10"Good kitty," Lil-lay murmured to her stuffed tiger, smoothing down some of its brown and black fur. She hugged the stuffed tiger closer to her chest. Nervously, she swept her long, fine black hair behind her ear, the typical hair of someone born and raised on Hawaii. Lil-lay (her real name was Lily, but Lil-lay sounded nicer) was only six, and did whatever she wanted, including hiding out in dark old cave near an active volcano. Her skin was bronzed enough already. Besides, Lil-lay needed to be alone after what had happened last night.
Lil-lay had taken her stuffed tiger (not yet named after four years) and slipped out her house. She wasn't afraid of the dark, she loved the dark (Lil-lay was often considered odd by her neighbors and the few friends she had), and she had left a note, so who cared?
Half the way there, Lil-lay had seen a black cat, and smiled. It was big, but she hoped it would cross her path. She had been born on March 13, and since 13 was an "unlucky number" that meant all the bad-luck superstitions were reversed. That's what Kira said, at least. Kira was a teenager at the local high school, and she knew everything. Lil-lay adored her, and had tried to visit her-all the 15-year-olds were up after 8:30, so at nine Lil-lay took off towards Kira's house. White cats were to be feared, mirrors were made to be broken, and black cats were lucky. But the cat hadn't crossed her path, it just sat there hissing, putting one foot forward, then going back, as though unsure of whether to come towards Lil-lay or not.
"Poor, shy kitty," Lil-lay purred, and had come forward, her sandaled feet cracking a stick on the deserted sidewalk. The cat had hissed again, and leaped. Lil-lay could see it was ever bigger so close up, with the largest teeth she'd ever seen. And sharp, and dripping with...something. The eyes weren't green, yellow, or even Siamese blue. They were red. And then the cat had bitten and scratched, and Lil-lay had collapsed.
She had woken up far from the quiet sidewalk, though she knew where she was. She had ran to a cave she had explored before, noticing that her stuffed tiger was still there, though a bit ruffled and worn, like Lil-lay's once pretty flower-patterned silk red dress. Lil-lay had sat in the darkness, clutching her stuffed tiger and wondering what had happened.
Then a bug had crawled past her knee. Screeching and not thinking, Lil-lay had extended her claws-and then realized she had claws, namely her fingernails elongating into sharp weapons of death, like Lady Deathstrike from X-men 2. And it became lighter-she could see easily in the dark.
That's when it hit her: Lil-lay had been bitten by a were-cat.
"Cool!" she whispered to the darkness.