Rain dropped heavily on the city's streets. The sky was dark, and when the rain fell like a flood, it brought a deep chill to those who weren’t prepared to defend themselves from it. The downtown roads remained under heavy traffic, while some pedestrians wielding umbrellas endured the downpour, running through the muddy streets to safety.

During the storm, a stray cat was left to fend for himself. He fled into the night, running past people walking in the wet streets in his panic. 

Eventually, he returned to the alley and crawled through a hole in the broken fenced gate.

He was very unhappy with how destroyed the area was and searched for his home. His box, however, was damaged by the storm. 

He laid on the ground. The brown-haired tabby cat felt like he was drowning in freezing cold water, looked down on by the gloomy clouds in the sky. He yowled at the sky as if asking it why he existed if only to suffer. The sky didn't answer, as if it heard, but it had plans for him that it was keeping secret.

Then he heard voices behind him.

"Look mommy, there's the kitty! I told you he'd come back!" said the little girl that the tabby remembered seeing at the store he usually stole food from.

The little girl scooped him up before he ran away.

"Amy, come here! It’s late, and you’ll get sick!" her mother called, holding an umbrella.

“Mommy, he’s my friend! Can we keep him?!” the girl said, her brown pigtails bouncing as she ran back to her.

Her mother looked at the soaked cat. She hesitated but agreed to letting him stay inside their apartment for the night.

They left the alley and walked to a tall building with many floors. The tabby squirmed in Amy's grasp as they walked inside the building. The mother took him gently into her arms. 

He looked at her strangely, not understanding what was going on. He heard a door unlocking and was brought into a strange new environment. “Before we think about taking him in, we’ll get him checked at the vet in the morning,” her mother told her eager daughter.

“Why?” Amy whined.

“If you want to keep him, you need to take care of him.” She brought the cat to her daughter’s room and put him on her bed. “Come on, back to bed.”

“Okay, mommy.” Amy then climbed into bed. She petted the stray, and he winced at first, but then he relaxed. “I’m going to call him Sunny!” 

Her mother smiled, then she tucked her eight-year-old daughter into bed and kissed her on the forehead. “Goodnight, Amy.”

“Say goodnight to Sunny, too!” young Amy reminded her mother.

“Goodnight, Sunny,” her mother said, then turned off the light.

Sunny meowed, as if saying goodnight. Sleeping to the sounds of the storm, Sunny and Amy slept through the night as he finally found a place to call home.

When she's not getting lost in the fictional worlds of her favourite books and video games, Ashley is busy creating her own worlds and writing stories for others to read and enjoy. She is a student of the Professional Writing Program at Algonquin College and hopes to become a successful author someday, sharing her love of fantasy and steampunk with others.