Rebels: A Warriors Tail

Chapter 3

Yowls split the cool morning air and Featherkit looks frantically around, no longer scenting the gentleness and comfort of the nursery and now feeling the wide-open clearing stretching around her. Blood coated fur is flying everywhere and no cats can be seen, though their furious screeches were clearly echoing around her. The scent of blood hung so thick in the air, not even the familiar scents of her Clanmates could be detected anymore.

"Moonrunner! Snowkit?! Meadowshine?" Featherkit called frantically, desperately trying to make sense of the chaos around her but getting no replies.

Suddenly, her paws were lifted off the ground and she watched the bloodied ground below her fly past her paws as an unseen cat tightly grabbed her by the scruff and ran off. Before she knew it, the tiny kit seemed to be thrown back onto the ground and the horrible screeching continued to fill her ears as she frantically looked around, eventually spotting a patch of white and grey fur under a bush and ran to hide there thinking it was her mother and brother. As the tortoiseshell kit looked back, she heard only a few enraged cats and the world around her shifted again, though she was still unable to see any of the cats and as she turned back to the lump of fur, it disappeared in front of her eyes too.

Silence suddenly filled the air, threatening to crush the air around the tiny she-kit. Featherkit felt as if she were running full pelt through the forest, feeling the leaves and branches hit her as she passed, though she saw nothing but darkness. Suddenly, she saw a tree in front of her and started to climb it, thinking maybe some height would help her see SOMETHING. Instead, when she reached the last solid branch, a sudden wave of agony swamped her left flank and back and she felt herself falling back down into the darkness below, the fall seeming to last an eternity with nothing she could do to stop it.

Eventually, Featherkit finally felt the ground hit her, knocking her breath out, but the sense of urgency never faded. She feels the presence of huge, dangerous beings around her and turns to run away yet again. Even as she tries to run, she stays where she is, the darkness enveloping everything around her until all pain and urgency left her as mysteriously as it had arrived. Just then, two lifeless bodies appear in front of her, one small and one large. Neither one had more than a shape and she winced as a yowl of grief split the air before complete blackness swarmed her senses again.

"It is coming young one," a soft voice that seemed to echo through her whole body called from afar. "Listen well and you'll survive. Don't and you'll join them."

"What do you mean?" Featherkit called into the night, getting no answer. "Hello? What's coming?"

She got no answer from the strange cat she never saw, and the tiny tortoiseshell kit was swept off her feet again, seeming to fly high into the sky, faster and faster. A sickening feeling began to stir in her gut and her neck ached as if it were snapped at the spine, the pain worsening as she woke slowly.

"Let me go," she murmured. "Stop. Let me go! Get away!" Featherkit called desperately, waking from her nightmare and calling out loud again. "Stop!" She frantically scrambled to untangle herself from her mother's paws, looking around the nursery walls. In her terror, they seemed to be thick with crimson red blood that oozed down onto the other cats. "Go away!!" she yowled in fear, crouching where she was in the middle of the den and burying her face under her paws, quietly continuing to whimper.

Moonrunner woke, her pelt fluffed out at her kits' yowl of pure terror as she quickly sat up. "Featherkit," she started. "Featherkit, what is it? No cat will hurt you. You're safe."

Featherkit didn't move in the slightest, hardly hearing her mother's reassuring mew as the strange cat's warning ran through her mind again.

"Listen well, young Featherkit. It is coming. Listen well... Listen...." The voice seemed to echo through her head and she curled tighter into herself, letting out a fearful mewl and wrapping her tail around her.