Your apartment building looms ahead, an unremarkable slab of brick and bad decisions. The third buzzer from the left doesn't work. The fourth one has someone's name scratched out so aggressively you can't read the original. The steps are cracked, worn smooth by years of tenants who had better places to be.

You shift the grocery bags—instant ramen, a six-pack of soda, microwave popcorn—and dig for your keys.

Then, a sound cuts through the rhythm of the rain.

A mew. Thin. Pathetic. The kind of sound that knows it won't get an answer.

You pause, key halfway to the lock.

Another mew joins it. And another. A chorus of tiny, desperate voices, barely audible over the drumming of water on concrete.

Your better judgment tells you to go inside. To lock the door. To pretend you didn't hear anything.

But your feet are already moving, turning toward the narrow gap between your building and the next.

The alley smells like wet trash and rust. A single flickering streetlamp casts weak, jaundiced light across the scene.

Under a collapsed cardboard box—soggy, defeated, barely holding its shape—a pile of matted fur stirs.

Ten pairs of eyes gleam back at you in the dark.