Anne ran around the corner with just seconds to spare before the orange cat appeared. She didn't even have time to sneeze. The weird thing her mind had started doing lately showed the cat popping up beside her, then them both vanishing. Creepy for sure, like a movie playing in her head, but it had saved her many, many times in the past month.
Anne ran a complicated route through buildings and around cars before ducking into the abandoned van she had been living in since fall. It smelled really bad. The walls dripped rust and the windows had long ago hazed over. Anne considered herself lucky to have it.
The van kept her sheltered from the rain and soon it would start snowing.
The lock she had MacGyvered on the back doors let her sleep in relative safety. It also protected her few, meager belongings while she was out scavenging.
Post apocalyptic movies were her favorite, but she never figured she'd have to live that lifestyle. When her mother abandoned her...for the final time...and the landlord's offer to let her stay in return for something she was unwilling to give, Anne took to the streets. She had really been raising herself since she was five years old. She was proud of her survival skills.
She locked the door, pulled off her touque and did a quick inspection to make certain everything was where she had left it. Cardboard covered the windows. The hair she had laid across her small collection of food was in place. Her few clothes, folded neatly in a pile behind the driver seat, were untouched. Hanging her jacket on the back of the seat, Anne opened a box of crackers mulling over the cat situation.
She'd been living inside the van for about five weeks when she first noticed the orange cat. Her allergies alerted her long before she saw it. Walking home from a scavenging run, her throat closed up, her head started pounding and a sneezing fit almost blew out her eardrums. It felt like a cat had been shoved down her throat. She looked up and down the street and there beside the overturned garbage cans in the alley beside the Chinese food restaurant sat a sleek, orange cat. Something more troubling than allergies made her do a quick turn and disappear inside the restaurant.
"Excuse me. Excuse me. Sorry." Anne dodged around staff and diners. Once at the back of the restaurant, she slipped into the men's washroom, a trick she'd devised to throw creeps interested in following a young girl off the scent.
Hunkered down in the bathroom stall, her feet pulled up, she had her first weird 'in-head' movie.
It showed the orange cat, a smirk on its face and her with her eyes half closed, her mouth slack.
She wasn't sure what scared her more the movie in her head or the cat's sudden appearance in her life and her vision.
Anne heard men come and go, but she stayed hidden in the stall until she felt safe leaving. She had no idea how she knew it was safe, but she did.
In the next few weeks she had dodged the cat three more times. The 'in-head' movie starring the orange cat was always the same.
Then about a week ago a new movie started appearing.
Anne woke suddenly and sat up, chilled and damp in her pile of blankets. In front of her eyes there appeared a girl, probably her own age, curled up on a single bed, looking directly at her. The girls dark eyes were shining with tears. Her cheeks were stained red.
"What the..." Anne blinked hard. She shook her head like a wet dog. She was alone. Freaked out, she slipped on her jacket and escaped the dark van. She walked for hours, mulling over what she had seen. Finally, she returned to the van, convinced she had been dreaming.
A week later the girl 'in-head' movie reappeared. This time the girl still looked sad, but her lips were moving. She was talking to someone Anne couldn't see. The vision lasted less than a minute, but again Anne was shaken.
Anne refused to believe she was going crazy. Life had never been easy for Anne. She knew for certain there was one person and one person only that she could always count on and trust: herself. There had to be an explanation. Anne would find it even if it meant letting the cat get close enough to catch her.