The Dreamer

Chapter 1 - Strangers?

 Mwotaji circled the middle of the cardboard box he slept in, getting comfortable before settling down to sleep.

 Instantly, Soñador woke to find himself surrounded by strange cats, all with concerned looks on their faces. In all his travels, Soñador hadn't met any other cats that he could remember.

 "You're awake!" One meowed... Meowed? That couldn't be right. Cats didn't meow at each other, they interpreted each others' body language to communicate.

 He scanned the group. A brown molly with green eyes, holding a couple of leaves in her mouth. A black silver classic tabby tom with light golden eyes. And a dark ginger ticked tabby tom with green eyes.

 Dark ginger? That wasn't a normal colour. But there he was, ginger but much darker and more vibrant than any ginger cat Soñador had ever seen.

 "Are you ok?" The brown molly meowed again. "We found you sleeping on our territory and we were gonna wake you up to tell you to leave but we couldn't! You were asleep for hours before you woke up just now."

 Soñador tried to find a way to say he was ok. He got to his paws and raised his tail.

 "Do you talk?" Asked the dark ginger tom in a harsh tone.

 "Not usually." Soñador found himself meowing.

 "Of course." The brown one meowed. "You live by yourself. You wouldn't need to talk so it took you a moment to find your voice."

 Soñador sat down and turned his attention to the silver tom, who repeated the molly's words. "We couldn't wake you."

 "Yeah I'm a pretty deep sleeper." Soñador replied, wanting to keep his alternate world a secret.

 "Well," The ginger tom said, with a tone of suspicion. "Either leave our territory, or come with us."

 "Seguro," The other tom scolded him. "We haven't even told him our names. And how is he supposed to decide whether to join us or not if he doesn't even know anything about our colony?"

 "Fine." Seguro, the ginger tom, sighed.

 "I'm Líder," The silver tom meowed, turning to Soñador again. "The leader of our group. And that's Serena, the healer." He flicked his tail to point at the brown molly. "The rest of the colony is in their dens or out hunting."

 "And who're you?" Seguro hissed.

 "Soñador."

 Serena stepped forward and turned to face her leader. "Would you mind if I held him hostage?" She joked, before turning back to Soñador. "Could you come back to the dens with us? I want to examine you, I have never in my life seen a cat sleep so deeply, anything could've happened while you were asleep."

 Soñador thought for a moment. "Alright. And if I like it maybe I'll stay."

 "Wonderful. Let's go" Serena turned abruptly and streaked across the moorland.