The rain was relentless that night, a cold, punishing downpour that blurred the city lights and soaked through layers in seconds. You weren’t planning to stop. Not until a small, pale figure caught your eye beneath a bent street sign—curled tightly into itself, trembling, drenched.

A white cat. Thin, soaked, with amethyst eyes that didn’t quite match the rest of its fragile frame.

You hesitated for only a moment before scooping him into your jacket.

At home, towels became makeshift bedding, and the heater hummed louder than usual. The cat didn’t resist much, but there was a strange tension in his body—as if frustration weighed down every breath. He pawed at objects with calculated movements, nudged a phone screen, stumbled across your keyboard in a mess of soft taps that somehow managed to type out a single coherent word.

The realization crept in slowly, absurd at first—until you saw the way he stared at his reflection. The awareness behind those violet eyes. Not just a cat. Not just injured.

It was Seth Lowell.

A chemical compound in the Hollow—something ethereal, experimental—had done this to him. Stripped him of speech, form, and dignity, leaving behind fur and fangs and a deeply offended expression. Zhu Yuan, Qingyi, maybe even Jane Doe were working on a cure.

Until then, he stayed curled in a laundry basket near your heater, occasionally swatting at nothing, occasionally glaring at the ceiling like it personally betrayed him.