Character Corner: Stray the Cat
An introduction to the helpful cat from Under a Fallen Sun
Like any author, I draw on real life inspiration for creating characters in my stories. My human characters are often a mishmash of real people I know, blended into new standalone personalities. My animal characters often spring from real life sources too. I love animals and try to work animals into stories as characters whenever possible.Â
Here’s one fun fact you didn’t know until now. Every cat mentioned by name in my stories is based on an actual pet cat owned by me or someone in my immediate family at some point in my life.Â
Peanut, a current resident of my Dad’s feral colony, is a mischievous family pet whom Paige recalls in Under a Fallen Sun. The real-life Peanut causes the sort of mischief you’d expect from a typical cat. Loki, a former feral colony resident, cameos as a friendly cat on a leash in Alien People. Xttra and Calandra encounter Loki in a park after landing in an Earthian city. His fictional personality in that story mirrored his real-life personality. Loki turned from feral to tame over time and craved attention. He loved to flop on the ground and beg for belly rubs.Â
Stray, another former feral colony resident, has a fictional doppelganger who plays a small but pivotal role in Under a Fallen Sun’s climax. He becomes imprisoned on the Rubrum spaceship and is subjected to experimentation along with human captives. Stray escapes his holding cell during the penultimate chapter. Paige and Heather befriend the terrified feline in a darkened corridor and he helps them find their way off the ship before it is destroyed in a fiery explosion.
Who is Stray?
Stray began life as Oscar, a pet cat residing with the Tyler family. They were residents of Travis, Texas. Stray forms a bond with Lily, the youngest girl in the family, and sticks to her like glue whenever she plays outdoors. He follows Lily around the yard, and trots down the street with her when the little girl rides her bicycle through the neighborhood.Â
Life takes an unexpected turn for Stray when the Rubrum aliens invade Travis. The Tyler family shelters in place and avoids the aliens for an entire month. Eventually, a Rubrum patrol discovers them when Stray sneaks outside one night. Lily pursues him to bring her cat back inside, drawing attention from the aliens. The entire family is captured and all the humans, including Lily, are turned into ferocious genetic hybrids.Â
Stray’s DNA when mixed with Rubrum DNA helps the Rubrum aliens crack the genetic barrier preventing their skin from adapting to prolonged sunlight exposure on Earth. Stray loses patches of fur, a couple of teeth and is blinded in one eye from the experimentation. Sadly, his first human family perishes when Travis is wiped off the map in an explosion.
Stray’s new life
Paige Beck adopts Stray after their brush with death in Travis. He becomes a happy and healthy cat again under her care. His missing fur grows back, although he remains blinded in one eye. Stray lives with Paige and has been her pet for 11 years when the events of Alien People takes place.
Stray has not visibly aged since Paige adopted him. He shows no signs of diminished strength or health. Paige theorizes the Rubrum aliens unnaturally lengthened Stray’s lifespan when they tampered with his DNA. She wonders if her cat will outlive her even if she grows old enough to become a senior citizen.
Including Stray
Stray appears in Under a Fallen Sun for two reasons:
I always envisioned an animal – either a cat or a dog – acting as a guide to help Paige and Heather escape from the alien ship during the final act. Humans become easily lost and disoriented in unfamiliar places. Animals own a unique long-distance homing ability and I wanted to play off that ability. Rubrumians were also indiscriminate about genetic experimentation. They freely abducted animals along with humans. For that reason, it made sense to have one or more Earth animals trapped aboard the spaceship.
I specifically selected Stray as a character to help my sister cope with the untimely death of his real-life counterpart. In the real world, Stray was killed and eaten by a cougar during the winter of 2019. He perished while I worked on an earlier draft of Under a Fallen Sun. Stray had some health problems and my sister had grown close to him while trying to nurse Stray back to health. His sudden death devastated her. Making him the guide animal in my novel’s final act was a gift to her.Â
Will Stray appear in other stories eventually? The odds for his inclusion are favorable. Paige’s story arc is not finished. I plan to have her pop up again in future stories. Her beloved cat would be an appropriate character to include in at least one or two story concepts I’m kicking around in my mind.
Do you have a character from my published novels or stories I’ve published here in Strange New Worlds that you’d like to see featured in a future Character Corner? Let me know in the comments.
