Spirit's Journey

Chapter 54- Spirit: What Happened To Us

"Spirit!" Midnight meowed, shaking my shoulder and jumping up beside me. I rose to my paws with a grumble, wincing as sharp prickles of pain shot up my legs. The dream, obviously, was not only still fresh in my mind but had robbed me of sleep as well.

"We both remember it, right?" Midnight said, her black muzzle tipped up towards mine. A hope lit up her eyes, and I wondered how she could be fully awake when we had barely slept through the night.

Dimly, I was aware of snow swirling in my face and cold nipping at my nose and tail in the strengthening light.

"Of course," I meowed, and stepped over Aspen into the fresher snow, tasting the air for any scents. Only a stale one of rabbit came up, but I decided it was the best hope we had. The scent was leading towards the side of the mountain. My belly growled loudly for food as me and Midnight trekked, her black pelt a dark shadow against the white snow. Clumps of the white stuff were stuck on her fur from where we'd gotten snowed on throughout the night.

"Spirit, are you going to do what the cat said?"

I halted and avoided Midnight's gaze, because there was no way I could answer it. All I knew was that I didn't want to.

"I still don't feel like it's the right thing to do," I meowed, thinking hard and trying to deny such an unbelievable thing.

"What if she was wrong and doesn't know what she's talking about?" I meowed, trying to put the fact in my head that this mysterious cheetah, Quri, could have been lying. Yet Midnight just rolled her eyes with an exasperated sigh, as if she couldn't believe I would deny such a thing.

"Come on, Spirit. What use would she have to lie to us? And she comes from the stars, I can feel it." My ears perked in her direction as I rounded a heap of stone that rose from the ground un-naturally and turned into another path. My paws were following it without much thought.

"I don't know," I snapped, growing impatient with the fact that this stale rabbit trail was leading nowhere and that Midnight wasn't even trying to understand where I was coming from. If it was her, I was sure she'd feel a bit less exited about some strange cat telling her it was her destiny to become mates with an almost-near stranger.

"At least try to be friends with him," she said, pulling a bit of plea into her voice. I almost turned and snapped on my closest friend, but let my anger seep out by digging my claws into the cold thick snow instead.

"Why should I be friends with him just because some sort of dead cat told me to?" I said, struggling to keep my voice calm. Midnight flinched at that, but it was too late to take it back now.

"Getting close to Storm will just get in the way of things," I muttered, angrily picking up a paw-full of snow and flinging it at the rock-face up above. The snow hit with a satisfying plop and splattered into tiny clumps. Afterwards, I kept my eyes on the spot where the snow had stuck to the frozen stone and padded on faster.

"We can't even get enough prey to feed Diamond. Why should I worry about something so stupid now?" I asked her, slipping around a dead shrub in the way and flicking my ears as an tiny squeal of alarm sounded from underneath the bush.

"Mouse!" Midnight yowled, flinging herself on top of the shrub. Seeing a flash of brown fur, I darted forward fast and smashed my paw down on the mouse's back-end, almost missing. I leaned forward to sink my teeth into the creature's neck and felt my mouth water from the warm prey, surprised that the mouse had appeared so easily when we'd been following the trail of rabbit instead.

"We thought we'd been tracking a rabbit," Midnight meowed, trying to lighten the mood. I let myself remain sullen about the Storm thing, but my stomach had sharp pains in it from the enticing mouse. When was the last time I had eaten more than a small mouthful? Three or four days?