So I finally mustered the will to rewrite at least a bit of this old childhood thing of mine. I read over the first chapter to remember what on earth I'd been writing when I was twelve, and my reaction can be summarised as "Heeheeeheeee. I was so cute. Karate instructor at fifteen?"

Expect better writing quality...but also added complexity and a slightly grittier world. Not to mention much more vocabulary. I'm a very wordy writer now. Also the plot and events will change in varying ways – it will be very different to the original. The story may be less suitable for children than the original was. I will post beginning of chapter warnings for anything that could be even vaguely questionable. Also, main character looks different now. And will probably get a different name.

Thank you for following me all of these years. The popularity of one of my first fanfictions, The Cat Hybrid, spurred me on quite a bit back then. I will leave the original available for anyone who wants to read it.

Warnings for this chapter: Really unpleasant transformation focusing around a horrible fever. Also, very basic description of what a female cat's chest looks like.

The Hybrid

Chapter 1

Transformation

The rain was terrible that day.

It had been storming all week, the skies thick and grey all through day and night, and perpetually bursting into fitful showers. I did not appreciate the walk to my illustrious place of education in that weather, and certainly didn't appreciate the smudged ink in my workbooks where they'd been thoroughly rained on. Nonetheless, I persevered, and sat through my classes of the day with half my mind on the lesson and half on the sky outside.

I did enjoy storms. They were one of my favourite kinds of weather. I loved seeing lightning flash outside, loved even more the mighty roars of thunder that followed. It had always made my heart race with excitement. I used to believe there were giant tigers roaring in the sky...and, you know, lots of mythologies would hold that to be true. So I enjoyed storms. I just didn't particularly enjoy being outside in them. I rather disliked getting wet. However, safely interred in my Philosophy classroom, I was out of the rain and free to snicker at my classmates for shrieking when the storm howled.

When my classes ended, I hurried quickly into the next building to access my locker. I probably wouldn't do any homework tonight, so there was no point in subjecting my folders and textbooks to the rain again. Then I fastened my coat as best I could and stepped out into the deluge.

It was pretty fantastic rain, if you're inclined to admire rain. It was such an outrageous downpour that I had to take my glasses off after only a minute or so, the raindrops falling in sheets over the lenses, rendering them essentially useless. My coat wasn't exactly the finest example of waterproofing known to mankind, so along the way I started off vaguely damp and then progressed quickly to absolutely soaked.

The walk usually took me twenty minutes. The wind and the bone-deep chill setting in slowed that walk to thirty minutes. By the time I arrived home to my disorganised apartment I was ready to curl up by the radiator and stop moving for hours. Maybe take a long hot shower. I pushed open the front door and muttered a greeting to my roommate, a slightly older girl who was unfortunately as introverted as me. We got along alright, with the occasional nag to wash more dishes and such, but didn't talk very much.

I stripped myself of my sodden clothing and climbed into my single bed, blessedly situated right next to the radiator. The heat was fantastic.

In retrospect I should have known I'd fall asleep.

It was a relatively shallow sleep full of my typical crazy dreams. I spent some time leading a revolution in a pretty unpleasant wasteland-type area, whereupon a gigantic wrecked pylon drew me to it and suddenly I was a taciturn dark-haired man scowling up at the structure, certain that a dragon would appear soon and that it would be a terrible fight. The dream flitted around in that patchy, enjoyable manner until...suddenly...it was different.

I'd had a lucid dream once. I didn't do anything more interesting in it than establish that I was in the dream, and do several tests to confirm it. This felt something like that. Almost. But not quite...

I was in a forest lit only by the light of the moon. The stars were so bright...and were those cats? So many of them! I marvelled at their sleek forms, massing under the moonlight. I'd never seen so many cats in one place before. I liked this dream.

Nothing much happened though. They just watched me, carefully, occasionally meowing softly to each other.

Then one of them, a large blue-grey cat, stepped forwards. "You've always wanted to be different." She said, contemplatively. The cats could talk, then?

"I guess so," I answered, kneeling down by the cat.

"We have kept to lesser means before, to help those that we care for." She informed me. "Subtle means, that do not stand out to your kind. But times are changing, we are growing weaker, and secrecy can no longer save us from you and your race. The time has come for power, while we can still wield it." The cat stepped forwards, eyes glowing white. "Will you help us?"

I paused. "Sure?" I offered tentatively, with a sinking feeling of apprehension. This felt like more than a dream, somehow. Should I have agreed? Was this some kind of prophetic fantasy dream? No, that was pure fiction -

The cat stepped forwards with the kind of determination and intent I'd never seen on a feline before. She leapt onto my knees, tensed her muscles, and sank her teeth into my throat.

I screamed.

When I woke, I was in pain. I had a pounding headache, my muscles all screamed at me in concert, and it hurt to breathe. Checking my phone confirmed that I'd slept a good twelve hours, and now it was approaching dawn.

I staggered to the bathroom, confirmed in the mirror that I looked frankly terrible, and tried to get as much liquid down as I could. My stomach recoiled thoroughly at the thought of food. The thermometer confirmed that I had a fever. I dialled up school and left a croaky message about my absence, and then returned to bed after swallowing a couple of paracetamol.

The next time I woke up was five hours later. My skin was clammy and covered in a cold sweat. Everything hurt. Moving was even more difficult this time. I staggered to the kitchen and poured myself a jug of water to take back to my room, as well as a box of cereal and a whole packet of pills. I took a couple more, desperately trying to get some water past what felt like a blockage in my throat. I'd obviously come down with a pretty serious flu.

After that, I didn't wake properly for a while. I slipped in and out of strange and terrifying fever-dreams, occasionally half-waking to become chokingly scared because I couldn't move, and I went in and out of periods of intense hotness and coldness alternatively. One time I did wake up, and could move, but I couldn't open my eyes and everything ached. That's when I started to suspect that something was really, seriously wrong. I tried to reach for my phone but couldn't. It was too far away. All I could do was try to get some water down before I passed out again.

I don't know how long I lay there for, but it was a while. My eyes remained completely sealed for the whole time, my limbs occasionally paralysed and unmoving, with their bones screaming out in agony at the slightest motion. My dreams were awful, indistinguishable from feverish reality, and once I woke and clawed at myself with the horrified certainty that my skin was coming off, and I couldn't even tell if I was awake or asleep.

It might have been a dream, or maybe not – I remember being ravenous, ravenously hungry, and so thirsty it hurt to breathe. I could smell water nearby, a little stale, but water nonetheless. I remember drinking. Drinking with a feverish, groping hold on the jug, I couldn't see anything, but I drank. Something nearby smelled sweet and familiar, almost like food, but not quite. It was good enough. I devoured it, shuddering with pain and confusion, and curled up somewhere dark and quiet.

Flashes of dreams, not-dreams, and fragments of reality played around in my head for the awful time I spent there. I slipped in and out of consciousness, hungry and thirsty and hot and cold and trembling, but with no reprieve.

And then, one day, I awoke.

I woke, mind-numbingly exhausted to the point where I could hardly think, and everything felt different, but I'm sure I was awake.

I couldn't open my eyes. I touched them with my fingertips and the eyelids felt strange – thick and sensitive and gooey. My fingertips felt strange. My skin, my face, my legs – everything ached, like the worst growing pain you can imagine but an order of magnitude worse. But I was thirsty. Really, really thirsty.

Sightless, but with sounds and smells bizarrely powerful, I stumbled out of my room, feeling along the wall to the nearby bathroom. I drank from the tap, too quickly, and brought the water back up almost immediately. I was slower and more careful the next time. I returned, shaking and terrified, to my room, falling onto my bed.

Was there –

I felt something near my legs, like a limb, but one I'd never had before.

Too exhausted to be scared for long, I quickly passed out again.

The next time I awoke, it was to the outrageous ringing of my phone. The noise was jarring, painful. Without thinking I groped for it on the bedside and threw it against the wall. There was a smashing sound, and it fell silent.

My heart beat fiercely for minutes afterwards as I came to terms with being fully awake, feeling wholly, impossibly different.

I still couldn't open my eyes, but I had other senses. My hands were strange. Still sensitive and dexterous, but covered with soft leathery pads which weren't as sensitive as my skin had been. I ran my hands over my body, panicked to discover that I was furry, everywhere, shortest near my extremities and longest at the back of my head, where it had replaced my hair in a silky kind of mane.

And my ears!

Triangular, thinly-furred, and vastly more sensitive to touch and sound than I could really deal with, at first. Then the whiskers, sprouting from the area around my mouth and nose, so incredibly delicate that I could feel the currents my own arms swept through the air, I could feel my own heartbeat pulsing in them. And the tail. The tail. Long, twitchy, and prehensile.

I'm some sort of cat-thing. Got to be. I thought crazily, now remembering the crazy dream with the cats. Was that real? Was this really happening? I was so, so very confused. I still couldn't open my eyes, but I couldn't chance going out and looking for help if I looked as different as I felt. Who knows what would happen to me? It would be the scientific find of the century! Not to mention that I was now more or less certain that the shapes of my limbs and the structure of my skeleton were entirely different. My legs would have been the same if not for the something-extra at the ends, which felt like an exceptionally long foot, the toes of which I was perching on when I shakily stood up. Digitigrade, like a cat; walking on one's toes. My arms and wrists felt subtly different, and they were kind of thick at the ends – as if-

I took one fingertip carefully in two others. I pressed, and a claw slid out, stretching new muscles pleasantly.

I sat down on my bed, and exhaled.

I stayed in my room for the next few days, having little choice. I still couldn't see, and while the ears and whiskers were astonishingly useful for getting around, I couldn't take any chances after this. I left my room only when I was sure my flatmate wouldn't see, and draped myself in a dressing gown and various scarves for good measure. Even then I left only to get water and forage for food. That itself was difficult – I was mostly carnivorous now, and anything else tasted unappetizing at best. I did have cans of spam and corned beef and the like to tide me over, but I was worried over what would happen if my eyes didn't open soon.

I had figured...it was like I had been reborn, as something other than myself. And, like a newborn kitten, my eyes were sealed shut. I would have to wait until they were ready to open.

The time spent waiting, I did not waste. I investigated the workings of my new form – the tail in particular. It was too long to belong to a cat, even one of my size and shape. Nearly the length of my body, it was powerfully muscled and prone to twitching absently at the tip if I didn't concentrate. I discovered that I could move it as I wished, but it also moved autonomously, when I wasn't paying attention. That could be a serious hazard, due to its size and strength – once, in the midst of agitated thoughts, it thrashed whiplike to the side and sent the bedside jug clattering to the floor in pieces.

I investigated all ten claws, finding that the muscles attached to them itched to be stretched. I clawed at the carpet guiltily, finding that it left markers of my scent around from the glands I'd discovered on my hands. I also discovered the astounding degree of flexibility my new body bore, now capable of twisting itself in utterly absurd shapes. I also, with resigned pawing at myself, concluded that my breasts were gone for good. I had instead the six spaced nipples that a non-pregnant cat would bear, completely flat against my body and hidden in the fur.

Almost everything was different. Maybe my height wasn't, not by much, but my teeth were sharp, I had a wide assortment of feline features, and I was covered head-to-toe in fur. What colour, I couldn't say, not with my eyes sealed shut.

It was true I'd always wished to be different, to be special, to have my own adventure as I'd read in so many books...but I'd never felt for myself, the intense fear and isolation of a character who must leave everything she has ever known. What else could I do? I couldn't stay among humans. I had tried and failed to trigger some kind of magical human transformation, and so I would have to leave. Isolate myself, and never be seen or heard from again. Except the cats in the dream, the cats who potentially had done this to me – they had needed help, hadn't they?

I have a story, I thought, a chill running down my spine and lifting the fur there. It was an exciting but fearful thought.

Three days after my awakening, my eyes began to open.

The first hint of light, of the gluey coating on my eyelids starting to give way, sent my heart into powerful overdrive. I sat straight up, very gently exerting the muscles of my eyelids, not wanting to force them open before they were ready, but also desperately wanting my sight back.

It was slow. It took many hours for my eyes to open fully, and by the time they did, it was night again. In the meantime the glimpses of sight I caught were intense and oddly detailed, giving me all certainty that my previously sub-par human vision had improved considerably.

Then, at last, my eyes opened fully.

My room looked so different.

I could see in the dark with such detail! Every mote of dust drifting past the gap in my curtains where the moonlight shone through was illuminated like stardust. Carefully, I peered through the gap and sighed at the sight of the town beneath the moonlight. I could get used to senses like this.

My room...was a bit of a state. I'd clearly knocked the water jug from the bedside table at some point, and while it hadn't shattered, the handle had snapped off. The box of cereal I'd taken was ripped open with its contents strewn everywhere. Strangest of all, though, were the thick strips of skin everywhere. Dried and translucent, like that time I'd had the worst sunburn of my life, but...well, there was a lot of it. Enough for me to have lost all of the skin on my body at least twice.

I slipped quietly out of my room, into the bathroom, and locked the door. I took a breath – dropped the dressing gown, and looked at myself in the mirror.

Those...were some distinctive markings.

I stared at myself, stunned. Any kind of simple, human female beauty I may have had was gone now, replaced with a half-feline guise of what had been my face. The bridge of the nose was flat, my eyes too large and lacking whites, with the presence of my whiskers peeking through thin fur the final marker of inhumanity. I'd guessed that I would look very different. Knowing it and seeing it, however, were completely different things.

My eyes were outrageously blue. That was the first thing I noticed, and for good reason. Massive eyes, the distinctive round shape of a cat's, and ringed with black skin. The pupil was slitted, drawn thin with alarm. And then there was my fur.

I knew my cats – I was quite a fan of them, and had entertained more than one daydream of retiring as a crazy cat lady. So it was that I saw the marbling black lines down my neck, the pale-centred spots, and the silvery white of my main coat and knew that I was derived from a Bengal cat. Not only that – but a snow Bengal cat, descended directly from the blood of wildcats and then bred carefully for their spotted white coats. Why on Earth would I have ended up looking like this?

And even aside from my very visible, very distinctive coat – why this body? Why some bizarre cross between a cat and a human? If it was cats I was supposed to help, then why would I look like this? I was apart from my own kind and apart from cat-kind as well.

Why couldn't they have just turned me into a cat? I thought to myself, despairingly. At least then I would have no shortage of people willing to take me – wait. Oh. I stared at the bottom of the mirror, considerably smaller. All my fur rose to stand on end, tingling with shock.

I stared at the mirror, and a stunningly marked cat stared back, ears twitching, tail too long to be normal, with fur around the head and neck also lengthened.

I was a cat now?

It took some quick thinking to suddenly be a tall and furry hybrid again. No amount of thinking allowed me to be human. But it took less than a second to become hybrid or cat, with no pain and only a disorientating rush of perspective to speak of for the transformation.

I sat down for several minutes, my head swimming in confusion.

The supernatural exists, I concluded, took a deep breath, and returned to my room.

I had to leave. Little could be more obvious.

I was different now – I could never pass for human, not even if I had my whole body shaved. Maybe if I went around in a burqa for the rest of my life, but that frankly didn't appeal to me in the slightest, and how would I explain it, anyway?

I had to leave, and I could probably never return.

My heart constricted as I thought of my parents. We weren't close, and had some fundamental differences in philosophy that had prompted me to move out as soon as I turned eighteen...but they were my parents. The thought of never seeing or talking to them again was...painful.

I can probably send letters, from time to time. I pointed out to myself, heavily, but it didn't really help.

On that note, I spared a regretful glance to my destroyed phone and reached for paper and pen. I'd never been good at getting across anything meaningful, and was the epitome of awkward when it came to any kind of communication that wasn't face-to-face, but I could manage something short.

Dear mum and dad,

Something weird and probably irreversible has happened to me, and now I have to leave. It's unlikely you'll see me again, but hopefully I can get you some letters once in a blue moon. I have no idea what's going to happen now, so I can't say much more. Please try not to worry about me.

Love you,

Kayla.

I sighed, feeling uncomfortable and agitated. It wasn't enough and I knew it. But nonetheless I taped it down in the centre of my desk and stood back.

I gazed around, looking at the evidence of my life. I pulled on my hiking day-sack and confirmed that, as a cat, it wasn't there. But when I returned to my hybrid shape, it was. That would help a lot.

I went digging in the wardrobe for my larger bag, a heavy-duty sixty-five litre backpack that had been on many a hike with me in its days. And then I went around my room, scrutinising each of my possessions carefully. What should I take with me, in the limited space I had?

I tested out my clothes, first. Trousers and leggings fit a little strangely, until I folded them up to avoid the ends of my legs. Socks...socks didn't do especially well. I winced, feeling the tips of my hind claws catching on them with every tiny movement. That meant my walking boots were out, too. Sighing, I tested the fit of my loyal sandals, discovering that they in their open-toed glory were probably the most suitable footwear I could find. I took them off and set them to the side.

I stared at my bras and discarded them without a further thought, keeping only the wide sports bra which was more of a white, elasticated crop top than anything else, fixing firmly to my body and covering four of the six offending objects on my chest, just barely coming to the last pair. My hiking trousers were a bit of a lost cause – they were durable, but not nearly flexible enough for my new form. I'd just be held back by them. I opted for my fleece-lined tracksuit bottoms instead, made of thick blue fabric that stretched nicely. I put on a plain white vest top, and a white zip-up hoodie over that. After a thought, I also pulled on my half-finger woollen gloves, putting the hardier climbing gloves into the bag. I thought I could put holes in the end for my claws easily enough.

I threw in several changes of underwear, a few pairs of light leggings, and several vest tops. My warmest scarf, I added too. Paracetamol, my little bottle of water-purification fluid, a large roll of bandages with tape and scissors, most of a bottle of biodegradable soap, a hairbrush, a travel towel, and a clean cloth. I debated bringing my shabby two-man tent as well, but decided against it. As a cat, I probably wouldn't have too much trouble finding shelter, and it's not like I was going on a mountain hike any time soon. I threw in a rain mac though - it was only sensible.

The Swiss army knife was an obvious choice. I threw in what was left of the canned foods I'd brought in during my sickness. It took some searching to find the twelve-metre coil of thin rope, but that was only sensible, too. After that, I sat staring at the bag with my tail twitching. What else? What else? The things I chose now would likely save my life, if my future was to be as perilous as I feared.

I cursed, and then pulled down my miniature first-aid kit from the top of the wardrobe. How could I have remembered bandages and forgotten that?

Toothpaste? My teeth were sharp and pointed now, and I had no idea whether fluoride would be toxic to me in my new form. Same for the paracetamol, actually. I pulled that out and set it aside.

That...was all I could really think of. I was dressed practically, I'd packed practically, and all that remained was the thin moonstone bracelet my mother had given me, that I wore always. I made certain it was fitted tightly around my furred wrist, and then stared around my room again.

Unexpected grief hit me like a cold ocean wave. It hurt, to leave everything behind. But it couldn't be helped.

I pulled on my sandals and my backpack, opening my window. Then I reduced myself to my small, graceful cat-shape, feeling the odd phantom weight of my heavy pack from the other form, and jumped onto the window-sill. I judged the distances carefully, and jumped down onto the outer wall, then down again to the ground.

I walked the pavement in the light of the full moon, silent and pale.

My life would never again be the same.

End chapter.

Notes – well, expect things to be different. Like, way different. I'll try to keep to the vague storyline of the original but things I consider too ridiculous may be cut out completely, or written in a completely different way.

I do have a reason for changing Kayla's cat appearance. Her clan name will be different as well. I have absolutely no idea why Firestar would name a black and white cat Gempaw, other than my twelve year old self thought it was a cool name, but she won't have that name this time. She'll have a name a bit more suited to her appearance.

If you're reading, cheers.