First Encounter

The white cat slipped off the balcony and stepped noiselessly around the street corner. It paused, pricking its long, floppy ears in alertness as the young girl walked past. Obscured by the shadows cast by a nearby trash can, the white cat was hard to notice, even as its albino red eyes blinked and focused solely upon the girl.

She was twelve years old, in her first year of junior high. Her physical traits included her medium-length brown hair and a yellow ribbon she tied into loops around the sides of her head. However – and the white cat paused and nodded once, slowly and in affirmation – the girl's defining characteristic was something far less tangible.

The girl walked past the cat blithely, her chin held high and her gaze pointed straight ahead. She seemed focused on a deep matter and was muttering something under her breath. From its distance, the white cat would not have been able to decipher what the girl was saying had it possessed normal human hearing. But the white cat listened intently and as the girl kept walking, it followed her footsteps, letting her words sink into its ears.

"Time travellers, espers, aliens… There's got to be something out there…!" She broke off and rubbed her chin contemplatively. "Something interesting," she finished to herself. "Yeah…"

Such a wish had potential, the white cat concluded. Boundless, limitless, extraordinary potential. But it was not just the selfish wish of the girl – it was the latent power she held inside of her that far exceeded that of a normal human.

The white cat would have shivered if it was capable of such an action. It knew power greater than its own when it saw it.

It crept forward on its paws, inching towards the girl. She did not look back. She did not see the white cat poised to touch her foot.

A sharp wind passed through the street corner and the girl clenched her teeth together and held her skirt down, waiting for the gust to pass. Reflexively, she turned around and looked behind her. The street corner was empty.

Shrugging, the girl continued on her way, little knowing how narrowly the world had avoided coming to a premature end.