Cherrypetal groaned as she stretched her tiny paws out in front of her, ruffling the pine needles under her paws that fell from the bushy trees above her. Why, why, why did her clan deputy insist on sending her out hunting this early?

Spotting a rather plump squirrel crouched at the base of a tree, she dropped into a hunting crouch and began to creep towards her prey. Muttering something about 'crazy cats that wake up at eight in the morning' and 'how do they survive on that little amount of sleep?'

Getting caught up in her own personal mini-rant, Cherrypetal somehow managed to zone back into the real world just in time to step right onto a rather crackly piece of bark.

"MOUSE DUNG!" She screeched, proceeding to freak out the squirrel further, so her lovely little morsel rapidly fired itself back up the tree it presumably came from.

"NOOOOOOOUUUUU!" She wailed desperatley at the squirrel, as if it could understand her, "COME BACK SQUIRREL!" Without thinking, she launched herself up the tree after the squirrel and used what little climbing skills she had left to tug herself up to the third branch of the tree. Of course, the squirrel was Long gone by the time she managed to get to the fourth branch, which was when Cherrypetal began to wonder how she was getting down.

She fixuated herself sideways on the wobbly branch, legs stiff in an attempt to keep herself from falling, claws dug in all the way, with her tail strait out. Slowly peeking her head out over the branch, she went to look for another branch and only got a clear shot at how terrifyingly far away the ground was.

"D- Dear St-tarclan..!" She whispered, eyes suddenly stretching wide as the terror began to make her knees buckle and her stomach twist into one giant writhing mass of snakes.

Cherrypetal's back legs were falling. It was all she could focus on. the only thing she could picture was the body of a cat who looked vaguely like herself dropping from much higher in the tree than she actually was... But it felt as high. Her spot on the fourth branch of that pine tree felt as if she was 50 feet in the air, and the non-existant wind was her worst enemy, working it's hardest to push her from her perch.

That was when her front legs buckled and slipped from the branch.

Too terrified to do anything, she couldn't resist the overwhelming urge her muscles had to completely seize up. The world seemed like it was in slow motion as she fell. Somehow she could sense everything around her so vividly, through that thick haze of fear. The squirrel was hiding a few branches above her now, the tree branches were just barely missing her as she whizzed by. Why were the branches moving so fast if she was going so slow? And then the only thing she could see was the ground. The dear, pine needle covered ground that she thought was her friend, holding her safe when she was pacing on it, but now, as she seemed to be floating towards the ground, she knew in the back of her mind that she would hit with much more force than she might if she was actually floating.

She had so many thoughts buzzing through her mind, and then, suddenly the ground wasn't that far away anymore. She realized that the ground was just as much her enemy as her friend, instead of catching her with soft arms as she fell, it stayed hard and rigid, just the way it had given her support as she walked upon it.

Was she going to die?

Time had seemed to speed up. Suddenly all she could hear, somewhere far away but close at the same time, was a voice, (Blizzardfur?) Screaming, "Cherrypetal? CHERRYPETAL?"

Cherrypetal? Who was Cherrypetal?

The last thing she remembered was the irresistable urge to burst out laughing, in loud hearty laughs, before she hit the ground.

THUD.

"CHERRYPETAL!" Blizzardfur shrieked.