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It is with a mind both fractured and resolute that I set myself to recount these events, though I cannot claim my words will render them comprehensible. If anything, they are an attempt to rid myself of the thoughts that now fester in my waking hours and claw at the fragile shreds of sleep.

The bunker was meant to be salvation. The lottery, cold and indifferent, had selected ten of us to endure the cataclysm that had turned the surface into a blistering wasteland. A hollow triumph, perhaps, to escape destruction, only to be interred beneath the earth like the dead. We were strangers – a motley assembly of the fortunate or the damned, depending on one’s perspective.

All except for Socks.

He was my cat, a creature of no remarkable lineage, save for his uncanny knack for survival. A tabby, unassuming in stature, with a bent ear that gave him the appearance of an old warrior resigned to a peaceful life. He had been with me through the collapse, through the loss of all that had once seemed immutable. In the bunker, amidst the tension and unease of strangers forced together, he was my sole constant.

How foolish I feel now, to have drawn comfort from his presence.

The note appeared without preamble or fanfare, its discovery as mundane as it was calamitous. I was retrieving a tin of beans from the bottom of a dusty crate when I saw it – a scrap of paper, folded and yellowed with age. The ink, though faded, was still legible, scrawled in a hand that seemed hurried or trembling:

"Don’t trust the cat."

At first, I dismissed it as the relic of a prior occupant, a fragment of paranoia left behind by someone driven mad by isolation. The bunker had been used before, its supplies testament to lives that had once been sheltered here. But the message was strange, almost absurd.

I glanced at Socks, who sat atop my bunk, lazily grooming his paw. His green eyes flicked toward me briefly, before he resumed his ministrations. He was utterly ordinary in that moment, and yet the words on the paper lingered in my mind like a splinter.

Don’t trust the cat.

The absurdity of it gnawed at me. Why a cat? What danger could Socks possibly pose, beyond an occasional scratch? I laughed softly to myself, tucked the note into my pocket, and tried to forget it.

I failed.

The incident with Darren came a few nights later.

Darren was a jittery man, prone to bouts of pacing and muttering, his nerves worn thin by the weight of our situation. That night, his screams woke us all.

“It was him!” Darren shouted, pointing a trembling finger at Socks, who lay curled on his usual perch. “His eyes! They were glowing in the dark, staring at me!”

Marta rolled her eyes. She was, after all, a woman with little patience for theatrics. “Cats’ eyes glow,” she said. “It’s biology, not witchcraft.”

But Darren was not mollified. His voice was high and tremulous, his fear spilling over into anger. “You didn’t see it. It wasn’t normal. It was wrong.”

The rest of us dismissed it as a byproduct of Darren’s fragile psyche, though the tension lingered like smoke in the air. Yet, that night, as I lay awake in the darkness, I found myself staring at Socks. His eyes caught the dim glow of the emergency lights, reflecting it back in twin points of green.

I told myself it was natural. I told myself it was just a cat.

I did not sleep.

As the days wore on, strange occurrences began to accumulate, small at first but increasingly difficult to dismiss. Socks brought me gifts – dead rats, as cats are wont to do – but there was something unnatural about them. Their fur was singed, their eyes glassy and disturbingly human in their expression. I buried them when no one was looking, unwilling to explain what I could not understand.

Then Marta disappeared.

Her absence was discovered in the morning, her bunk empty, her belongings undisturbed. The others speculated that she had gone to the surface, driven mad by the claustrophobia of our situation. But the hatch was sealed, and when I inspected it, I noticed something that chilled me to the core: claw marks, faint but unmistakable, etched into the metal.

The others dismissed it. Darren, however, grew quieter. He began whispering to himself, his prayers barely audible but fervent, as though invoking protection from forces beyond our comprehension.

When he vanished, his flashlight was found shattered in the storage room, the shards of glass glinting like stars on the cold concrete floor.

And through it all, Socks remained. He watched us with an inscrutable gaze, his tail flicking lazily as if he were observing some slow-moving experiment.

It was on the night of my final descent into madness that I heard the voice.

The bunker was silent, the oppressive stillness broken only by the faint hum of the generator. I lay on my bunk, my thoughts a whirlpool of fear and doubt, when the sound reached me—a whisper, faint but unmistakable, emanating from the air vent.

“Let me in.”

The voice was neither human nor animal. It was a low, guttural sound, imbued with an alien cadence that made my skin crawl. I froze, every muscle in my body taut with dread.

Socks was there, his back arched, his fur bristling. He turned to face me, his green eyes glowing with an intensity that seemed almost luminous. He meowed softly, and in that sound, I heard an apology. Or perhaps a warning.

In the morning, I found another note, its ink smeared as though written in haste:

"It’s too late."

Now I sit alone in this bunker, the others gone, my only companion the creature that wears Socks’ form. The note’s admonition echoes in my mind, but it no longer matters.

For what is trust when one stands at the precipice of the unknown? What is trust in the face of truths too terrible to comprehend?

I realise now that the cat was never a cat. It was something older, something vast and unknowable, a fragment of a design far beyond the comprehension of mortal minds.

The bunker, this haven of steel and concrete, is no sanctuary. It is a tomb.

And I am not its final occupant.

This story was inspired by a prompt found on Tumblr – 

“After the climate collapse, you survive in a bunker with 10 strangers. One day, you find an old note under a box of food:

"Don't trust the cat."

The problem is, the only living being that entered with you… is your cat.”

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Shloke Chattopadhyay is a middle-schooler with the reading appetite of a bookworm on steroids—devouring everything from profound classics to absolute literary junk. His cinematic taste is as unpredictable as a plot twist in a Christopher Nolan film, ranging from highbrow arthouse to guilty-pleasure popcorn flicks. When not lost in books or films, he can be found sketching with the intensity of a Renaissance artist—though the results sometimes resemble modern abstract art. His love for music is borderline snobbish (in the best way possible). Whether it’s Beethoven or The Beatles, Chopin or Coldplay, he knows what’s good and isn’t afraid to let you know. He also plays the guitar, often convincing himself he’s the next Clapton—until his fingers remind him otherwise. In short, Shloke is a delightful mix of curiosity, creativity, and chaos, navigating the world one book, film, and guitar riff at a time.

Koushik Saha is an avid art enthusiast who is building a career in Graphic Designing. He has collaborated with many artists across the world and even with young kids by illustrating their stories. His hobbies include Theatre, Photography, Painting, Travelling. He hails from Panagarh, Paschim Bardhaman, West Bengal.