Chapter 1
Dawn flicked her ears. Cold wind was blowing through her small empty den. She lived in an abandoned human home. The gray sky seemed full of rain, ready to spill over. Her golden-orange fur was beginning to lose its shine, and was now dull. Lightening split through the sky and she wrapped her tail tighter around her thin frame. Thunder shook the walls of the house. Rain poured down, beating off the windows. Setting her head on her paw, she waited for sleep to come to her. When she woke, gray light was streaming in through a window. Shakily she pushed herself up on her front paw but collapsed down when pain shot through her left side. Phantom Pain. She reminded herself as she tried standing again. Stories of others missing a limb were always told to her when she was young. She had lost the whole of her left foreleg to a pretty nasty battle. Cats had been known to have searing pain where their limb was, even though it was not attached. Sometimes the cats even felt as though they were walking on all four legs even when they weren't. She was shaking her fur, as though to rid herself of these thoughts. She began to pad unsteadily to the middle of her home. Dawn sat, wrapping her tail around her paw she waited for the stirring noises of prey. Seconds ticked by, then minuets. Sighing she stood up and padded through all of the empty rooms. She spat hateful curses as her right paw got caught on a nail. No hunting today. She thought flatly. She would fall asleep with an empty belly. She glanced down at her paw which was freely bubbling up with blood. Gingerly, she set her paw down on the dusty wooden floor. She winced when she saw the clear paw print it made. Curling her body over the bloody spot on the floor she laid her head down and slept.
A/N: The reason Dawn can't hunt is because she has cut her foot and she can't leave a bloody trail for other cats to follow; so she has to sleep over that mark and wait until the cut scabs over. The Phantom Pain I actually got from Soul Surfer, but other than that, plot and characters all belong to me.