Yes, that’s for real!
If I wanted to get SUPER technical, it’s been going on in my mind longer than that even.
In 3rd grade, we were given creative writing prompts every Tuesday, right after the fluoride lady came around. I still have my collection of stories from that year (picture pending), and somewhere towards the middle is one titled “Whiskers.” I don’t know what the prompt was on that day, but it’s a. . .disturbing tale, about a half-human, half-cat girl who is thrown to Earth when her planet of cat people explodes, and from which she’s the only survivor. She meets and quickly befriends another girl, but it soon becomes apparent that a couple of “evil men” are out to capture her (for reasons I never specified). And, sure enough, after a few weeks of life on Earth, the men get her, pack her in a crate and mail her to Australia. She dies of starvation along the way. The end.
