Silver Dust's Journey

The Journey Begins

The night turned darker than dark as a dark cloud covered the stars and moon. Silver Dust's eyes widened and pupil grew until it was almost as big as her iris, but no luck. Without any light, even a cat's eye couldn't see in the dark.

The kittens whiskers twitched as she felt her way along to the boulders. Her sensitive whiskers felt every groove and crack in the rock.

One, The cat counted the boulders, Two, three, fou... Silver's whiskers straightened out as the rock seemed to end. It was the entrance to the cave. Silver Dust took a small careful step forward. The small, almost silent step echoed through the cavern.

The echo bounced of the walls, rebounded against a rock, a couple more, redoubled on a hanging stalactite and a rising stalagmite, bumped into the ceiling, the floor! The quiet step morphed into an enormous echo, a thousand clawed paws marching together, at first loud and booming, but then disappearing into the distance, until it was as quiet as it used to be, as if there had been no cave. The slight brush of a few hairs against the stone that swept up a few dust particles, a soft boom of a cat's pad lowered to the ground, a few more silent whams as the four finger pads descended, and finally a mute tap of claws that where trying to grip the miniscule notches in the mountains.

Another step after another created the same effect, then another step too, followed by another - tap, tap, tap...

"Silver Dust... Ilver Dust... Lver Dust... Ver Dust... Er Dust... R Dust... Dust... Ust... St... T?..." A thousand Compass' called all around Silver Dust, "Is... s... That... at... You?... ou?... u?... " The kitten lowered her ears. She could not take this anymore! She had to get away from this horrid cave this very second or else she would go mad!

The cat skidded the opposite way, away from the sounds. She couldn't feel anything else that cold rock under her feet and saw nothing but the blackness of night. Then suddenly, she was flying.

This is all just a nightmare! She assured herself, Nothing but a nightmare. Now I will fall down into the darkness below and wake up in the sleeping cave, Berry and Mother curled up next to me, no legend of Raven, no Compass, nothing that I had experienced in this dream, nothing but peacefulness of my Mountain Cat life... Silver Dust's heart (and stomach) lurched. As the stars shooed away the grey clouds, the moon again shone in the sky. The kitten's blue eyes lit up and she could see again, though what she saw was not the most pleasant. She was falling, plummeting down into an endless void.

She closed her eyes and all of a sudden, her claws gripped into something warm and soft.

"It's not a good idea to jump off cliffs like that! Good thing I was here," Said a amiable, intimate voice. They were Compass's words, "I'm not supposed to help you, but I can't let you die either, I presume!"

"It wasn't my fault," Silver Dust mewed virtuously,"I-It's just... The Cave Echoes..."

"Cave Echoes?" Compass clearly didn't know what the kitten was speaking about.

"The spirits that live in caves and repeat sounds," The cat clarified.

"Oh! Why do they trouble you so?"

Silver sighed, "You birds don't understand. You don't have sensitive hearing like us, cats. Echoes just keep repeating it was repeating, it solely gulps you up, you just can't stand it anymore, its... its simply terrible."

Thoughts tumbled around in Silver Dust's head. Her mothers voice started whispering in her ear. It was a poem about Cave Echoes. She repeated it out loud,

"When the night falls,

When it is darker than dark,

Inside a cave's walls,

Through the door ark.

That is where,

The Cave Echoes sit,

In the air,

Of dust and grit.

At the slightest sound,

They repeat it,

Overy loud.

You shudder with fright,

But there is no one there,

On such a scary night,

In the Echoes lair."