Pain.
Torment.
Agony.
That is the story of my life.
Ever since the day I was born, I have known nothing but pain.
Ever since those fearful cries that echoed around me, when they had first seen me curled up against my mother's belly.
"This kit is cursed! He will bring death to us all!"
They were right... but so very, terribly wrong.
It is true that I am cursed. It is true that I have a formidable dark power hiding in me, and that I could kill them all if I were able to properly harness it.
Yet they seem to be blind to the fact that I didn't ask for any of this.
I'm still a cat, just like the rest of them. I could talk and play with the apprentices, train up to become a warrior, follow in the faith of StarClan, and everything else that a normal Clan member would do; if only they would let me.
But when they look at me, they don't see a normal Clan member. All they can see is the evil within my soul, and none of the goodness inside my heart.
I didn't want to be born with this curse, nor did I ever have any intent of using this power against my Clan. I didn't want them to fear me like this.
I just wanted to be normal. I wanted a normal life. Was that too much to ask for?
But they don't understand that. They never did, and they never will.
Instead, they keep me here, on the floor of this cold, musty den, my paws bound tightly together with vines to prevent me from escaping this nightmare; even if I somehow managed to cut them off, there were always two guards outside my den to recapture me if I tried to leave.
Nothing could ever convince them to let me go free. Death will be my one and only salvation.
But they know this. They know that if I die, I'll go back to the Dark Forest where I could plant seeds of malice among the Clan and cause havoc and chaos... though I would never even dream of doing such a thing.
So they keep me here, to make my life as long and painful as they can... or to "keep my powers under control," as they call it.
A few times every moon, some warriors from the Clan will come into my den. And they find sport in doing awful, detestable things to me; not even the Dark Forest itself, ironically, had ever done anything as evil as this.
They tear away at my flesh. They rip out chunks of my fur. They spill my blood all over the floor of the den, the stains serving as a harsh reminder of all the torture they have put me through.
And if they're feeling especially malicious, they'll beat me until I'm just a whisker's length away from death; only to let me live, so that they can do it all again later.
Every warrior in the Clan has done this to me at least once. Even my mother, who never even tried to defend me when I was born, to show them how harmless I really was-instead, she cast me away to this sick, twisted life, leaving me to question whether she had ever loved me as her own for even one heartbeat...
...Who am I kidding. She never saw me as a son, or even as a cat. She only saw an evil curse, just like the rest of them. And yet, that never stopped me from seeing her as a mother... which only made the wounds she gave me feel deeper than all the others.
I only ever spoke up to them once. I had foolishly tried to reason with them, to try and convince them that I would never bring them any harm.
They responded by cutting off a piece of my tongue, threatening to remove more if I ever dared to speak to them again.
I pray that one day, one of the warriors will go too far and kill me by accident... but at this rate, it seems like nothing but a false hope. These cats will do whatever it takes to keep me alive.
They give me just enough food and water. They heal my wounds with herbs. They even cure me when I fall sick from all the moons of blood, vomit, and other revolting things that infect the air of the den. All of which they give me by force.
I had already resigned myself long ago to the fact that this would continue until the day I finally died of age, thinking no cat in the Clan would ever have the mercy to end my suffering, one way or another.
Then, one day, everything changed.
The day that I met her.