Finalists will be revealed daily until the winner is announced on Saturday, January 25 2020.

Read last year's finalists here.

Fluorescent lights cover everything in an even glow. Muzak plays, as Bailey exits the elevator. She ignores her mother's outstretched hand, crossing her arms instead. Her scratches have mostly healed, save one covered in a pink band-aid peeking out from her sleeve.

Mother drops her hand and tightens her grip on her purse.

"Aren't you excited?"

"Nope."

She pops the 'P' with all the insolence of a pre-teen.

"You will be," Mother promises.

They enter a store called Pets 4 Life.

A store assistant approaches them, "How can I help you today?"

"We'd like to look at the cats, please."

The store assistant grins and leads them to a row of cases on a shelf. He picks a red one and opens it. Inside is a beautiful orange cat. Almost too beautiful. It's rigid, like it's been stuffed. He sets it on the ground and flicks it on the nose twice.

The cat springs to life and starts purring. But Bailey thinks there's something off about it. It sounds more like an engine hum.

"This is the Cat 3000. More feline than a real cat. It can simulate a cat's behaviours exactly without all the bothersome strife of a real one."

He pats it on the head and after a stalled second the cat leans into his hand. "The 3,000 will never get fleas; never pee on fresh laundry and it will never scratch you. Plus, it's solar powered, so you never have to feed it!"

As he pitches his sale, the robot cat approaches Bailey and rubs against her legs. But its movements are stilted, not fluid. It seems wrong.

In fright, Bailey kicks it away.

It lands on its side - legs' moving like it's still walking. One eye pops out and stares up at Bailey, the pupil contracting with the sound of a lens focusing.

"Bailey!" Mother berates her.

"I'm so sorry. I'll pay for it right away."

The store assistant chuckles, "Not a problem, ma'am. These things are near impossible to kill. Nine lives, right?"

He rights the cat and easily replaces the eye. The robot cat flicks its ears and tail like its rebooting and acts normal again. It licks a paw.

"So what do you think, Bailey? Ready to take it home?"

Bailey stares at the fake and says nothing.

**********

IT watches Bailey from her bedroom doorway. Its eyes seem to focus on her, making micro adjustments to her every move.

Bailey gets up from her desk and slams the door in the thing's face. It makes a satisfying thump. Bailey goes back to colouring a picture of her cat.

Her cat had been black, ferocious and hers.

He'd been a stray that Bailey had talked her mother into keeping. Always a little feral and an outdoor cat, Knight had nevertheless been nice to Bailey. It felt special to be chosen by something wild.

But then came the day that Knight had been mean instead of nice.

He had scratched her a little too deep and despite her protests, Mother had decided he had to be put down.

Bailey had wept, "No you can't. He's mine!"

But it hadn't mattered.

Bailey had insisted she go with Mother to the vet. She wanted to spend every last minute with her cat.

It had been easy to sneak away from Mother when she had been preoccupied by hay fever caused by two hulking dogs in the waiting room. Bailey just had to time her exit between sneezes.

It wasn't hard to find the room, Knight was howling. Standing on her tippy toes, Bailey pressed her face against the window, her nose almost squished. She watched as the vet brought a long, sharp needle to her cat's leg.

The cat thrashed and Bailey's fogged up breath obscured her view. She had wiped it clean to see her cat lying limp with a stillness that scared her.

She banged on the glass, "Knight?"

The vets looked up. One of them yelled, but she didn't care if she got in trouble.

"Knight!" she cried.

**********

TEARS fall as she finishes colouring in Knight's tail, smudging and ruining her drawing. Huffing, snot mixing in with cries, Bailey rips the paper up. Once again, Knight is no more.

Bailey feels no better. She can hear a scratching at her door. She wants to ignore it, to snub it forever.

But when she opens the door, the thing's head is tilted up to face her, like it was waiting for her all along. Knight had never really hung about for her. He always had his own thing going on.

Maybe ...

Bailey reaches a hand down and with caution, pats it head. It bumps against her palm and closes its eyes. Sniffling, she picks it up, goes to her bed and buries her face in its perfect fur.

Even a fake hug is better than no hug at all.

She smiles and the cat purrs.

**********

FROM the doorway, Alice watches as her daughter embraces the cat. Something tight inside her uncoils and relaxes.

Good. She'd been afraid that her daughter wouldn't accept the robotic cat. Bailey had been so attached to Knight that she hadn't even cared that he had given her stitches.

She hadn't realised the pain she was in - all she cared about was that bloody cat.

The ones you love are often the ones that hurt you the worst. And they are often very hard to let go of, Alice knows. To see her daughter share her affections with something safe, makes her feel that her daughter could learn the lesson better than she did.

Suddenly, within the circle of Bailey's arms the cat swivels its head completely around to look at her. To achieve this, a normal cat would have had to snap its own neck.

Alice meets the cat's glass eyes and shivers.

What have I brought into my home?