I once firmly believed that freedom is above all else. Beyond the fence of the shelter, the world full of unknown smells and vast sky is where my soul should go. Until Oliver appeared. There was a faint smell of medicine and lingering sadness on her body. Her hands would tremble slightly when she touched me. She gave me a name — Down and took me back to a room full of soft lights and quiet. I am a cat with black and white spots, like moving ink dots, and her empty home is gradually filled with my traces. From the fixed position of the window sill to the warm sun, to the sound of a specific can opening at dinner, to the weight of me lying on my lap when she reads... These trivialities have built a nest that is safer than any other corner in the wild. I forgot the plan to escape. I thought the story would continue smoothly like this.

Then, I was replaced by myself.

Everything happened without warning. Oliver was sick, and the room smelled of medicine stronger than usual. The world seemed to be stuck — maybe the door opened a crack, or maybe it was a cruel negligence of fate. When I came back to my senses, the cold rain had wet my black and white fur, and I was standing on the street opposite my house, soaking wet. Through the familiar window that I had stared at countless times, I saw another black and white figure curled up on my sofa, the place I thought was eternal.

I rushed over, scratched the glass with my claws, and let out a sharp cry that I felt strange. Oliver in the room raised her head. Her face was pale and her eyes were weak and confused. The intruder walked over and rubbed her calf. A movement that I have practiced countless times in exchange for touching. The corners of Oliver’s mouth curved a tired curve. She bent down, but the target was not me.

The whole world was replaced at that moment. My home, my smell, my name, and the evidence of my existence are all seamlessly covered by a silent intruder. I became the ghost of my own life, playing an unclaimed shadow in vain outside the window. I tried to prove myself in a way that only me and Oliver knew. I took the hidden path from the bookshelf to the top of the refrigerator, and I touched the old bell that she would never put away. But these signals, in her eyes, who was sick and in a trance, were just the annoying and desperate harassment of a stubborn wild cat outside the window. The more I try to declare “I am Down”, the more I feel like I am reinforcing the fact that “it is Down”.

The deepest chill does not come from the cold rain, but from the thorough and silent erasing. The connection that you once weaved with all existence can be so easily replaced by another similar body, as if those afternoons spent together and those silent comforts never really happened. I began to doubt my memory. The warmth of being loved, the hard-won sense of belonging, is it just an overly realistic dream I had in the cold cage of the shelter? Maybe I’ve always been just a stray cat, making up a piece of light for myself.

The turning point happened after the deepest despair. On another cold night, I looked at the two dependent silhouettes in the window — one was the person who gave me a name, and the other was the cat that took my name away — suddenly, a sharp understanding pierced me. “Home” is never a position that you can take for granted. It is a choice, a two-way fragile resonance that needs to be constantly confirmed by existence. Oliver needs me, just as I need her. Running away won’t take me home, but the courage to go back is okay.

So, I chose to go back. Not as the avenger to regain the throne, but as Down — the black and white cat who was once chosen by Oliver and now chooses to fight for himself. There are no sharp claws and hiss in this battle. It is about something more subtle: a more firm head than the intruder, a more hoarse sob that only she can hear the difference, and a familiar black and white figure that happened to appear in the corner of the bed when she woke up in the middle of the night. This is a gentle struggle about the essence of memory.

When Oliver’s cloudy eyes finally passed through the fog of the disease and similar fur, and refocused on me, when the hesitant but clear voice “Down... is it you?” When I fell gently into the air, what I won back was far more than a place to live. I found a truth that was washed by tears: home is not a safe haven that you accidentally fell into, but the other side when you recognize its preciousness in the wilderness and use all your strength to swim back.

Exiting the game, my eyes fell on the corner of the room. Everything seems to belong to me firmly. But _Copycat_ left a slight scratch in my heart. It tells not a fantasy story about magic or cloning, but a simple fable about existence and identity. The love, identity and belonging we have are never eternal inscriptions engraved on stones, but vows written on the water, which need to be constantly stared at and confirmed by each other to be clearly reflected. The black and white cat named Down finally taught me that even after the most thorough “replacement”, there is still only way to go home — that is, always remember your true self, and with that indelible truth, gentle, stubborn, without retreating a step, go back to the place where you recognize it, and wait for you. In the recognized light.