Prologue: Setting the Scene
Cats and Mice Chapter 1

Assuming you’ve read the introduction, let us reiterate what the characters are doing and thinking right now before we choose to follow any of them. These starting positions may naturally lead the characters towards each other; alternatively, you can send them down different paths and introduce more people to interact with. The initial cast only includes women, but you’re more than welcome to twist the plot with some new faces to set us up for F/m, M/f or various pairing combinations. 

 

(For more character detail, go back to the introduction to the interactive).

 

So:

Jennifer Copeland lives in a beautiful suburban mansion the size of a small castle. She is currently relaxing by her swimming pool, taking phone calls and reading news during her breaks. 

Her friend Catherine has invited her to come to MagnaMall to shop together, but she hasn’t yet decided if she wants to go. She knows Sana will be there too. 

Her rebellious daughter Lily hasn’t called in a while. Jennifer toys with the idea of buying that silly little gazette Lily writes for and turning it into a dumb tabloid to show her daughter the power of money

Her new maid should arrive soon. Unbeknownst to Jennifer, the new maid is actually a tiny, Evie Dale, and she’s already at the door, waiting for someone to let her (and her manually-driven Roomba) into the mansion. She’s already regretting taking the job: she had no idea how big this house is! 

 

Lily Copeland is at her tiny downtown apartment, and she’s freaking out, because her smartwatch has just alerted her she’s about to shrink. With minutes remaining until it happens, she’s trying to think whom she wants to call for help. She could call Mom, if only because she has connections to Small World (and now that she has a crisis it’s okay to rely on familial wealth). She also has Catherine Burke’s phone number, and she could call that woman – Lily doesn’t like her, but Catherine also knows Small World people, and maybe LIly can convince her not to tell Mom. Lily could also call a friend, a coworker, emergency, or her landlord.

 

Nadine Page has just been delivered – by a courier – to Catherine’s home. She’s sitting in her living unit in next to the front door. Her mother assured her that her boss, that is, Catherine, is a very nice successful woman and she’ll surely take proper care of Nadine for a couple of weeks. Nadine’s living unit is a two-floor apartment-in-a-box, and she doesn’t know where’d mother get the money for that. The girl wants to build a peaceful relationship with Catherine, who isn’t home yet. At the moment, she has some time to work on her studies. 

 

Catherine Burke is at the MagnaMall nearby, wanting for a good round of shopping. She was planning to get three different pairs of nice shoes and she’s standing in front of the luxury Pollatore store, texting Sana Jones to come and join her, though she might just enter without her friend. Catherine’s not aware that Nadine has already arrived at her home, and she doesn’t know that Nadine has an entire tiny house… a fact she might hate because she immaculately crafted every single little corner of her highrise apartment. It’s also entirely possible that someone else meets Nadine before Catherine’s home, because sometimes Catherine’s friends come to her place, and sometimes she orders delivery. If Catherine enters the Pollatore store, she’ll find Naomi Bao, the tiny cashier, who’s been temporarily left alone by her normal-sized coworkers. Naomi is not too enthusiastic about her job, but she’s doing it well, and all she needs to do – normally – is to help customers pay. 

 

Rose Bassani is at Sense8, one of the many coffee shops in MagnaMall. The shop has a tiny public workstation set up for tiny people like her. She’s using it to apply for new jobs since she’d recently got fired. She also has an interview coming up with a consultancy firm, and the interviewer, a normal-sized woman, is about to arrive. That’ll be quite an experience! Rose knows, however, that the same coffee shop is sometimes visited by her former boss, Sana Jones, and she’d rather avoid any encounter with her. Sana is at MagnaMall, too, but at the main entrance connecting the mall to the parking lot; she’s trying to decide if she wants to join Catherine at the Pollatore shoe store, or grab a cup of coffee, or do something else, entirely. 

 

It is okay if paths clearly diverge at some point. If you're choosing to write a chapter for Evie, don't feel the need to check what was written in the branch that started with Jennifer Copeland; it is not expected that everything will sync together, though sometimes it might happen naturally!

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August 22
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