The Orange Cat at Midnight

The corporate spy sat at her kitchen table, another midnight bleeding into dawn. The mission profile had been straightforward: infiltrate the biotech firm, extract the research data, disappear. What they hadn't mentioned was the cost — the slow erosion of everything that made her human.

She'd stopped recognizing herself in mirrors three months ago. Just another office zombie moving through fluorescent-lit corridors, collecting secrets like others collected coffee stamps. The burnout had settled into her bones like heavy weather, permanent and atmospheric.

Her orange cat, Miso, jumped onto the table and walked across the stolen documents. The cat didn't care about corporate espionage or the moral compromises that paid for his premium kibble. He only cared that she was home, finally, and that his food bowl needed refilling.

"You're the only one who doesn't want something from me," she whispered, scratching behind his ears. His purr vibrated through her fingers, a small anchor in a sea of moral drift.

The orange sunset paint on the walls — a desperate attempt to bring warmth into this sterile apartment — seemed to mock her. She'd chosen it during a brief phase of believing she could make a home here. Another lie she'd told herself.

Her handler's message glowed on her phone: one last extraction, then out. The retirement package would buy her freedom, assuming she survived. Assuming she still wanted it.

Miso butted his head against her hand, demanding attention. In his amber eyes, she saw herself reflected — not the spy, not the zombie, but someone capable of being loved, however imperfectly.

"Tomorrow," she told him, and for the first time in months, she believed it might be true.

The orange cat curled in her lap as she watched the sunrise, both of them just trying to survive until morning.