Curled Silence *Completed*

Chapter Fifteen ~Final~

A/N Nice job, reader! You have reached the last chapter of this book. Yes, I already have started on the next book, so please and go check it out! What am I planning for it, you ask? Well, first I want longer chapters. I feel like these chapters are getting a little too short, so that will be a definite. Secondly, the actual story will be longer, probably twenty or twenty five chapters long, not fifteen. And lastly, I am planning to put a little more effort into it, because I have finished a full book and feel like I need to make it better than the first somehow. This is going to be a series, actually, three books long. I hope you won't miss Curl too much when the series finishes. Anyways, I just wanted to thank ALL of you guys for voting and reading and commenting, it helps me SOO much. I wish you all good reading! Curl, out.
~Curl

I looked up. Nothing. Or was it nothing?

I was in a white . . . what do you even call it? A box? A room? It was nothing. But in the distance, a tiny fleck of silver glinted. I looked behind me to see if there was any others of them, and when I turned back, a cat was in front of me. I jumped.

"Hollypaw? Oh thank StarClan you're here! Where are we?" Her image seemed to flicker for a second. "Hollypaw?"

Her eyes trained onto mine, and suddenly, I felt my heart stop. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. I was choking. My legs buckled beneath me, and pain enveloped me. But when I opened my eyes again, what seemed only a second later, I was in a forest.

A dark forest.

I was getting scared by now. Everything seemed to be happening so fast. First I was in a battle . . . then I was in the white place, and now suddenly, I'm in a forest. What is happening to me? I got up, determined to put an end to this dream thing. A thought occurred.

I padded around the thick foliage and underbrush as I looked for what I wanted. After some time, I found what I was searching for. A river flowed beyond me, though I wasn't so sure if it was actually a river. The water was black and sluggish and dirty. In fact, it didn't even look like water. I took a deep breath and was about to step in, intending to wake up from the dream by killing myself - surely it would work? - when a tail was laid on my shoulder.

I started and whipped my head aside to see a cat. She looked vaguely familiar, and her scent stirred something inside me. She had dark ginger fur and shining green eyes, reminding me of Firestar. It struck me. This was Squirrelflight, the cat who had been deputy before Lionblaze, the cat who had been killed in a border scuffle. I faintly remember her body lying in the middle of the clearing, my littermates and I being the first discoverers.

"Squirrelflight?"

Her eyes glinted sadly. "Curl - I mean Curlpaw, what are you doing here? You shouldn't be here yet." I opened my mouth to protest that I wasn't exactly happy to be here either when the she-cat shook her head. "Never mind that, we need to get you out of here before they find you."

I was tempted to find out who "they" were, but deep down I had a feeling of dread. This was the Dark Forest. I had figured that much out, at least. This was the place where your worst nightmares came to life, and innocent cats that had died in the Clans were being sent here. I shivered, hoping that when I die, someday, I won't have to go to this terrible place.

Squirrelflight led me around a grove of trees, past the sluggish river, and up a group of boulders to the edge of the forest. Beyond the treeline, or what looked like a treeline, was a forest. But this forest was the ThunderClan forest, with its bright green undergrowth, tall trees, and sweet crisp air. Relieved, I passed the line, expecting Squirrelflight to follow. When I looked back though, she was still standing at the border between the Dark Forest and ThunderClan territory.