RadianceClan Challenge: Sweet Dreams

Stop it! Stop these nightmares! I ask of you to please stop them. Every night, every sleeping moment, every blink of my eyes brings terror and darkness.

It's horrible! I refuse to go to sleep and take my naps. My mother tries to soothe me but without prevail. Do you know what it's like to sleep in a nightmare and then live in one?

I can hardly speak, but I am almost ready to become an apprentice. I'll be six moons old in exactly ten sunrises. My speech is slurred and I only understand basic like "food," "Adderkit," "Pikekit," "Mother," and "poppy."

My only hope of sleep is to swallow four poppy seeds at night. The medicine cat is frustrated with me. I can see it in her eyes. I'm a waste of medicine. But I don't care. Every moment of sleep is a nightmare. If I don't eat these four tiny black seeds, the night terrors haunt me.

They've tried to wean me off of of the poppy. First, it was four seeds every night, then a quarter moon later it was three and half. Three and a half poppy seeds don't work! Are they crazy?

Night is coming and I am tired. But I'm afraid. Afraid to sleep.

I pad towards the medicine cat's den. I see my Clanmates staring at me. I don't care. They whisper and gossip, but I'm over half deaf and can hardly hear them anyway. The fern fronds that lead into the burrow are laden with moisture from the evening's rain.

Careful, to dry my paws before entering the tore, I walk in cautiously. The little gray tabby she-cat already has four tiny seeds on a beech leaf waiting for me.

"Thunk ya." I attempt to thank her. I believed I've said it right because she nods.

"That is my last poppy seeds." She meowed loudly so I could hear.

"Okeh." I nodded slowly and took the poppy seeds to the nursery.

As I walked slowly back to the den, I noticed all the shiny puddles in the camp. I peered into one and gazed at my reflection. If I wasn't cursed with nightmares and born with ear problems I would have the toms lining up for me. I have shiny mottled amber tabby fur. My eyes are amber too. I should have been named Amberkit instead of Adderpaw. Oh well, right?

I saw my brother and mother waiting in the nursery so I quickly ran to them. I slipped in another puddle. This is not good!

The breeze carried away the seed! My tiny saviours were scattered in the wind. Pikekit saw this and ran out to catch them, but they were long gone now.

My mother, I think her name is Showapple. Er, maybe Snowdapple. More likely the latter right? She padded out and gasped. I watched her sprint back to the medicine den. I don't know the words to tell her the medicine cat ran out of poppy seeds, so I stayed silent.

So of course, tonight I will have a nightmare. Or will I? I just won't sleep tonight. You can't make me can you? Fox-dung.

Sleep is so tempting. You don't know how hard it is to resist it when you're curled up by the belly of your mother with your brother laying his warm pelt against you. Their bellies rose and fell in steady beats. They were sleeping. They were sleeping with sweet dreams of honeycombs and lofty dens laid with moss and swan feathers. Or, they could just not be having a dream at all. I'd give anything for either.

So I stared at the moon through the bramble-woven den. The moon was my last resort to stay awake. As long I gazed at her white pelt and gray eyes, I would stay awake. The moon seemed to shine right on me.

So I let the blackness of sleep envelop me. What a bad choice.

Stop it! I screamed. Hundreds of foxes leapt from the trees and rose from the ground. They snapped their fangs at me with drooling muzzles. They came out of nowhere.

Even in my sleep I could only hear the loudest of things. I didn't know when a fox would come close. I could only hear their chorus of barking that pounded in my ears.

I spotted the nursery. If I made it there, I would be safe! I ran so fast my heart hurt. But the nursery was no closer. More foxes dropped from the skies and the overhanging trees. They linked me down and snarled.

"Death to Adderkit." They sneered.

I screamed to StarClan as they clamped their jaws around my throat, spilling my blood in the earth. Their claws slashed through my skin and ripped out my body's squishy insides. I could feel my heart pump in the mouth of a fox. Its hot breath made my pulsing heart pulse in fear.

I heard a snap and my whole being became lifeless. Fox-heart in deed.

"Adderkit." My brother meowed in my ear. "You kicked me."

I would rather be squished by a flea-ridden elder all night suffer more nightmares. What is he complaining about? But I'm happy that I'm awake now. But I'm scared because I'm still tired.