Jacob’s life was a monotony so thick, it clung to him like the stale scent of his office, old carpet and yellowed drywall. As an assistant accountant, his days were filled with spreadsheets, invoices, and the persistent hum of fluorescent lights. His only solace was the quiet, his routine as predictable as clockwork. Every evening, he returned to his one-bedroom apartment, where Meatloaf, his plump tabby cat, awaited him with a nonchalant stare.

This particular evening, Jacob found himself standing in front of the microwave, watching the frozen butter chicken slowly spin. It was a pattern he had come to accept — on good nights, he’d splurge on takeout from the local Thai place, but tonight, it was microwave cuisine. The soft ding of the microwave broke through his thoughts, and he flipped the plastic container upside down onto a plate. The buttery sauce oozed out, a puddle of half-congealed spices. He chuckled to himself as he grabbed a bag of mini naan from the cupboard.

“Would this be offensive to an actual Indian person?” he wondered, pulling out a piece of naan, noticing its slightly bluish-green tint. Mold. “Damn, probably expired.” He tossed it aside, deciding the butter chicken was good enough on its own.

Meatloaf glided into the room like a shadow on velvet paws, his green eyes catching the dim light of the living room. Jacob set the plate on the coffee table and flipped on the TV, an old animated show he barely paid attention to. Meatloaf settled on the armrest, purring quietly, a familiar rhythm in the silence.

But lately, Jacob couldn’t shake a strange feeling that gnawed at the edge of his thoughts, like a word caught on the tip of his tongue. It was something about Meatloaf. He wasn’t sure what, but the cat’s movements felt… different. Offbeat.

The next day passed in the same blur as all the others. Endless work. Clicking keys. Paperwork. By the time Jacob got home, he was too tired to cook, so he ordered takeout from the usual Chinese place. Orange chicken and rice, enough leftovers to last a couple days. He ate silently as Meatloaf circled his feet, his tail brushing against Jacob’s leg.

That night, as Jacob lay in bed, he was jolted awake by a strange sound. It wasn’t a typical cat noise — no soft purring or meowing. It was guttural, deep, like a whisper scraping against metal. He turned, eyes adjusting to the darkness, and there was Meatloaf, sitting at the edge of the bed, staring directly at him. His eyes — no, were there more than two? For a moment, Jacob swore there were too many glinting reflections in the dark, like the night itself was staring back at him.

But when he blinked, there was just the cat, green eyes glowing as they always did.

Jacob rolled over and told himself he was just tired. Too much work. Too much shitty leftover takeout.

Days passed, and the feeling grew. Each night, when Jacob returned home, Meatloaf was waiting, but there was something wrong. The way he moved, the way his eyes lingered on Jacob’s every action. Sometimes, it felt like the air itself grew heavy when the cat entered the room. And Jacob couldn’t shake the sensation that when he looked away, something was shifting in the corners of his vision.

One evening, as he was halfway through reheating the remains of last night’s curry, Jacob heard it again — that guttural, unexplainable noise. He froze, staring at the microwave as his pulse quickened.

When he turned, Meatloaf was there, but he wasn’t Meatloaf. The cat’s form flickered, warping like a dark, twisted shadow, something beyond feline, beyond animal. His fur rippled like liquid, shifting shapes, and his eyes — no longer just two — swirled like black holes, an abyss opening in the center of each. Many limbs, too many, curled and twisted around themselves, morphing and fading into the air.

Jacob’s breath hitched in his throat, the words caught, disjointed, stumbling out of him. “Wha-what… what the fuck…?”

The thing that had once been his cat loomed closer, its form soft and ragged, sharp and smooth all at once. It seemed to breathe, or perhaps the room itself was breathing with it. Appendages twisted out from its body, then vanished, leaving only the grotesque, shifting mass, like cancerous tumors. 

Sweat poured down Jacob’s face. “It… it has… too many eyes…” His voice cracked. He couldn’t describe it. It was everything and nothing at once, a creature of shadow and chaos.

And then, it meowed.

That sound, that twisted, demonic meow echoed through the room, snapping Jacob out of his trance. He gasped, blinking rapidly as the form settled back into Meatloaf. Just a cat. Just his cat.

Jacob let out a breathless, terrified laugh, wiping the sweat from his brow. “Meatloaf… right… I almost forgot about your dinner time! Coming right up buddy!” His voice was shaky, but the fear began to dissipate, like fog lifting after a long night.

He shuffled back to the kitchen, cracking a can of wet cat food into Meatloaf’s bowl, white seafood pate, his heart still racing. As the cat — or whatever it was — started to eat, Jacob watched from the corner of his eye, trying not to focus on the writhing shadows. Trying not to remember the many eyes. Trying to forget what he saw.

And for now, as long as he looked away, he could pretend everything was just as it always had been. Meatloaf was just a cat. Just his silly little cat.

The next morning, Jacob woke with a strange sense of relief, though he wasn’t sure why. Meatloaf was curled at the foot of his bed, just as always, his body rising and falling softly with each breath. It was hard to believe what he had seen last night, so easy to dismiss as a nightmare. After all, the human mind is prone to tricks when it’s exhausted. That’s what he told himself as he dressed for work, repeating the mantra in his head.

“Just a cat. Just tired. Too much stress.”

At the office, everything seemed painfully normal. His boss dumped another stack of expense reports on his desk. His colleague Mark droned on about his weekend plans, the fluorescent lights above flickered, and the clock ticked on, minute by agonizing fucking minute. Jacob found himself more distracted than usual. Each time he thought of Meatloaf, an uncomfortable itch crawled up his spine, a creeping reminder of the shadowy figure from last night.

Back home, he sat on the couch, a fresh plate of leftover orange chicken in his lap. The TV played some rerun of an old sitcom he didn’t care about, the audience’s canned laughter echoing through the room. Meatloaf slinked into the room, his green eyes glinting in the low light.

Jacob tensed. Something was different about the way the cat moved tonight. There was an elegance to it, a purposeful grace, as though every step was calculated. Jacob swallowed hard, his mouth dry.

“Relax, it’s just Meatloaf,” he muttered under his breath, trying to focus on his meal. But his hands shook slightly as he brought a forkful of chicken to his mouth.

Meatloaf hopped up on the couch beside him, settling with a soft thud, his tail flicking lazily. Jacob tried to ignore the growing sense of dread building in his chest. His eyes darted toward the cat, but every time he looked, it was just Meatloaf, looking back with those familiar, indifferent eyes.

And yet… in his peripheral vision, Jacob saw the shadows move again. There was something about the way the light bent and wrapped around Meatloaf, as if his form was never truly still, as if his fur were made of smoke, constantly shifting and coiling.

Jacob blinked hard, willing the vision away. “It’s nothing. You’re imagining it.” He repeated the thought, over and over, trying to drown out the chill crawling across his skin. But the shadows persisted.

On the third night, Jacob couldn’t sleep. His dreams were filled with strange, disjointed images—eyes watching him from every corner, shifting limbs crawling across the floor, slithering across the ceiling, whispers in the dark he couldn’t make out. He jolted awake, heart hammering in his chest, beads of sweat rolling down his temples.

He sat up, breathing hard, trying to steady himself. The room was quiet. Too goddamn quiet. And then, from the darkness at the foot of the bed, he heard the low, guttural purr, like a chainsaw in the distance. 

Jacob’s blood froze. Slowly, he turned his head, and there was Meatloaf—except it wasn’t. The thing at the foot of his bed was no longer pretending. It was there, in its true form, twisted and horrifying. It was cleaning itself, its body was a chaotic mass of limbs, some too long, others too short, all shifting and writhing like smoke. Eyes—too many to count—swirled across its head, its body, blinking out of sync. The shadows around it seemed to bend and pulse with its every movement, rippling, like the air itself was alive with some malevolent force.

Jacob gasped, unable to tear his eyes away this time. It was as if the thing held him in place, its many eyes locking onto him, rooting him to the spot. His breath came in shallow, rapid bursts. His mind raced, trying to make sense of the impossible thing in front of him.

“It’s… it’s soft and… and sharp,” he stuttered, his voice barely more than a whisper. “And… so many eyes… no, no, it’s just one eye, but it’s… swirling… twisting…”

The thing shifted, and now it had no eyes at all. Just a black, yawning void where its face should be, pulling at the edges of reality like it could swallow everything whole.

Jacob trembled, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. “Limbs… too many limbs… they’re… they’re everywhere. And nowhere.” He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to force the images from his mind. His skin was drenched in cold sweat, his heart pounding so hard it felt like it would burst from his chest.

And then, just like that, the feeling was gone.

Jacob opened his eyes, and there was Meatloaf, sitting on the edge of the bed, licking his paw, as if nothing had even happened. 

Jacob blinked rapidly, his breath ragged, desperate. For a long moment, he just stared at the cat, trying to piece together what he had just seen with the now ordinary creature in front of him.

Slowly, a weak laugh bubbled up from his throat. “I… I almost forgot… it’s your breakfast time, Meatloaf.” His voice wavered, but he forced himself to stand, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Breakfast time,” he repeated, louder this time, as though saying it with more conviction might help him believe it.

Meatloaf hopped off the bed and followed him into the kitchen, the soft padding of his paws the only sound in the still apartment. Jacob grabbed the bag of cat food from the cupboard, his hands trembling as he poured some into the bowl.

Meatloaf began to eat, and Jacob stood there, staring down at the cat—no, at the thing in the shape of a cat—his mind swirling with confusion and terror.

But as long as he didn’t look too closely, as long as he didn’t let his thoughts linger, he could almost convince himself that everything was normal.

Almost.

The following day, Jacob stumbled through work like a man lost in a dream, his body present, but his mind was elsewhere—back home, with Meatloaf, or whatever Meatloaf had become. His coworkers noticed the change in him. They threw him worried glances, asked if he was okay. Jacob would nod, force a smile, say he was just tired, but the truth lingered just beneath the surface of his mind, festering like a wound he couldn’t stop picking at.

At lunch, Jacob sat alone in the break room, his usual sandwich untouched. He stared down at his phone, the screen dark and reflective, showing his pale face, the bags under his eyes. His fingers itched to search for something—answers, explanations, a name for what he had seen. But what would he even type? “My cat is a demon”? “Shadow creature living in my apartment”?

He locked the phone, shoving it back into his pocket. Whatever was happening, it felt beyond the reach of Google or even Reddit. 

The hours crept by like shadows in the late afternoon, long and endless, and when the day finally ended, Jacob almost dreaded going home. Almost. The thing that awaited him there—Meatloaf—had become both a fascination and a terror. As long as he didn’t focus too hard, as long as he kept things moving, he could avoid the horror of it all. But something in him was drawn to it, the same way a person can’t help but stare at a fire, knowing it can burn them but too mesmerized by the flames to look away.

That night, he decided to pick up pizza on the way home. It was better than facing another frozen meal, something to distract him from the gnawing sense of dread. He carried the greasy box into the apartment, the smell of pepperoni and melted cheese filling the room, masking the cold, slightly damp air that always seemed to cling to his apartment now.

Meatloaf, as usual, was waiting. He padded out from the hallway, his movements fluid and unnervingly quiet. His eyes—green and innocent again—locked onto Jacob’s, as though assessing him, waiting, judging. 

Jacob ignored the cold sensation creeping up his spine and set the pizza box on the coffee table. “You want some company tonight, Meatloaf?” he asked, his voice shaking despite the casual words.

Meatloaf jumped onto the couch, curling up beside Jacob as he grabbed a slice of pizza. The warmth of the food should have been comforting, but every bite tasted like cardboard. He chewed slowly, his eyes darting toward the cat, wondering how much of what he had seen was real.

The TV flickered to life, a distraction, something to ground him. Some crime drama was on, the low hum of voices filling the silence, but Jacob couldn’t pay attention. The shadows in the room felt thick tonight, like they were moving without permission. Every time he looked away from Meatloaf, that old sensation returned—something just out of sight, shifting, morphing, waiting for him to look closer, daring him. 

A soft purr vibrated from Meatloaf’s chest, low and continuous. Jacob’s fingers twitched. He wanted to reach out, to touch the fur, to confirm that the thing beside him was solid, real. But his mind screamed at him not to.

Instead, he forced his gaze back to the TV, trying to sink into the normalcy of it, but the shadows on the screen twisted, warped, pulling his attention back to the periphery. Jacob glanced sideways at Meatloaf.

That’s when he saw it again.

The familiar shape of his cat began to flicker, like a glitch in reality. The smooth lines of fur and whiskers warped into something unnatural, the edges of Meatloaf’s body softening into smoke. And then, the shift began—the eyes multiplying, the limbs extending and retracting, like some grotesque imitation of a living creature. It was the same thing he had seen before, but this time, it was worse, as though it had decided to drop the act altogether. The room grew impossibly cold, and Jacob’s breath came in shallow gasps.

This wasn’t just his imagination. This thing, this shadow, was real, and it was here, in his home, playing the role of his beloved pet.

Jacob’s stomach churned, the pizza sitting like lead inside him. He tried to speak, tried to describe it again, but the words were a jumbled mess, too fragmented to make sense. “It’s… it’s… not right. Not right,” he mumbled, his voice shaking, his body trembling. “Eyes… too many eyes, legs—no legs—” He was choking on his words now, every syllable distorted by fear.

The creature—Meatloaf—twisted again, its body folding and unfolding in on itself, like watching a black hole consume light. His mind screamed at him to look away, but he couldn’t. He was trapped, frozen in place, watching the thing shift and writhe before him.

And then, all at once, the creature stopped. It sat back, its many eyes gone, its shape returning to the ordinary form of a fat tabby cat. Meatloaf blinked up at him with sleepy indifference, licking his paw, his claws gracefully extended. 

Jacob’s chest heaved as he gasped for air, his heart pounding in his ears. He wiped the cold sweat from his brow, his hands shaking violently.

And then came the sound. A low, unnatural meow, the same guttural, distorted noise that had haunted him for nights. The sound snapped Jacob out of his trance, and he found himself laughing—laughing in the face of it all, even though the terror still gripped his heart.

“I almost forgot again, didn’t I, Meatloaf?” His voice was thin, manic, but the relief was creeping back, like a tide pulling away the fear. “Your dinner time… coming right up!”

Jacob stood, wobbling slightly, and made his way to the kitchen. As he scooped out the cat food, his hands still trembled, but his mind started to settle. The act of feeding Meatloaf, of going through the motions of normalcy, was enough to quiet the horror. For now, as long as he didn’t look too closely, everything was fine.

As Meatloaf began to eat, Jacob leaned against the counter, staring blankly at the floor, the echoes of his laughter still hanging in the air.

He was forgetting again. Forgetting the terror, forgetting the truth. Just like every night.

And he realized, with a sinking feeling, that this was the worst part of all—the forgetting. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what Meatloaf truly was. It was that every time he remembered, the fear came back. But when he looked away, when he let his mind drift… the truth slipped away, like a bad dream fading with the dawn.

Each night, the terror returned, and each night, he forgot. And somehow, Jacob knew that whatever Meatloaf truly was, it wanted him to forget.

And so, in the dim light of his kitchen, Jacob laughed again, hollow and distant, as Meatloaf’s purring filled the silence.

For now, forgetting was easier than facing the truth.

The next few days passed in a blur for Jacob. Each morning, he stumbled out of bed in a daze, his body moving automatically through the motions of life. He went to work, shuffled papers, answered emails, and endured the soul-sucking hours in the office. His coworkers stopped asking if he was okay, their initial concern dissolving into quiet avoidance. He knew he looked worse each day—dark circles under his eyes, his skin pale and clammy, like he was haunted by something he couldn’t explain.

Every night, he came home to Meatloaf. Every night, the same routine unfolded: reheated leftovers, the TV playing in the background, Meatloaf silently watching him. The strange, guttural meows, the shifting shadows, the feeling of something lurking just out of view. It was a cycle he was trapped in, and Jacob felt like he was slowly unraveling, piece by piece, under the weight of it.

He had tried, once, to break the routine. One night, he left the apartment, desperate for air, for space away from the creeping dread of the place. He wandered aimlessly through the city streets, letting the cool night air wash over him, his hands trembling in his pockets. But even then, he couldn’t escape the feeling that Meatloaf—or the thing pretending to be Meatloaf—was watching him. No matter how far he walked, the sensation clung to him, a presence in the back of his mind. Eventually, he found himself drifting back home, like a puppet pulled by invisible strings.

And there was Meatloaf, waiting for him by the door.

Jacob had given up on trying to understand. The fear ebbed and flowed, but the forgetting was constant. Each time he saw Meatloaf shift, each time the shadows flickered and the creature revealed itself, the terror gripped him, suffocating him. And each time, within moments, the fear dissolved, as if his mind couldn’t hold onto the truth for too long. He was always left standing there, confused and disoriented, laughing at himself like a madman.

It was on the fifth night that something changed.

Jacob sat at the kitchen table, staring at a half-eaten carton of greasy Chinese food. His stomach turned at the thought of eating another bite, the smell of it too heavy, too rich. Meatloaf was at his usual spot, perched on the armrest of the couch, watching. Always watching.

The air in the apartment felt thicker than usual, oppressive, like it was pressing down on Jacob from all sides. The shadows in the corners seemed to stretch and pulse with every flicker of the lights, their movements slow and deliberate, like something breathing just beyond his reach.

Jacob clenched his fists, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t keep doing this. He couldn’t keep pretending everything was normal, ignoring the shifting creature that lived with him, forgetting the truth over and over again.

His eyes locked on Meatloaf. The cat—or the thing in the shape of the cat—stared back at him, unblinking. And this time, Jacob didn’t look away.

For the first time in days, he forced himself to focus, to really look at Meatloaf. He ignored the pull to turn away, to let his mind wander, to slip back into the safety of forgetting. Instead, he let the fear build, let the horror rise in his throat until it threatened to choke him.

And then, just like before, it happened.

Meatloaf began to change.

The air around him rippled, the shadows bending and warping as the cat’s form twisted and melted. Jacob’s breath hitched as he watched the creature unfurl, its body elongating into an unnatural, serpentine shape, its fur turning to smoke that writhed and coiled in the air. The eyes multiplied again, dozens of them blinking open all at once, swirling in impossible patterns across the creature’s face and body.

Jacob’s chest tightened, his heart hammering in his ears. He was terrified, more than he had ever been, but he held his gaze. He refused to look away.

The creature shifted again, its limbs, or whatever they were—extending and retracting, growing and shrinking, a mass of shadow and smoke that defied logic, reality. Its eyes—those countless, swirling eyes—seemed to burrow into Jacob’s mind, prying at the edges of his sanity. He wanted to scream, to run, but his feet were rooted to the floor. His hands trembled violently, sweat pouring down his face as he struggled to hold on to reality.

And then, it spoke.

The sound wasn’t a voice in any normal sense—it was more like a vibration, a deep, resonant hum that filled the room and shook the walls. It was the sound of something ancient, something beyond human comprehension. It scraped at the inside of Jacob’s skull, the weight of it pressing down on him until he thought his bones might shatter from the pressure.

“You… see… now.”

The words—if they really were words—echoed in his mind, disjointed and broken, like they were being spoken from a great distance. Jacob’s vision blurred, his body shaking uncontrollably as the creature’s form loomed larger, the darkness of it swallowing the room.

“You… are… chosen.”

Jacob’s mouth moved, but no sound came out. His mind was a whirl of terror and confusion, the words echoing over and over again in his head. Chosen? Chosen for what?

The creature twisted, its many eyes blinking in unison, its shape shifting and morphing until it was something utterly incomprehensible. It was everything and nothing at once, a void where reality bent and twisted, unraveling at the seams.

“Forget.”

The command rippled through Jacob like a wave, crashing against his consciousness. His vision dimmed, the edges of the world turning dark as the pressure in his mind grew unbearable. His body sagged, his limbs heavy, his breath shallow.

And then, as quickly as it had begun, the pressure released.

Jacob blinked, his eyes focusing on the familiar form of Meatloaf sitting calmly on the armrest. The cat blinked lazily, stretching out his legs and yawning as if nothing had happened.

Jacob’s heart slowed, his breath returning to normal. He wiped the sweat from his brow, his mind hazy, the details of the last few minutes slipping away like water through his fingers. He ignored the wet patch on his crotch. 

“Meatloaf,” he said softly, his voice hoarse. “Almost forgot… your dinner time.” He laughed weakly, pushing himself to his feet, his legs shaking beneath him, muscles replaced with jelly.

He moved to the kitchen, his movements automatic, mind blank. The terror was gone, erased from his thoughts as if it had never been there.

As Meatloaf began to eat, Jacob sat at the table, staring at the wall with a distant, vacant expression.

Somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, a faint voice whispered the truth he had already begun to forget.

“You are chosen.”

And soon, he would forget that too.