The Cyber Cat and the Dreamweaving Girl

Meiqi, from Class 2, Grade 9, at Xin Gang City No. 7 Middle School, was an utterly ordinary girl. Her grades were average, she didn’t have many friends, and her greatest talent was drawing an entire city on scrap paper while spacing out in class.

Meiqi only wanted to take a nap during a sweltering math lesson.

Then she heard a cat meow.

It wasn’t an ordinary meow. The sound was laced with electronic static, like an old radio failing to tune in, and came straight from her desk drawer.

“Shh! Keep it down, meow! The dreamscape is being torn apart, and the city is about to descend into chaos! Lord Xiaoye needs your help. Dreamscape Rescue Operation, starting now, meow!”

The cat called Xiaoye had two spinning LED bulbs for eyes, and pale blue streams of data spouted from the tip of its tail. It told Meiqi she was a “dreamweaver,” the first human in centuries able to see “dreamscape rifts” while awake.

Meiqi said, “I’m in ninth grade, I have exams next week, and I don’t have time to save the world.”

Xiaoye said, “You got a 38 in math. Saving the world is easier than getting a passing grade, meow.”

And so, an ordinary girl who only wanted to scrape through her high school entrance exams and a sharp-tongued, water-fearing cyber-cat who could hack into the school’s broadcasting station to play “Song of the Cat” began their absurd day-to-day work repairing the dreamscape.

Gradually, Meiqi realized that Xiaoye wasn’t an ordinary cat.

It was a “bugged program” exiled by the cat clan, an error log from some far larger system, and... a choice made by another version of herself in a parallel universe.

“Meiqi in a sailor uniform” and “Meiqi in a detective hat”, reflections from different planes of existence were seeping through the dreamscape rifts into her reality, little by little.