Chapter 1- A Not So Ordinary Day

My name’s Will. I’m a teenager with normal teenage hobbies like video games, basketball, and movies. I especially like the movies where an ordinary person becomes a superhero who destroys villains and rescues people. I know, boring right? Well my life was boring… until one month ago, when it changed forever.
It all started when I adopted my cat, Chester. I was taking a walk down an empty road by myself in the rain, when I saw a short haired cat with orange fur and bright green eyes on the sidewalk. The cat, which was soaked in rain, did not have an identification tag, so I immediately thought about adopting him as my first pet. I gave him some crackers, and the cat walked over to me right away and began purring. After petting him and letting him rub himself on my legs, I took the bag of crackers and motioned for him to go into my backpack. I was not expecting my plan to work, but it was the only thing I could think to try. To my surprise, he climbed into my backpack without hesitation. I thought about a name for my new pet. I wanted it to be a unique name that was memorable, and at last I came up with “Chester.” After saying the name ten times and becoming satisfied, I happily skipped back to my home… the orphanage.
Yep, I’m an orphan. I’ve never known anything about my parents and I had lived in the orphanage since I was born. It’s not a very fun place to live. The adults don’t care about us orphans. Even though they force you to go to school, they never help you, and they don’t talk much either.
For the majority of everyday I spent my time studying writing and math, reading old novels and textbooks. In the afternoon, we orphans were allowed to do anything we wanted. Most kids hung out with their friends, but I never really had any. In fact, I grew used to being alone. Sometimes, I dreamt about having a family, people who cared for and loved me, but when I snapped back to reality, I realized that my boring life would just continue until I grew up. That was… until the day Chester spoke to me.
So, back to the story. I had to keep Chester hidden in my room after I adopted him, because pets were not allowed at the orphanage. I always made sure that my doors were closed and locked and that he never went outside. At first, Chester acted like a normal cat, eating cans of tuna, using a sand-filled shoebox as a litter box, and sleeping. Then, one day while I was doing homework, Chester walked up to me, opened his mouth, and said… “Hi.”
I jumped back as if someone had shot me. I stood up on my chair and grabbed my ruler, wielding it like a sword as a drip of sweat ran down the back of my neck. Chester sighed, expecting my reaction, and replied, “You’re not in a dream, and I don’t want to hurt you.”
Chester spoke in perfectly fluent English, with no trace of an accent. “Now please calm down, I want to talk to you.”
I stood on my chair for a couple of minutes, staring at Chester. Finally, I jumped down and said: “Um… hello?”
Chester looked around the room, making sure that no one was nearby. He calmly replied, “To make a long story short… I’m an undercover agent for the FBI, the Feline Bureau of Intelligence. You are one of the very few people who can save the world of cats, and you need to work together with me.”
“Wait…” I said, with my eyebrows raised high. “Why, exactly, am I so important?”
“You see,” said Chester, “a mad scientist is secretly attacking the cat world, and he will destroy everything in his path, including the humans, after he’s done with us. You are the chosen one. You have special abilities that can defeat the villain.”
Suddenly, the ground shook, and the vibration knocked my notebooks off my desk. I thought it was an earthquake! Chester quickly yelled: “I’ll explain more later, it’s time to go!”
I obediently followed him as we ran outside of the house. I had no idea what was going on. I didn’t care where we were running towards; I just wanted to stay alive. My heart tried to burst out of my chest with every quick beat as butterflies flew around my stomach. We ran past many surprised orphans and adults ducking for cover in the hallways. Then we reached the main entrance. Believe it or not, right in the front yard, two helicopters were shooting at each other.
They weren’t US military vehicles; they were much smaller. I didn’t have a chance to look at them in full detail because I was following Chester as fast as I could. One of the helicopters approached us and the pilot waved at us to signal that he did not want to hurt us. The helicopter landed and we quickly jumped on. Then, Chester handed me a large, glass beaker. Inside was a green fluid that had the same texture and smoothness as water, except it had gas coming out of it. The liquid reminded me of a potion. “Drink!” Chester commanded, and in one gulp I swallowed the liquid.
There were so many strange things happening in my head that I could not think properly. The only things I could see were neon colors swirling around and forming different shapes. I could not hear anything and I began feeling extremely nauseous. Finally, after 10 minutes, the colors disappeared, and I regained my hearing and did not feel like throwing up anymore. Our helicopter was safe in the sky now, and my heart stopped pounding. For some reason, Chester looked strangely satisfied. He simply asked me: “Mirror?”
I accepted the small hand mirror and looked at myself. Looking back at me was a pair of bright green eyes, pointy ears, a pink nose, and a furry grey face. I had turned into a cat.
My heart stopped. I looked down at my former hands, which had turned into paws, and touched my face, thinking that I was in some sort of a bizarre dream. However, once I pinched myself with my retractable claws, I knew that I wasn’t dreaming. It took me a few minutes to calm down and breathe steadily again. Upon further examination of my new body, I found that I still sat like a human, and my paws functioned just like hands, with fingers and opposable thumbs. Though it was cool, my new appearance frightened me; I could not recognize the creature in the mirror. I looked at Chester and realized that he also had the same part cat, part human body. I asked him fearfully: “Will I stay like this forever?”
Chester smiled. “Don’t worry. You’ll change back once you return to living with humans, but for now, you’ll be staying with us in this world. Speaking of which, welcome to a world where cats rule.”
Chester told me that our helicopter entered into this new world via a portal. Here, cats and other animals think, move, and act like humans. Cats have built their own civilizations, invented technologies, and have gone to war with other animals. There are no humans here, and cats are the most powerful species. After Chester’s speech, I stared at him, dumbfounded. I leaned back onto my seat, and took a huge breath. In a matter of minutes, I had gone from being a kid with no special talents to being “the chosen one” in a world ruled by cats.
Just when I was about to ask where we were going, our helicopter landed inside the middle of a forest. Around the helicopter was a seemingly endless amount of enormous trees that reminded me of the Redwoods in California… and the entrance to a gigantic fortress. The main gate, which was just as tall as the trees, was built out of solid steel, and was part of what looked like at least a mile of walls.
“Welcome to the FBI headquarters,” Chester announced proudly. Chester scanned his plastic I.D. card on a machine with a red light in front of the multilayered steel door. The light turned green, and I heard the sound of cranking gears, followed by the slow opening of the gate. “Okay,” Chester said. “Let’s meet the boss, Mr. Z.”
Inside the gate was an open field filled with parked military tanks and transports. I ignored some looks from the other cat soldiers, who all had human-like bodies and cat-like features. We then proceeded to walk past about thirty hangars containing jets, helicopters, and planes. The deafening noise of engines and the smell of gasoline stopped right away when we entered a huge, glass and steel building that sharply contrasted with the dull brown color of the hangars. Chester showed his plastic I.D to the soldiers at the front desk, and we proceeded onto a glass elevator. As we passed through different floors, I saw cats constructing robots, vehicles, and weapons; cats dressed in suits with military badges studying maps and papers; and cats in army uniforms firing their guns at paper targets. I felt like I had just seen a museum exhibition on the future of warfare. Finally, a beep emitted from the elevator’s speakers, followed by an electronic voice: “Now arriving at floor 11.”
The door opened to an atrium decorated with guns. Chester patted me on the back. “We will explain to you why you have been chosen to come here, Will. Welcome to Special Operations Team 11ZB.”