This is a story about something I experienced back when I was hospitalized.

When a certain illness made hospitalization unavoidable, I resigned myself to my fate and checked into a large general hospital nearby. Being hospitalized for the first time was nerve-wracking enough on its own, but on top of that, I absolutely despise anything horror-related. Since I always associated hospitals with being creepy, haunted places, I was far more worried about that than my actual illness.

On the day I was admitted, there was already one patient in the room I was shown to. She was a friendly, talkative older woman, and I remember feeling immensely relieved that I wouldn't be alone. Hospital stays are generally boring, but chatting with her made the time fly by.

"I'm being discharged tomorrow, so I'll be heading home before you," she told me.

The sudden news caught me completely off guard. "Oh no! I'm going to be left all by myself?!" I had already confessed my terror of ghosts to her, so she tried to reassure me, saying, "You'll be fine, dear. Nothing haunting happens here." But my mind was far from at ease. I even asked a nurse, "When is the next patient moving in?" which only got me laughed at, but I was genuinely panicking. A night all alone in a hospital... Could I really survive it?

Then, the night came when I was finally alone. Between my fear of the dark and having far too much leftover energy from lying in bed all day, there was zero sign of sleep coming. I didn't want to bother the nurses by calling them for no reason, so I just tossed and turned anxiously, waiting for time to pass.

Purr... purr...

Huh? What is that sound? Hearing a noise that hadn't been there before, my body froze as I listened closely, and then it suddenly hit me. (Oh, that's a cat purring!)

The moment I realized it was the gentle purr a cat makes when it's relaxed, tears welled up in my eyes. I love cats, and just last year, I had lost my longtime feline companion. His name was Kuro. Thinking that Kuro had come to protect me filled me with courage, and my fear melted away. From then on, Kuro returned every night until I was discharged, and thanks to him, I made it through my hospital stay without incident.

Fast forward a few years: my grandfather fell critically ill. Since he was advanced in age, we knew his time was near, so the family was able to gather around his bedside to see him off. But it was during those moments that I realized something horrifying.

As my grandfather breathed, he made a wet, rattling sound. Apparently, people who are close to passing away sometimes develop this kind of breathing, but to my ears, it sounded strikingly like a cat's purr.

Could it be that the sound I heard during my time in the hospital was made by a human, too? But if a human made that sound... there was no one else in that room with me at the time. Which means... who—or what—was making it?

It's an unsettling thought, and even now, remembering it sends a shiver down my spine. But as a silver lining, I suppose it was a blessing that I mistook it for Kuro while I was stuck there. If I had known this possibility back then, I wouldn't have been able to stand it.

There's no way to know the truth now, so I choose to believe that Kuro really was there encouraging me. Yes... I'm sure he was.