I groggily opened my eyes. All I could hear were forest sounds, and I saw a canopy of leaves over my head. Where was I?
"Shush. He's awake," I heard a voice say, near the right of my head. I panicked. I didn't know this voice.
"Whashapnin?" I heard Ron's faint whisper coming from my left, then I heard Hermoine's breathing to my right. Wait. That's not how I knew it was Hermoine. I could smell her. How was that possible?
"This one's awake, too!" I heard another voice call, obviously talking about Ron.
"She's still asleep," yet another voice said.
I finally forced my eyes to open fully and take in my surroundings. I was laying on a bed of moss, in a… wait, moss? Okay, I am going back to sleep. I must be dreaming.
But I couldn't fall back asleep, and this didn't have the strange, dreamlike quality all my dreams usually have. That didn't make any sense.
I sat up, taking in my surroundings. I was in a… I don't know how to describe it. A den, I guess, made of interwoven twigs and vines. There was a cat sitting next to me, with white fur and bright green eyes. The strange thing was, this cat didn't look small, like a cat normally would. It looked about my size. As I looked farther, I realized that the area where Hermoine's voice came from was occupied by two cats: a brown tabby, and a black tabby. And the area where Ron's voice came from was also occupied by two cats: a bright orange one with reddish-brown streaks, and a shockingly bright orange tabby. The brown tabby and the orange tabby were also laying on beds of moss, like mine.
Then the white cat spoke. "Hello, friends. We will not hurt you. I know that you kittypets have heard stories about us forest cats, and you must think that we want to eat you and give your bones to our kits. But don't worry. Those stories are not true. My name is Whitetongue, and the black tabby over there is Spiderheart, and the reddish brown tom over there is Mudpelt. We welcome you to ThunderClan," he said.
I finally looked down at myself, wondering why the heck I could understand these cats. And that's when I saw it. I was a cat.