Prologue
The kit padded silently through the starlit forest. She felt so alone here. Sure, she had her family and there were other kits her age to play fight with and mice to hunt, but what was the point? It didn't matter how many mice she ate or how many scuffles she won, she didn't get any bigger, or more muscular, or more graceful.
If she had grown up, she might have been all of those things, she didn't know, no cat knew. But, instead, she was here in this beautiful limbo- stuck.
"S-s-stuck." She sounded out. "Dead."
Instinctively, she wrinkled her nose at that word. Dead meant cold stones and stiff bodies. Blunt, colorless, it didn't suit her bright soul at all. Stuck, however, described her perfectly. She couldn't go anywhere, she couldn't grow up. She was stuck.
"I am stuck." She stated to the empty forest.
"You're dead." Came a sharp reply.
The black and white kit whipped her head around. "Who's there?" She asked, cursing herself for the slight tremor in her voice. She was dead, what was there to worry about?
A cat stepped out of the shadows in front of her. "Surely you remember who I am?"
The she-kit blinked as she filtered through her memories of all the cats that she had met, brown matted fur, maleficently wise eyes, she'd barely seen him in life, but…
"You're the one who caused my death!" She accused, pinning her ears back as she crouched. "You're Goosefeather."
The now-named cat nodded. "Indeed I am Goosefeather." He wheezed. "But I did not cause you to die; you never should have been born. It was your mother's fault you died; she brought you into this world and if she hadn't, you never would have lived, and if you never lived, you can't die."
"There are plenty of good half-clan cats!" The young cat retorted after his confusing speech. "My sister is a great deputy, and so was my brother, and-"
"Of course they are! They are strong unlike you. When I said you never should have been born, I meant you never should have been born. You are weak, and only the strongest survive!" The brown furred tom spat.
Saliva was now dripping from the crazed cat's mouth, disappearing as it hit the forest floor, as all unsavory things did in StarClan.
"I'll show you weak!" she shrieked, pouncing.
Goosefeather simply batted her aside. "Hush, I'm not finished."
"What-"
"I can make you live." He meowed.
"What?"
"I can make you live." He repeated.
For all of her doubt, the kit was intrigued. She stepped forward uncertainly, the only sign the older cat needed and bounded off. The small kit followed as fast as she could on her short legs.
They ran beside the Dark Forest and StarClan border until they came to a small clearing. It was surrounded by a thick wall of brambles, reeds, and tall grass. There was an opening on left side of the clearing, across from the one the two cats had entered from. On the far side of the clearing, there was a dark, bramble tunnel.
"What is this place?" The kit mewed.
"This is where newly dead cats are judged. They either go to the Dark Forest, or they go to StarClan. Only cats that died for their Clan get to bypass this, as you did. Over there is the tunnel that leads to the Dark Forest." The tom flicked his tail to the left. "And where we entered goes to StarClan."
The black spotted kit looked questioningly at the dark tunnel at the end of the clearing.
"That," The tom answered. "Is the Tunnel of Stars. You remember walking up it when you died, don't you?"
Indeed the kit could remember. She had followed her mother's sister up the tunnel, batting her fluffy white tail, leaving her mother's calls for her father and farther behind until they faded completely. The tunnel had been filled with stars and some had even rained down upon her, giving her the sparkling quality that all StarClan cats had.
"Do you think I could go down it?" She asked the old tom, eyeing the entrance cautiously. Surely living again couldn't be that easy, there had to be a catch.
"Why don't you try, Mosskit?"