Sol's Story: The Search for the Clans

Chapter One

Sol:

When I was just a kit I lived with my mother and Paw and Whisker, my brother and sister. My mother always used to tell us stories about the fierce wild cats that lived in the forest in groups that they called Clans. I always wanted to find them and become just like them. I admired their never ending courage and their strength. I wanted know that someday I would lose my life, but know that I would die a hero after many moons of protecting my clan mates, willing to give my life for them. After life got harder, my father abandoned us to live with another mate. I always felt that he didn't really like me or me littermates, so I didn't understand why our mother was so devastated after he left. After a while, we came to understand how much our father did for us, but by then our mother was planning something that we did not know about. I promised her that I would find the clans and they would help us survive in this cruel world, but she told me that they were just stories, that I would never find them. That was when she put her plan to action and just left us there, each on the doorstep of a different twoleg's house. That was when I realized that there must be some good in the world. I realized that maybe the clans really did exist. I never thought about trying to find them, just like I thought that I would never find my littermates again, never sleep in a warm nest with them again… until now.

I felt the warm sun against my fur as I walked out into the garden. I hated twolegs, but at least they gave me food, water, and a place to sleep. However foul smelling the bed was, however terrible the food tasted, or however slimy the water was, I was happy to have a place to live. As I drank in the smell of actual nature, I caught a scent I thought I would never smell again. "Who's there?" I asked. I heard a rustle among the bushes that lined the yard. "Who is it? Show yourself!" I called out into the open. I decided that whoever it was, it couldn't be who I thought it was. I padded back into the house and sat on the soft fabric of my nest. My mouth felt dry, so I lapped up a few drops of water, forcing myself not to gag at the unusual texture. A cool draft was swept into the house through the door through which I had exited. I pushed it with my head and closed it almost completely. I had never figured out how to open a door or how to shut it, but I knew how to close it far enough. Bounding up to the windowsill, I gazed up at the darkening sky. Clouds had started to cover the sun earlier, and now they were closing over the whole sky, threatening to burst with rain. I stifled a yawn and went up the stairs to the blue box that I was supposed to make dirt in. When I had finished, I went back down the stairs to go to sleep.

The next morning I awoke to the chirping of the birds outside the house and I wished I had learned how to catch one. I blinked in the bright sunlight and looked outside. It had rained the night before, but the water on the ground was almost completely gone. I leaped onto the windowsill and ducked under the space between the bottom of the window and the windowsill to jump to the ground. A lithe cream-colored she-cat was sniffing around the yard when I padded around the corner of the house. She looked up when she heard me. "No, it can't be." She breathed. She bounded up to me and looked into my eyes. "Who are you?" I asked her. For a few moments neither of us said anything, but both of us had a vague idea of who the other was. She just kept staring at me. "Sol?"