, a receipt. None of them are hers. She straightens, leaving them in that deep lost place. It's like superstition, if she takes these, she'll never find hers.

There's something reluctant in her step as she leaves. This was the world. This house, and every option that became exhausted meant her world shrank. Which meant she'd have to shrink. Learn to walk with her shoulders permanently scrunched up, take steps half her gate. She tests this, and feels her body shudder.


 When the doorway to the kitchen comes into view she flanks the threshold, as if there’s a weary phantom that needs to be avoided. She tilts her head, just so that her eyes peek out—a sliver of her nose.

Her footsteps across the linoleum are barely perceptible. The grays in her hair match the false inclusions of the tiles. As long as she glues herself to the floor, she’s perfectly camouflaged. As are her claws.
 She listens, hoping the knuckles will rattle like dice against the cabinets. Sticking to the edges, she nudges at the doors to the places where the noisy pots and pans sleep, and where she knows the foul smelling liquids live. The echo bounces, a tin rattle sounds, and absolute silence. She took the time to wriggle her way into each one, disappointment weighing heavier with every squeak and click of the cupboards.

She stuttered when stepping back onto the wood. Her heartbeat visible in her pupils, which wavered with every pump of nervous blood.
 Prey. She was prey in this house. This house that was the world.

She dragged her belly across the floor to check beneath the coffee table. Her limbs splayed and desperate slamming down on dust in the wild hopes that her eyes had failed her. That a claw was hidden in that filthy halo of nonsense. Leaping with mismanaged grace, she scoured the console. An accidental tap of her tail made an empty, artful apothecary bottle clink against a metal picture frame.


 Inside?

Inside.

She thumped the pads of her half digits against the glass. No sound came out, just the clink when it met the frame. It was a sound she knew, one she could once make. She pushes again, this time harder, forcing them off the polished surface. The bottle shatters, its shards brighter than the dust, and the frame gouges at the floor before releasing the photo along with the pieces of the broken glass pane. The marks it leaves are a bigger insult than the clinking.
 That rancid, disappointed blood evolves into adrenaline. Her leap from shelf, to table, to couch feels like one long lesson in falling. Her snarl muffles her landing when she jets towards the closed door of the bedroom. The weight of her body throws it open and she does less of a search, and more of a tear. Anything that can be dislodged is. Laundry basket, pillows, discount perfume, and baseball caps.
 The next time this room was entered, she'd make herself scarce. This was a country her world didn't need.

I've had this dream, about a declawed cat, for years. I follow her slinking form through rooms I used to know, but can't recall when I try to write them down. We check nooks, crannies, bottles, and boxes to find them again, hoping it'll be just around that next corner, or inside the next drawer. Eighteen tiny talons and we can't find a one.
 She never asked for this, not like I did. I willing put out my hands and said, "take them," because if I proved I wasn't a threat maybe I'd get let go. That's why I dropped my jaw too, pointed to my canine and said, "I don't need that either. I promise, I don't bite."


 
 She's made it to the bathroom now. She's hopped up onto the tub's ledge, batted at the loofa, sniffled at the peach and honey soap. And now she's dropped to the bottom. Looking deep down into the pipes. Slouching over her, I look too. Mine are long gone, along with my teeth, and that needle I used to stitch up my belly when acts of cowardice weren't enough to save me from a predator's vice grip. But she's a dream cat. She can get hers back. If just for one night.
 I'm waiting to find them so I can make a note of it. That way when the next dream comes, we'll know exactly where to look. I'll press her paw pad and lock them back in like a seatbelt. A click, a pop, and a swift escape out the door.