progress from today

book-1/10.tex

@@ -369,5 +369,114 @@ Now that they were alone and in relative safety it felt like they had just met.
 ``I \dots''
 He shook his head helplessly.
 Everything was spinning around him.
+This could only \textit{be} a nightmare!
+He stood up with a start,
+stepped forward and almost fell over because he forgot to tie his right shoe,
+promptly stepping on one of the shoelaces.
+He hastily bent over,
+tied his shoe and wanted to turn towards the door,
+but Katt held him back with a quick motion.
 
+``Don't'', she said.
+She almost sounded frightened.
 
+``Why?'', asked Andrew.
+
+``I would rather if you \dots''
+Katt raised her shoulders.
+
+``If I don't go out there?'', he asked with an accompanying gesture towards the door.
+Katt nodded and Andrew pursed his lips, arriving at the door with two faster steps.
+With a determined yank he pulled the hanging to the side and stepped out.
+But in spite of everything he was still level-headed enough to stop after one step out of the door to look around.
+And in the next moment he was very glad he had done that.
+
+In front of him was a long,
+asymmetrical square that seemed to have been rectangular at one point.
+Now the entire row of houses on the other side had collapsed
+and made an enormous pile of rubble that shoved long fingers of stone and concrete into the square.
+The rest of the buildings were more or less heavily damaged and altogether leaning in the same direction,
+just like he had seen before.
+Red or yellow fire light shone from behind several windows and on the square two or three large fires,
+around whom a number of figures sat.
+In the darkness he could only identify them as stout shadows.
+
+And even that was enough for him to tell that they weren't all \textit{human}\dots
+
+Some of the outlines were too shaggy as if they had fur,
+had long pointy ears,
+or seemed to be humpbacked.
+Andrew saw more than one figure that had a tail trailing them,
+or some that seemed to walk on all fours.
+Even the sounds that he heard reminded him of the grunting of an entire zoo more than sounds humans would make.
+
+``Come back inside'', Katt said behind him.
+After a moment she added. ``Please.''
+
+Even though it was too dark to see the expressions on the faces of the assembled nightmare figures,
+Andrew could still feel their gaze resting on him,
+and the feeling was so uncomfortable that he withdrew only a moment later.
+Katt was still sitting on the edge of the bed,
+but Andrew didn't go back to her,
+instead steering towards one of the ancient chairs and carefully sat down on it;
+a camping chair made of metal that only had the wire frame left.
+
+``They're all like Ratt?'', he mumbled.
+Katt didn't react to the question and Andrew struggled to continue.
+Why was it suddenly so difficult for him to find the right words?
+He usually didn't have any problems with that.
+Eventually he got over himself and asked the question that he \textit{actually} wanted to ask.
+
+``But you're \dots?''
+
+``What?'', Katt interrupted. ``Normal?''
+
+Of course she wasn't.
+\textit{Katt}.
+At least after he had seen her sister
+--- Ratt ---,
+it should have been clear to him.
+She had heard things a while before \textit{he} had.
+Her oddly elegant gliding way to move about and her alarming strength.
+And it was almost as if she could see in the dark.\footnote{Thanks for the catgirls Elon}
+
+``No'', she said after a few seconds.
+Her voice sounded rough.
+``I'm a monster just like the everyone else here.''
+
+``I didn't mean that'', he said hastily.
+
+``Yes, that's exactly what you meant!''
+Katt stood up with a jolt.
+The mattress springs squeaked loudly.
+``Do you want to see?
+Here!
+Look very closely!''
+She stepped towards him and started to rip her clothes off with angry movements
+--- which didn't take long.
+She only had a shirt and pants with nothing underneath,
+and no shoes.
+
+In the pale light that filled the room like dully glowing haze,
+he could only see her body as a silhouette even though she was only two steps away.
+Just far enough away that he couldn't see any details
+--- or touch her if he had stuck out his arm quickly.
+
+At least at first glance her body seemed to be completely human,
+even though it was very lean and emaciated.
+Just looking at it gave him a sharp pang of guilt.
+Under normal circumstances he would have been embarrassed
+that a girl had gotten undressed in front of him just like that,
+but in that moment he didn't feel anything other than sympathy;
+and a gradual increase of anger for a fate that forced a kid to grow up in such squalor.
+Katt's gaunt body was just like her face:
+You couldn't ignore how pretty she \textit{could have been},
+if she would have had the chance.
+
+Then she turned around and he saw what she was actually trying to show him:
+Between her bony shoulder blades a striped strip of fluffy fur
+that followed her spine and ended right above her butt cheeks;
+as if it were supposed to end in a tail that to his relief wasn't there.
+
+Katt stood there motionless for a few seconds,
+then turned her head and looked at him through blinking eyes.