The Sisters Nightmare

Chapter 7: The Kiternater

The house was too quiet for a Friday night. Not the peaceful kind of quiet either. The kind that sits in the corners of a room like it knows something you don’t.

Rain tapped softly against the tall glass windows while the giant television inside the theatre room painted flashes of blue and red across Joy’s face. One second it was a couple kissing in the middle of a burning city, the next second some pale ghost woman was crawling across a ceiling with broken fingers. Aurelia hated horror movies. She always claimed she didn’t. Then twenty minutes in, she would start pulling blankets up to her chin like armor.

“This movie is stupid,” she muttered, even though her eyes remained locked on the screen. Joy smirked without looking away. “You said that thirty minutes ago.”

“Because it is stupid. Why would anybody enter a basement after hearing chains dragging?”

“White people in movies don’t value life.”

That earned a laugh from Aurelia. A real one. Short, sharp, tired. Downstairs, somewhere deeper inside the house, the grandfather clock groaned out midnight. Neither of them noticed the silence that followed.

Upstairs, Luna slept curled beneath thick blankets, one arm loosely around the small striped kitten she believed she had rescued days ago. The creature looked harmless there. Tiny paws. Soft fur. Warm breathing. Nothing about it suggested intelligence. Nothing about it suggested danger.

But the thing resting in her arms was not a kitten. Kitenater remained perfectly still while Luna slept. Its golden eyes slowly opened in the darkness, pupils narrowing into thin reptilian slits for only a second before softening again. Then it listened. Not with ears. With thought.

The strange creature drifted through Luna’s dreaming mind the way somebody flips through television channels late at night. Images passed in flashes. Childhood memories. Pieces of conversations. Random fears. Then suddenly—Jihoon.

The dream sharpened immediately. Now Kitenater watched Luna laughing beneath warm neon lights while Jihoon stood beside her holding two cups of ramen from a street stall. Snow fell lazily around them. Jihoon wiped sauce from the corner of her lips while she rolled her eyes and called him dramatic. Another shift. Now they were in his apartment. Closer. More intimate. Luna sat across his lap while music played softly from speakers somewhere in the room. Jihoon buried his face against her neck while she laughed breathlessly, fingers tangled in his hair.

The emotions inside the dream fascinated Kitenater far more than the images themselves. Desire. Comfort. Trust. Possession. The alien creature absorbed it all quietly. Then came something unexpected. Jealousy. It arrived suddenly inside the creature’s chest like a spark hitting gasoline. Who is this male? Why does she think of him this way? Why does she belong emotionally to someone else?

The kitten’s tiny claws slowly pressed into the blanket. Its mind darkened. The dream continued. Luna whispering Jihoon’s name softly. Smiling at him in ways she never smiled at anyone else. Kitenater had crossed galaxies older than human civilization itself. Entire species had knelt before its kind in fear. And somehow this random human male irritated it beyond reason. That feeling alone confused the creature.

By one in the morning, the movie downstairs had ended. Aurelia had fallen asleep halfway across the couch with popcorn scattered over her hoodie while Joy scrolled through her phone absentmindedly. Upstairs, Luna never stirred.

The kitten carefully slipped from her arms. For a moment it stood motionless on the carpet. Then the transformation began. Bones twisted silently. Fur receded beneath skin like smoke vanishing into air. Tiny limbs stretched unnaturally long while golden eyes melted into familiar human ones.

Within seconds, Luna stood there. Not the real Luna. A copy. Perfect in appearance. Perfect in voice. But wrong in small invisible ways. The fake Luna tilted her head slightly, studying her sleeping original with eerie curiosity before quietly walking toward the balcony doors. Then she vanished into the rain.

Jihoon lived alone in a modest apartment across the city. Nothing luxurious. Just clean enough to show he tried. At exactly 1:47 a.m., someone knocked on his door. He frowned immediately. Nobody visited him this late. Especially not Luna.

He opened the door halfway, confusion already forming on his face before he froze. “Luna?”

The fake Luna stood beneath the dim hallway light wearing oversized black clothes and damp hair clinging slightly against her neck. Jihoon blinked. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

Even her voice sounded right. Still, something felt slightly off. Jihoon leaned against the doorframe. “At least leave a voice note next time. I would’ve cleaned properly.”

“You clean when I’m coming?”

“Obviously. I need my girlfriend thinking I’m responsible.”

That earned a faint smile from her. Jihoon stepped aside. “Come inside before you catch cold.”

The fake Luna entered slowly, eyes scanning the apartment with strange focus. As though she were memorizing everything. Human homes fascinated the creature. The smell of food lingering in walls. Music posters. Unwashed mugs in sinks. Tiny evidence of emotional lives.

Jihoon locked the door behind her before turning back. “What happened anyway? You sounded tired earlier.”

“I just wanted to see you.”

Simple answer. Too simple. Still, Jihoon accepted it at first. He walked toward the kitchen while talking casually. “Your sister didn’t complain?”

“Noa complains about everything.”

“That’s true.” He laughed lightly while grabbing two drinks from the fridge. Then he paused. “Wait.” Jihoon looked back at her carefully. “The last time you were here, you said Noa gets scared at night whenever she sees cats outside the window.”

The fake Luna stared calmly. “She’s not scared of anything.”

Jihoon frowned. “No, you definitely said—”

“She changed.”

Again, technically an answer. But not really. The atmosphere shifted slightly after that. Tiny things kept feeling misplaced. Luna usually threw herself dramatically onto his couch the second she arrived. Tonight she sat too straight. Too observant.

Jihoon handed her a drink slowly. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

Another pause. Then she suddenly asked, “Would you still love someone if they became different?”

Jihoon laughed awkwardly. “That sounds like the beginning of a horror movie.”

But she kept staring. Waiting. He rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean… depends how different.”

“What if they looked the same?”

“Luna, you’re creeping me out a little tonight.”

That finally broke the tension enough for her to smile faintly again. Jihoon relaxed slightly after that. Maybe she was just stressed. Maybe tired. Relationships had strange nights sometimes. Everybody acted weird occasionally. That was the explanation his human mind chose because the truth was impossible.

Hours passed quietly after that. Rain continued outside. The fake Luna sat beside him eventually, close enough for his shoulder to touch hers. Jihoon glanced toward her carefully. “You smell different tonight.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” He laughed softly. “Not bad. Just… different.”

The creature inside her body watched him carefully. Humans expressed intimacy in fascinating ways. Through scent. Tone. Touch. Eye contact held half a second too long. Jihoon brushed damp hair away from her face gently. And for the first time that night, Kitenater felt Luna’s emotions directly from memory rather than observation. Warmth. Safety. Wanting someone near without fear. It was addictive.

Jihoon kissed her softly. The creature froze for the briefest second before responding. What followed stayed wrapped mostly in shadows and quiet breathing rather than detail. The room filled with intimacy more than urgency. Jihoon held her like someone deeply familiar while the creature copied affection from Luna’s memories with frightening accuracy.

Still, pieces remained wrong. Too intense sometimes. Too watchful. At one point Jihoon pulled back slightly, studying her face. “You really are acting strange tonight.”

“Do you dislike it?”

“No.” He smiled tiredly. “Just feels like you’re seeing me for the first time.”

If only he knew.

Near dawn, Jihoon finally drifted asleep beside her. But the fake Luna remained awake. Watching him. Listening to his heartbeat. Studying humanity from inches away. Then silently, before sunrise touched the windows, she stood. The transformation happened instantly once she stepped into darkness again. Human skin folding back into fur. Fingers shrinking into paws. The kitten leapt lightly onto the windowsill. And vanished.

By morning, Jihoon woke slowly with sunlight across his face. His arm reached instinctively across the bed. Empty. He opened one eye. “Luna?”

Nothing. The apartment sat completely silent. Jihoon pushed himself upright immediately. Bathroom empty. Kitchen empty. Living room empty. His confusion deepened fast. “What…”

Then he noticed something impossible. The apartment door remained locked. He walked toward it carefully. Still bolted from inside. A strange chill crawled slowly up his spine. “No, no…”

He checked the windows. Locked too. Jihoon stared at the keys sitting exactly where he always kept them—inside the small drawer near the television. The drawer itself remained locked. Now he genuinely felt unsettled. “I locked the doors… How did she leave?”

The more he thought about it, the worse it sounded. No sound during the night. No goodbye. No unlocked windows. Nothing. His chest tightened uneasily. Finally he grabbed his phone and called Luna.

At that exact moment, the real Luna stood inside the bathroom wrapped in steam and warm water, humming softly to herself without a clue what had happened overnight. Her phone buzzed loudly from the bedroom. Noa glanced toward it from the bed where she sat eating biscuits lazily. The screen lit up brightly: Jihoon My Lover Boy.

Noa immediately burst into laughter. “Ohooo.” She grabbed the phone dramatically before answering. “Hello, brother-in-law—”

The bathroom door suddenly opened. Luna stepped out halfway, wet hair clinging around her shoulders. “Who are you talking to?”

Noa held up the phone with exaggerated innocence. “Your lover boy has been calling since.”

Luna’s face changed instantly. “Give me that.”

Noa dodged away laughing. “Ah-ah. So this is the famous Jihoon.”

“Keep quiet joor, what do you know about house?”

Noa nearly fell backward laughing harder. “See her face! Somebody that was pretending innocent yesterday.”

Luna snatched the phone finally, cheeks warm with embarrassment. But the second she placed it against her ear, Jihoon’s voice sounded strangely tense. “Luna.”

She frowned immediately. “Yeah?”

A pause. Then quietly—“How did you leave my apartment this morning?”

Silence. Luna blinked. “My what?”

Jihoon stopped breathing for a second on the other end. The joking tone vanished completely from his voice. “Luna… what are you talking about?”

Now even Noa noticed the atmosphere changing. Luna stepped farther into the room slowly. “Jihoon, I’ve literally been home all night.”

Another silence. Longer this time. Cold. Neither of them laughed now. Then Jihoon spoke carefully, each word slower than before. “If this is a prank, it’s not funny.”

Luna’s stomach tightened slightly. “Jihoon… I’m serious.”

Outside the bedroom window, somewhere beyond the morning sunlight and quiet streets, a striped kitten sat silently atop a distant rooftop watching birds pass overhead with ancient golden eyes. And for the first time since arriving on Earth—Kitenater smiled.