PROLOGUE
PART I
A grey she-cat dove through the undergrowth, panting.
I can't… Let him catch up… Her mind was whirling urgently as her paws thudded on the soft terrain. The Dark Forest is attacking StarClan! They're torturing us! A furious yowl sounded behind her and a dark brown tabby tom pounced through a small swath of ferns. In a couple heartbeats he was hard on her trail. She took a fearful glance past her shoulder. No! He can't catch me again! It'll be worse! The she-cats numb paws pounded faster onto the ground, struggling to quicken her pace. Dashing through the bright green forest the she-cat felt exhaustion tugging at her as if asking to just collapse and give up desperately.
The scratch on her forehead oozed more blood and trickled into her eye. She blinked to get it out. She was already tired from fighting off the Dark Forest cat moments ago. From that he'd inflicted scratches on her shoulders and haunches, a battered scruff, deeply wounded flanks, and a messed muzzle. She parted her jaws in hopes to scent another StarClan cat or even visitor to help her. No one.
The tom chased her further into the depths of the sunny forest, leaping over fallen trees, dodging thorny brambles and stumbling through bracken. At this point she would jump off a cliff just to avoid the punishment of escaping the dreaded attack.
Another couple treelengths of chasing and the grey feline glanced to the side to see an old birch towering up and peaking over all the other trees besides some elderly oaks and rare pines. Maybe if she climbed it she could leap across the canopy and use her smaller weight to her advantage… Perfect.
Swerving to the left the starry cat bounded to the black and white striped tree and clambered up its smooth bark. She cast glances behind her. The tom was growling as he entered the clearing and glanced around with a puzzled expression. Then he noticed the grey she-cat struggling up the tree. She froze when his eerie orange glare landed on her. She quickly clawed her way higher. The bark of the birch tore under her claws and scrapped irritably against her paw pads. The tom stood at the base off the tree, glaring up at her.
Climb faster! She pressed herself as she kept going upwards until the trunk thinned out and the branches were quivering under her weight just slightly. Looking to the side she leaped across the branches before they nearly snapped under her nimble and tired paws.
Despite this, she sprang onto the next tree, clambered through the crisscrossing branches, and went to the next and the one after and after.
Taking a glance behind her the grey feline noticed that the tom wasn't in sight. She parted her jaws. She could only smell leaves, earth, and prey.
The she-cat stopped, clumsily climbed down and leaped to the ground, remembering her wounds just at the wrong time. The feline let out a quiet hiss as she glanced at her wounds, the worst one, a deep cut down her flank; was bleeding much worse than before and most of the fur below it was stained red from the crimson liquid.
She heard scampering and growling behind her and immediately fled into the thick undergrowth. The starry warrior began to panic. She scented, hoping to detect any cat that could help her.
She'd only made it a few tail-lengths when she'd ran into brambles and roots trying to see behind her or close her eyes to attempt to escape what seemed like a living nightmare
She half scrambled, half ran over many fox-lengths trying to escape the tom that wasn't even in range of any sense anymore. For all she knew, though, he could easily give a spurt of speed, a pounce, and topple her down again under his sharp, gleaming claws that dug into her shoulders. His paralyzing orange glare… Long and lashing tail… Bristling tabby fur… The grey she-cat shook her head roughly. Just run! He can't get to you… If you don't… Stop… Just go!
The she-cats head throbbed at the thought and she slammed into a thick swath of ferns. Run! He can't do it to you if he can't catch you! Go! Another collision, yet her mind still pressed her. It was surprising the warrior could still run at this point, but her adrenaline pushed her onwards. Though if she kept this up she could be fresh-kill for any underworld intruder that came across her. Again visions came, the tom tackling her, claws unsheathed and fangs bared, a smirk coming across his face as he earned a shriek from his victim with a single strike. Her heart thudded harder as she remembered the moment. Running into another swath of undergrowth she growled at herself. If he gets to you he will most certainly kill you. Not to mention he would do this… This torture again. And it'll be worse than before.
She sprang to her paws and struggled to another sprint. She had to escape this. Yes, maybe running to the ends of StarClan could work, but there's no way she would have any energy left past just a mouse's worth of the journey. Not to mention where StarClan ends, mysterious mountains rise. There she could get lost. She could stop and wait to see if there were any cats near by, but she could be caught again. Yowling for help would bring the attention of cats from both sides of the fight. That would be another no. She didn't see much point in keeping this up either, though. She would run out of energy if she couldn't find anyone. And she would have to literally bump into a cat to notice them, since by the time she noticed a hint of a StarClan warrior smell; it was gone faster than it came.
There was nothing else to do. The more she was tired, the less she would feel her agonizing death, right?
It was sad really, she had once been a strong warrior, but now that she didn't practice her old skills, she could be defeated quickly.
Dying in StarClan never seemed right to the she-cat. Death should be done once, not twice. In her deep thoughts she didn't notice another bramble wall in front of her and she got caught in its tangling, thorny branches. She growled, thrashing around before managing to get out, but not without thorns jabbing into her skin and clinging to her pelt, causing more wounds and making the old ones worse. Fox-dung!
She snapped. Just keep the pace!
She narrowly avoided a head-on run-in with an oak tree. That could've easily started your death. Her darker conscious said, and the she-cat winced. Despite it, she kept dashing, sprinting, scrambling, and running through the near never-ending forest. She felt occasional beams of sunlight hit her fur, and she had an idea. She'd already figured out that there would be no happy ending to this. There was nothing else to turn and beg to. Unless you could beg to death itself and tried to tell it you didn't want to die. But she knew that wouldn't work, what kind of ridiculous thought was that anyways? She'd never heard of such non-sense. There was nothing else to bring an end to this but death.
The feline thought a bit, unknowingly slowing her run. She did know a calm, sunny clearing where she could go in peace.
If the tom came back for her, so be it. She didn't care. In fact, it didn't bother her at all anymore that the tom could come back and torture her again, no matter how gruesome and awful it was. She made the quiet statement that she'd gone mad with all this tired running. But she turned towards where she knew the clearing would be. There, she could die without hearing the heartbroken wails of other cats, at least…
By now her mind kept on repeating to run as if it could help her, but when she missed a fall into a quick-flowing, thin river it reminded her grimly that she could've ended her journey there and not in the clearing as planned. No. Run until you can't do it anymore, maybe exhaustion will kill you before the tom does… Maybe you don't need a plan… The grey and starry-pelted she-cat was about to spring forwards until she stopped dead, realizing she had reached the sunny clearing.
It was empty besides scattered green leaves and one tree stump jutting out of the soft ground. A neat patch of moss grew at the lower roots of the stump. Maybe she could rest there.
But… As she flicked her gaze across the clearing again… She noticed… The most shocking thing the wounded warrior thought she would never see again. "Nebulastar!"