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The air that stank of desperately dispelled staleness greeting Pascal as he got off the subway seemed to bring something else with it today. He couldn't quite put a finger on what it was, but it hit him with a suddenness that almost made him pause in the middle of the bustle - an action that would surely have provoked some collisions with other absent-minded commuters behind him.
There was something about the strange feeling that made him look about, as if expecting an old acquaintance to stare him in the face somewhere amongst the shifting crowds. But there was no one there - neither anyone meeting his gaze, nor anyone he as much as recognised as a friend or colleague. Yet something was different, something about his mental state, making him lament the human inability to accurately self-diagnose anything.
It was a few steps later that the feeling resolved into premonition. Sitting on the stairs leading up out of the subway is the silhouette of an emaciated cheetah, grooming one forepaw near the knuckle of a misplaced set of talons. The dark bands characteristic of a cheetah extend this creature's glowing eyes, and what would normally be tufts of fur at the base of the back of its neck seem to have grown to firm spines.
But the most striking aspect of the situation is that no one else cares. The crowd is dutifully flowing around the obstacle, suggesting it more than a mere hallucination, but by the looks of things, only Pascal as much as recognises it as something strange, as more than a forgettable, misplaced art exhibit.
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