Tiger In My | Room [updated]

I should be terrified. Maybe I am, but distantly, like hearing thunder from inside a safe house. The tiger yawns. Its tongue curls, pink and rough as a cat’s, and I smell dry grass and warm fur. No blood. No threat.

The tiger turns its head. For a second, its gaze pins me—not with hunger, but with patience. As if it’s been waiting for me to stop running from something. As if it’s not the intruder. I am the one who forgot I belonged here, in this room, with this impossible animal. tiger in my room

In the morning, it will be gone. No paw prints. No scratch marks. Just the faint smell of dust and sun, and a single orange hair on my pillow. I should be terrified

It blinks slowly. That’s what cats do when they trust you. Its tongue curls, pink and rough as a

Not a metaphor. Not a dream I’m still shaking off. A real tiger—shoulder-high, amber-eyed, with paws the size of dinner plates resting on my wool rug. Its stripes ripple when it breathes.