A customer at Katie's diner is messing with words, and Katie—or whatever her name is now—has got to stop it. Mature.

Katie kept her name tag pinned above the left breast of her pink button-down blouse. It was part of the outfit she had to wear: the blouse, the matching skirt, and the apron she kept her pen and order pad stuffed into. At the start of every shift, she dug her name tag out of the bowl in the back next to the shift schedule, and pinned it to her chest. It was the one part of the dumb, outdated outfit that she had no problem with.

At least, not until today.

Two other name tags were missing from the bowl when Katie clocked in. The first belonged to Liz, who was making herself busy in the late-afternoon lull by tidying up around the register. Her shift would be over in an hour and change, and Katie knew she was just counting down the minutes, because that's what she did herself when she had the eleven o'clock shift.

The other was Benny's. He was just the busboy, but he was six-foot-something and had once tackled someone who'd tried to leave without paying. Katie had never talked to him much, but she gathered he'd played football while he was in school. She was jealous of him, because he didn't have to wear pink.

As far as Katie could tell, it was a normal, slow day at the diner. She'd gone around to each booth and pulled down the blinds, so the sun wouldn't be glaring in through the windows, and had checked to make sure the table of college-aged guys didn't need anything. They were no one she knew, thankfully.

Chris is not a cow, but everyone around him disagrees on that point, and so does his udder. Explicit.

Chris was not a cow.

But a droplet of milk seeped through Chris's shirt. There was a needle-sting jolt as it leaked out of him, then rolled down his chest. It left a small, off-white stain in its trail. By the time he'd lifted his hands from the keyboard and sat up in his chair, the wet patch had cooled. His nipple was stiff.

Chris was also not turning into a cow.

Which meant he had to explain why the milk he'd just leaked wasn't actually milk. Maybe he'd drooled on himself? Maybe pipe in the ceiling was leaking? Maybe he was actually just sweating?

At the very least, he could prove he wasn't lactating. Watch. With one hand, he prodded the dry side of his chest. See, he—

A small grunt died in the back of his throat. Just the warmth and pressure of his fingers through his shirt was enough to kickstart something in his chest.

His hands gripped the desk and he bit back a whine. The sting was back, and at his other nipple this time. A few drops rolled through his shirt, wobbled fatly, and then fell onto his desk. Plip-plip. It hurt, but it was the sort of pain that would be worse if he fought it. It was the sort of pain that relieved aching tightness.

He exhaled and looked down. Twin stains ran down his chest, with his swollen nipples poking against his shirt at the top of each. The wet fabric felt even rougher than when it was dry.

He needed to get home and fix this. He'd go to a hospital if he had to. He wasn't a cow, and he wasn't going to be a cow.

A Halloween party gets more enjoyable for a young cat once a demonic force starts altering reality. Explicit.

Circ had grown out of parties. Well, he didn't want to say it like that and sound like an asshole, but that was pretty much the way he felt. Parties were great when you were a kid and got presents and everyone played games. And he bet that parties were pretty fun when you were an adult and could get drunk and do all sorts of crazy stuff. But when you were a teenager, what was there to do?

He couldn't dance, so trying to would be an embarrassment. It was way too loud to have a conversation with someone. But everyone was was where it was noisy; he couldn't slip off somewhere quiet and find someone to talk to.

The music was hurting the brown cat's ears. Damn it, was he getting a headache? He'd wanted to go trick or treating, but his friends had talked him into coming to the party instead. He was pretty sure he'd be having more fun trick or treating. Only maybe half the people had even showed up in any kind of costume.

Reality begins to warp around a young wolf, affecting everyone around him, himself included. Explicit.

Tuesday - DAY 0

Arthur had tried a few different channels. He had determined that news was the best thing to get him out of bed. Peaceful ocean sounds were too soft to get him up, and the 'alarm' setting either shocked him straight onto the floor, or left his ears ringing. Drab, unsettling voices talking about terror threats were just the thing to goad him into peeling back the covers and getting out of bed.