Anna blinked a couple times, and, confused, observed the empty room around her, save for the professor who was busy putting the visor from yesterday on. “Wh… Wha...?” She muttered.

    “Oh, finally back with us, Anna?” Asked Mr. Robert, who closed in on her and dropped a concerned hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, I should’ve been more tactful with the whole last day on Earth thing. You’ve been comatose for the past hour. I sent your friends to their classes.”

    “O… Okay.” She said through the disorientation. Was this too amplified by the cat parts of her, or had it really just been that brutal a shock? ...She waited for an elaboration that never came, Mr Robert coughing into his arm and putting on his visor.

    “Anyway. This is the moment where I discover sleep deprivation made me commit a stupid mistake yesterday.” He said as he switched the contraption on, and prepared himself to glance in Anna’s direction.

    “What do you… mean?” She asked, still fighting off some of the daze she had been put through.

    He walked all the way towards her, making sure to only have body parts of her in his field of view at a time. He glanced at her head first, then avoided her neck to lower his vision down to her torso, her arms, then her legs. He sighed, then looked straight at the collar. “Indeed,” he muttered while removing the visor, “a stupid mistake.”

    She blinked a couple times, and found herself unable to remove the rest of the fatigue… Ah. Well mistake on her part this time. She was sleepy, simply enough.

    “Your body is completely fine. It’s only the collar that’s not in accordance with our world - and that’s almost no surprise since it doesn’t come from it.” He rolled his eyes. “I’m a total buffon when I’m sleep deprived.”

    “It’s alright. We all make mistakes.” She said reassuringly.

    The professor chuckled. “Eh, sure. It’s better when they don’t happen at critical times, though.”

    She thought for a moment, looking for the right thing to say. “...On a, uh, practical level, does that change anything?”

    “Yeah. Means your super strength is exactly that rather than a field of physics bending.” Mr. Robert explained.

    “My…”

    He nodded, confirming she’d heard correctly. “Yes, your super strength. Grip strength most of all. Plus I’m sure your claws provide yet another boost to that now.”

    She looked at her hands for a moment, took in once more what her nails had become. “Super strength…” She muttered absentedly.

    A moment of silence passed, during which Mr. Robert prepared the laser from yesterday.

    And Anna didn’t see herself able to avoid the elephant in the room any longer. “So… Why would… today be my last day on Earth?”

    Mr. Robert sighed, closing once more towards her, then sitting on the nearest chair. “It’s definitely a lot of assumptions, but most likely, tonight will be the last change for you, and at that point Qelhatat will probably take over there and then.” He looked at the ceiling for a moment, avoiding her gaze. “Biggest assumption in that theory is that there really is a pattern in the scale of changes she can make each night.”

    Anna didn’t want to reply.

    The professor thought for a moment. “Do you think it’d be possible to talk to her before tonight? Like, try to sleep now and see if you can force a discussion to happen from your end?”

    She scratched the back of her head, this time being the one to avoid the teacher’s gaze. “I guess I could try…”

    “Then you need to try.” He moved around, crouching in front of her once more. “Feeling sleepy by any chance?”

    Anna fidgeted for a moment. “Yeah, actually…”

    “Okay, great! So try to get in that dream of yours with her again, and your goal will be to convince her to leave you alone at any cost. Alright?” He said with a little pump of his fist, trying to instigate peppiness in the student.

    She appreciated the encouragement, though her brain was still very confused by so much. She thought back to her conversation with Lucie’s mom this morning, and figured there was no harm in asking. “Mmh… Is this important for anything? Beyond just me surviving I mean…”

    “There’s other reasons, but that’s plenty important enough by itself already.” He replied, confirming her suspicions.

    “Men in black reasons?”

    The professor seemed surprised for a moment, before smiling. “You kids really are smart cookies. Who told you of those?”

    “Ah… You, you know… Someone…” She stammered out… And to her dismay, this answer didn’t satisfy the professor. She looked at the ground and muttered “Lucie’s parents.”

    He took on a calculating look once more. “Okay.” Standing up once more, he turned on the laser he was holding, then started flashing it upon the collar. “Go to sleep, now. I can take care of the rest alone.”

    “Thanks, professor…” She replied, curling up in her new sleeping position once he was done inspecting the front of the collar. She focused her thoughts on Qelhatat, on the pink room, on this dream space… Hoping that was how she would get back in...

 

    Anna slowly opened an eyelid, catching the silhouette of Qelhatat’s back once more, the queen sitting cross-legged. Stretching, Anna slowly crawled next to her, making herself comfortable in the same position. “Hey.”

    The queen glanced at her, almost unsurprised that Anna’s mental image once more fit her current body. “A strrange, strrange man, that you arre.”

    “That’s probably because I’m not one. Your magic helped me realise that.” She smiled, let out a little sigh. “Thank you. I’m Anna.”

    “You arre welcome, I suppose.” Replied the egyptian woman. After a moment of silence, she added “Arre you surre therre is no magic on yourr worrld?”

    “Not so much anymore, actually. Could be part of the things that are being kept secret to the general population.”

    “That’s good that it could exist.” The queen muttered. “Forr me, I mean.”

    “I was wondering… Is tonight the night you’re gonna take over?”

    “That it’ll be indeed, my dearr. I only have to rrecharrge my enerrgy a bit morre. It is not easy to cast magic when you arre but a soul in an amulet.”

    Well then, the hypothesis was true. Her last day on Earth. “Oh.” was all she managed to reply.

 

    The discussion fell into a rhythm for a while. One of them would ask a question, the other would answer, then the roles would be reversed. The queen asked questions about Anna’s appearance and her acceptance of it, while the younger catgirl asked questions about Qelhatat’s world, and why she’d appeared as a mummy originally.

Apparently, the queen had been fleeing her palace and got cursed on the way out, though she refused to explain why. She’d sensed the portal far in the desert, and had managed to ride a horse over before the mummification took her completely, sealing off most of her magic.

    Anna simply repeated the things that she told herself this morning. How it felt good, how it fit. How it inspired her to help others that feel the same way as her.

    Despite the queen’s nefarious acts that she planned to continue on Anna, there was no fear when the two women talked. In the middle of the craziness of these last few days, it seemed almost eerie how Anna seemed unphased by her incoming erasure, and how little hostility there was between her and her to-be-murderer. Maybe she was simply resigned, she told herself. Or maybe there was something, some unspoken agreement between the two women, that they could rely on one another, somehow. That, despite everything, they wished no harm upon one another.

    Eventually, the topic of Anna’s homelife was brought up by one of the queen’s questions.

    “My parents are…” She sighed, biting at a claw. “I dunno. They’re not good, I’ve learned to accept. Maybe even a bit bad, but I couldn’t tell. I’m completely unable to judge them fairly…”

    The queen grabbed Anna’s head, then guided it onto her lap, gently petting her hair. “That is a story I have hearrd beforre. One that is too common.”

    “I’m sorry…” Muttered Anna, absentedly pawing at Qelhatat’s gown.

    “Do not be. The amount of bad carretakerrs on both ourr univerrses is none yourr fault.”

    Anna smiled sadly, then took notice what she was doing, bringing to her mind another question. “I’ve been acting so catlike all day… Do you know why?”

    A little “Prrrf?” escaped the queen’s lips as she glanced at her captive. “Well, if you werre to ask me I would say it was that you acted monkey until now, but would you have morre detail to give?”

    “It’s just… There’s this whole slug of thoughts I gotta traverse through before I get to do anything coherent… And when I don’t, I start mewling, purring, getting excited over anything…” She paused, searching for the right words. “It’s not like that can’t be enjoyable, but... “

    The queen stifled a giggle, only to explode in a guffaw. “You arre acting like a child! This is prrecious! I am not a betting woman, but I suppose my magic worrks differrently on the likes of you monkey-folks. It is making yourr thoughts be like those of a human childrren.”

    Anna took a page out of Lucie’s book, opting for the jokey out. “Dammit, you too call yourselves humans? That sure is gonna complicate things…”

    “Differrent language, dearrie. Parrt of the spell of ourr firrst night togetherr, I made you underrstand mine as yourr own.”

    Anna blushed in embarrassment. “Ah, right… Explains the Egypt thing too.”

 

    Despite the absence of any feature in this endless void, the two women heard a loud ringing, seemingly coming from everywhere at once.

    “What’s happening?” Demanded Anna, confused.

    Once again, the queen provided a simple answer. “Wouldn’t that be the signal that you need to wake up, dearrie?”

    Anna squinted her eyes for a moment, and finally connected the dots - the school bell for lunch period was ringing. In a panic, she realized she still hadn’t asked the question she came here for. “Is there really no other way? Can you not take me over, please…?”

    To her surprise, the queen genuinely mulled it over for a moment. “I will considerr yourr demand. It isn’t as if I have no time to think, in this empty space of ourrs…”

    Anna mouthed a tentative “Thank you.” before consciousness took her again.