Cat Sis Offline -

And somewhere, in a different window, a friend types: "Hey. You okay?"

Her avatar, a pixelated calico with mismatched eyes, now sits frozen in the corner of the chatroom. The ears don't twitch. The tail doesn't flick. She is a ghost in a machine that forgot to blink. cat sis offline

But there's a hole in the conversation shaped like a girl who typed in lowercase, who apologized for over-sharing, who once stayed up all night teaching an old man how to send a photo from his phone. Who laughed lololol so hard she broke a keyboard key. And somewhere, in a different window, a friend types: "Hey

4 hours ago. Typing. Always typing. A flurry of lowercase syllables, a cascade of <3 and ::shrug:: and paws at keyboard . Then—nothing. The sentence unfinished. The "send" button untouched. The tail doesn't flick

But the light on her router is still on. And the cat on her lap is still breathing. And maybe—just maybe—she's just taking a bath. Or baking bread. Or remembering that silence isn't always sorrow. Sometimes it's just a girl choosing to be a mystery, even to herself.