05

For a moment, my entire mind and gaze was flooded with the image of those two huge sparkling and glittering eyes.

"Oh, mommies!" - I shouted mentally, looking up at the huge cat towering over me.

She didn't inspire terror and it didn't feel dangerous, the big cat just sat there looking at us, shifting its gaze from one to the other and so in a circle. At least that's what it might have looked like to an outsider, but an unknown thrill swept over me inside. My instincts told me that the cat standing in front of me was our birth mother. And at the same time, they didn't signal that we kittens were safe with her and had nothing to fear, rather the opposite, all my inner being spoke of the presence of an alpha predator.

Taking my eyes away from her heavy gaze, I took small steps and began to back away, feeling my breathing become heavy and my saliva viscous. My whole body stiffened, and my blood began to rush through my vessels like crazy from the adrenaline overloading it.

No I wasn't afraid of this unknown cat, who had found himself unknowingly in the middle of the hermetically sealed room in which we - the unknown super-cats - were born. (Just a little bit.)

I'm just trying to maximize my chances if I suddenly have to fight her, yes that's right. That's why I step back so she doesn't grab me right away.

I take another step and feel a small, shivering lump pressed against me, as if to let me know that I'm not the only one who's paranoid.

And my other relatives weren't going to jump up and run to the cat, apparently feeling the same way about it as I did.

After carefully examining each of us, she circled around us and returned to her original position, sitting down on her hind legs and staring at me with her attentive gaze, narrowing her pupils even more. A coldness similar to the one I'd felt when I'd gotten short of breath began to cover me again, and I felt the apex predator scrutinizing me, deciding what to do with me.

The association in my mind equating me with the role of prey caused the fire of anger to begin to ignite in me despite my fear, only now the distant tart odor of ash hit my nose. It was as if the bitterness of the realization that had come to me was burning into the fire of resentment, only fueling it more.

Resisting the inner urge to bow to the stronger predator, I forced myself to stand up to my full height in front of the predator who loomed over us, seemingly several times taller in that instant, and then raise my head as high as possible and look proudly at the cat.

I looked her straight in the eye with defiance. If I'm going to be killed here, at least I'll die with my head held high.

"Hmm..." - An interested hum came out of nowhere. But given the emotions overwhelming me and the instincts pressing on my brain, I just wrote it off as a hallucination.

After staring for a bit longer, the cat started coming toward us. Slowly rising, she began to approach us, occasionally sniffing. Her footsteps weren't loud enough to sound threatening, and she didn't hiss, just silently approached us. It wasn't clear yet what she was going to do, though.

- Rrr," I couldn't stand the tension of the unknown, and suddenly I growled naturally and jumped at her. And it was so fast that I was amazed, because I didn't expect such speed, which is not typical for creatures of my species. I don't know if it was my surprise or my speed, but I stunned her. Surprised by this turn, the cat immediately lost her rhythm, giving me the opportunity to sink my fangs into her paw....

Silence...

Wiggling my jaw on her limb and unable to bite through the tough hide, I felt the cat's astonished gaze on me. I lie, not only her, but five other strange looks I felt on my back. Yup, I think I'm doing something wrong.

Suddenly the cat lifted her paw into the air and me along with it and was now watching me in confusion, while I, still without unclenching my jaw, hung on her paw and didn't know where to put myself.

Bringing my body closer to her eyes, which made our gazes meet again. There was an awkward pause between us....

Blinking, she snorted unhappily and swung her paw around, trying to throw me off. She didn't succeed at first, but then she hissed menacingly at me, causing me to reflexively unclench my jaws. It was not a simple fall, but a flight, given that she had not stopped waving its paw.

BOOM.

Which was quickly interrupted by a metal wall that wasn't as smooth as I thought it would be. It had some small depressions in it, I could feel it with my whole spine as I slid down it.

"That was unexpected, meow..." - I heard the strange female voice again? It had a snarl in it that made it clear it wasn't human, and it had that "meow" at the end. - "No, I'm glad I have a strong offspring, but still attacking me at once is a bit much. I hope he's the only one that's this violent. It's a bit... Brrrrr" - At the last words the cat even shuddered. And she looked at all of us with a timid and somewhat wary look. As if we were the scariest in the room and now we were scaring her.

When I heard the second remark and made sure where the voice was coming from, I stopped rubbing my ass, which I had hit on landing, and started staring at the telepathic cat. She began to look at the place of my underbite and throw strange glances in my direction.

And then Gray ran up to me and started examining me, and when she didn't see any injuries, she began to comfort me, caressing her face against mine. What a sweet child. I even reflexively stroked her head, thanking her for her concern.

At the same time, I felt a growing confusion inside me: "Am I in a different world? A world where cats hatch from eggs, are telepathic and seemingly super beings? And am I one of them? And what is this place? Are we on a spaceship?"

I think if I were in an anime, I'd have a whole bunch of question marks growing over my head, but what isn't there isn't there. Having no power to influence what was happening, I struggled but forced myself to put all these questions aside, and for now I decided to go with the flow. I should first learn something about what is going on around me, and then ask questions.

Need I say that the atmosphere, wherever we are, has changed dramatically since my desperate attack?

But in the end, there was no trace left of the incomprehensible tension, only some awkward atmosphere that was once again broken by the cat.

"Um...," she spoke, drawing all attention to herself, "follow me!"

And without waiting for our reaction, she turned around and walked over to one of the walls, where she looked at the shelf protruding from the wall with a sigh. Then, under our incomprehensible looks, she jumped on the shelf and with her nose in the seemingly empty wall, started some kind of mechanism. A white square lit up in the place where the cat had bumped into, and the ceiling, which had been emitting a faint white light before, shone even brighter. A mechanical voice came from somewhere above:

"Nose print scan... Confirmed... Level 8 agent - 'Goose'... Access granted."