I'm back! Did you miss me? Once again this chapter took to long to write, and for that I have to excuses, I just got lazy. ;-; Anyways I finished it! :D So here it is. To be honest I don't think it's the best thing I've ever written, but oh well, whatchu going to do. Thanks for reviewing and following/favoriting.

Clearsight: Thanks! :D

Guest: ?

Well on to the story.

Chapter Two

Time seemed to slow down as Shadowpaw watched the intruder landed on Silverpaw. The strange she-cat clawed Silver's stomach, and he felt something he has never felt before, anger, he felt a powerful surge of uncontrollable, overwhelming anger. He's never felt this way before especially when… when things like this happened. He's watched his friends die. Not being able to do anything about it. All he could was stare and watched as… as… no! I won't allow you to hurt anyone else, Shadowpaw thought, you've taken too much from me!

Shadowpaw dug his claws into her side, heaving her off Silverpaw. Shadowpaw then struck her repeatedly with his claws, leaving wounds all over, and he was sure she would bleed out even if he didn't finish her off.

"Reaper, what are you doing with the enemy?" Ice narrowed her eyes, "your not actually going to finish me off, after all, you don't like killing anymore." Shadowpaw hesitated, Ice had hit his soft spot, What am I doing, I can't finish her off! Finish her, if you do, you will not have problems with her anymore… Silverpaw will be safe.

That decided him, Shadowpaw raised his paw to snap her neck, and brought it halfway down, almost ending her life. Shadowpaw hesitantly stood over her, pelt slick with blood, then he looked over his shoulder at Silverpaw, whose eyes were wide with shock and terror, "y-y-you almost killed..." she swallowed, "you could have broke the warrior code!"

Shadowpaw's eyes widened as he realized what he had almost done. I almost killed again. He looked down at his claws, feeling sick. These damn claws. Why… why do I do the things I do? He shook his head, and looked up to see Ice leaving their territory. He looked over at Silverpaw, who was currently trying to get back on her feat.

Shadowpaw padded over to her, planning on helping her up; however, as he neared Silverpaw's head shot up and she glared at him. "Stay away!" She growled. Shadowpaw flinched at the hatred in her eyes, but then again, he deserved this, he almost killed a cat after all. Silverpaw got to her feat and padded away not looking back once, leaving Shadowpaw standing there in the forest alone, alone with his thoughts.

Your a monster! You almost killed a cat even though you promised yourself you would stop! Now look at yourself. Covered in blood… once again. You can't do anything right except murdering innocent cats! Shadowpaw shook his head to clear it from all these thoughts and started to pad back to camp, tail down and ears flattened. You monster! Your nothing but a monster! No wonder she doesn't like you! He felt tired and his head started to hurt. Monster! The world started to spin around him. You good for nothing monster. He thought he heard someone calling for him, but before he could look up to see who it was the world around him went dark.


Shadowpaw slowly opened his eyes only to be welcomed with a massive headache. Groaning, he tried getting to his paws only to collapse. Wow, my head hurts. It feels like I rammed it into a tree a couple hundred times.

Shadowpaw looked around and noticed a cinnamon colored she-cat sitting next to some pile of leaves, whispering something that he couldn't quite hear. He saw a small puddle of water next to his nest and reached to lap it up. When he was done he looked up to be greeted by the she-cat who was whispering to herself, she was looking at him with concern.

"Good to see that your awake, but you probably shouldn't move till your wounds are healed," She mewed, getting up from whatever she was doing, "you wouldn't want to make them worse now, would you?"

Shadowpaw watched as she made her way towards him and touched his head muttering to herself. "Look what you've done," She said sighing. "I'm going to have to replace the poultice now."

She moved away from him and walked towards the piles of leaves that he noticed earlier. "Now where did I put those herbs?" She moved to a crack in the wall and reached inside, pulling out some more of those strange leaves, "here we go."

"Um, excuse me, not to sound rude or anything, but I don't know your name," Shadowpaw meowed, wondering whether or not to trust her. "and how did I get here. The last thing I remember was me being in the forest hearing someone call out my name.."

"Oh! Sorry, my name is Fernleaf and I'm the medicine cat for ThunderClan," She explained, looking at him for only few moments before getting back to whatever she was doing, "as for how you got here, Rosepaw found you on the ground outside camp and screamed for help. Everyone thought we were being attacked until we saw you on the ground covered in blood. I thought you were dead when I arrived, thank StarClan you weren't, we've had enough deaths so far." Her voice went quiet at the mention of deaths.

"When I noticed you were breathing I immediately went to work. Cleaning off the blood and everything, the only weird thing is that you had barely any wounds. Yes you had some wounds, but none major enough to have done that would have caused you to faint, and you didn't lose a lot of blood, and to this day it still puzzles me." Fernleaf explained, eyes narrowing and tipping her head to one side.

"Wait did you say, 'to this day'? how long have I been out?" He was confused, it seemed like he was only sleeping for a little bit.

"It's been three days since the incident with you collapsing, we tried asking Silverpaw what happened to you but she didn't answer." Fernleaf explained quietly, eyeing him.

"Silverpaw? How is she? Is she ok?" He asked, worried for his fellow apprentice.

"Yes she's fine just a couple of minor wounds on her stomach." She answered, seeming amused.

Shadowpaw let out a sigh of relief. At least she's ok. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to her. "So, when will I be able to leave?" He asked, curious.

Fernleaf jumped when he asked her that, "well," She said, "I don't see anything major, and whatever made you collapse out of nowhere doesn't seem to be happening. I have my suspicions of what made you collapse like that, but I'm not to sure." Standing up with some weird ball like thing in her mouth. She continued towards him setting the ball of leaves next to him.

Fernleaf nudged his wounds with her nose, humming. She then pulled a couple of leaves from the ball and chewed them up into a weird paste like thing. She then spat them out on his wound, afterwords spreading a leaf over it, pressing it down on his wound.

"This should do," Fernleaf said, looking at her work, "try to get up now."

Shadowpaw slowly stood up on four shaky legs, almost falling, but he caught himself. Fernleaf nodded as he succeeded in standing. He tried walking forward only to fall backwards into his nest. Fernleaf shook her head and sighed.

"At least you can stand," she said, eyes closed in thought, "to be honest I don't why you can't stand too well, as for why you fainted I might have an idea, but for me to know for sure I need you to explain to me everything that happened before you passed out. I promise that whatever you tell me I won't tell anyone else, not even the clan leader, Foxstar."

Shadowpaw looked at the ground deciding whether or not to believe her. If he told her what was going through his head would she tell the clan leader, especially when he told her about the voices? Shadowpaw looked her in the eyes and decided to tell her the truth.

"Well. After getting my name I saw Silverpaw leave camp and I wanted to know where she was going, so I decided to follow her. She was hunting when I found her and I accidently scared away what she was hunting, so she got mad at me for doing that. I tried explaining to her that the fresh kill pile was already full, but I don't think she listened to me. After a little bit we, well more like Silverpaw got attacked by a bluish she-cat. I leaped to help Silverpaw, but the intruder already clawed her stomach. When I reached the intruder, I flung her off of Silverpaw and relentlessly attacked her." He looked down at his paws as he continued. "I… I almost killed her, the intruder. I heard a voice tell me that if I killed her she wouldn't bother anyone ever again. So I almost did. Thank goodness I stopped before I slit her throat. I got off of her and turned around to see Silverpaw on the floor staring at me in fear."

He paused before he continued, not sure how she would take the next part. "I tried to help her up but she told me to leave her alone… after she left I started to hear voices telling me that I was a monster and that I was good for nothing, but killing cats." He looked up at Fernleaf expecting her to look at him with fear and shock, but instead she looked concerned.

She closed her eyes again only to reopen them after a few heartbeats, "Shadowpaw, with the amount of days you've been knocked out, you might have had a mixture of shock and blood loss as for why you were hearing the voices I think you might have PTSD. How you got it I have an idea, but I won't pressure you into it," Fernleaf curled around him as if to comfort him. She licked his forehead, "I'm sorry for whatever you had to go through, but I promise that it won't ever happen again."

Shadowpaw felt himself calm down and lean into her warmth. It reminded him the dreams he had of his mother, how she used to be… before she… before she… it doesn't matter. He closed his eyes and soon he was asleep.


Shadowpaw woke up the next morning and looked for Fernleaf, noticing that she wasn't in her nest. He looked around the den and noticed that she wasn't near her leaves either. He slowly got to his paws and to his surprise his legs weren't as shaky as last night. He decided to try walking forward, he tested each step he took as if he were standing on a thin layer of ice, he then slowly made his way to other side of the den.

"Oh your awake!" Shadowpaw jumped and turned around to see a small white she-cat, who kinda reminded him of Silverpaw, standing in the entrance of the den. The she-cat bounced up to him. "Glad to see you awake. I thought you wouldn't wake up for another two days."

"I'm sorry, but who are you?..." Shadowpaw asked, confused as to why this she-cat was acting the way she was. The she-cat stopped bouncing around him and looked at him.

"Sorry about that, my name is Rosepaw. My sister is Silverpaw, you've met her already." Rosepaw answered, sitting down next to him. "I was wondering what it was like to live alone? Oh wait? How is it like to fight that interder? Did you see StarClan? Did yo-"

"Calm down, I just woke up." He said, yawning as if to emphasize that he was still tired. "Now to answer your questions. It's not that bad, interesting, and no… what's StarClan?"

Rosepaw looked at him as if he turned into a fox with a squirrel's tail. "'What's StarClan?' Are you serious," Rosepaw mewed in disbelief, rolling her eyes when he nodded, "Well, for starters, StarClan is a clan made up of our ancestors, who live in silverpelt, you can see them at night, they watch over us and protect us. Everyone who believes in StarClan will go there when they die, unless they do something terrible like Night. They shine so bright. Sometimes I like to go outside and just stare up at the night sky, admiring the stars, they're beautiful. I remember a story I once heard from the elders about a time when the clans stopped believing in StarClan; however, that was way before my parent's time, let alone mine."

Shadowpaw thought he saw Rosepaw eye's have a hint of sadness in them when she mentioned her parents, but it was gone before he was sure. He nodded at her in understanding. StarClan sounds nice… I always wondered if there was someone watching over me, he thought, to bad it isn't night, or else I would go outside and admire them. I never had time to admire then where I lived before.

"Do you want me to show you around our camp?" Rosepaw asked, looking at him expectantly.

Shadowpaw looked at her and nodded, Rosepaw squealed and started out the den, motioning with her tail for him to follow. He looked around the den once more before slowly following her out.

The first thing Shadowpaw was greeted with when he left was a bright light blinding him. He closed his eyes and waited a few seconds before re-opening them. The camp was very busy, kits running around chasing each other near a den, she-cats talking to each-other while keeping an eye on them. Silverpaw was talking with a brown tom with dark red paws near the entrance of the camp, there was a cat on the ledge, where the leader gave him his new name, giving orders to the group of cats surrounding him.

Shadowpaw spotted Rosepaw near the outside of an entrance in the cliff. He padded over to her, looking around to make sure he didn't run into somecat. When he arrived Rosepaw looked at him before turning around and looking at the entrance to the den.

"This is the apprentices den," She mewed, walking inside motioning for him to follow, "This is where the apprentices sleep, such as you, me, and Silverpaw. There aren't to many apprentices at the moment."

He looked around and saw that there were only three nests in the den. Rosepaw padded to one that on the right side of another. "This is my nest, and the one next to it is Silverpaws. The last one is yours."

Rosepaw flicked her tail, motioning for Shadowpaw to follow. When Shadowpaw exited the den, he saw Rosepaw over beside another den. Shadowpaw padded over to her, Rosepaw looked over at the den, "this is the nursery, where queens and kits stay, kits reside here until they are six moons old, and if there's any warriors available, they will be assigned a mentor," Rosepaw looked over at Duskfur, "sometimes we don't have any available warriors, so we assign the kits to the most experienced mentors."

Everything from Duskfur's posture to the way he scanned the camp with an expressionless face suggested that he sees himself as a superior veteran, and that he's been around for an extremely long time, that or he just had rigorous training. Shadowpaw was also pretty sure that Duskfur hated him, like his past and all his deeds were visible. He could also just be cautious of my skills, i'm sure he's seen my stance, as if I'm expecting to fight at a moment's notice.

The only thing contradicting this was the fact that Snowstorm and Fernleaf also looked at him funny, Snowstorm was Duskfurs apprentice, so she might have seen the way Shadowpaw acts as well, but Fernleaf could just be wary of him, she was the medicine-cat after all, maybe StarClan has shown her a prophecy or vision.

"Duskfur is the oldest cat in the clans, not counting the elders," Rosepaw said, "he's also the most experienced cat in all the clans, everyone thought he would become the deputy, but when the time came, he declined the offer, which confused all of us, but he had a lot of good reasons for it."

Shadowpaw looked a Duskfur. Interesting… he could have been deputy and leader next… I wonder why he chose not to accept the deputy position. He looked away and looked at the den that Rosepaw was showing him. It was underneath a bramble bush reinforced with roots, probably for protection.

As they entered the den the first things he noticed was the packed earth, though soft, was still packed enough to make sure that it didn't get into any cats fur, and the den was pretty much empty.

"The queens and their kits are currently outside, there aren't a lot of kits this season. It kinda has everyone worried; however we might have more kits soon," Rosepaw explained, probably noticing his confused look, "there are only two kits and one queen at the moment. The kits are named Acornkit and Amberkit, their mother's name is Dawnpelt who, incase you were wondering, is the mate of Foxstar, our leader."

Rosepaw tilted her head in thought for a few heartbeats, "I think I remember Fallingbird telling her mate something the other day, I wonder what that might be about. Wait… I think I might know what that is about."

Shadowpaw nodded in understanding, She might be expecting kits. That'd be good for ThunderClan. He noticed something, whenever he caught Rosepaw looking at him it reminded him of something, but he couldn't quite put his paw on it. Shadowpaw decided not to think about it too much, and carried on with the what they were currently doing.

As Rosepaw and Shadowpaw exited the den he looked around for Silverpaw, wondering what she was up to. And he spotted her near a fallen tree.

"Hey Rosepaw?" Rosepaw stopped and turned around looking at him with a confused look on her face, "can you tell me what that is for next?" Shadowpaw asked. He wanted to talk to Silverpaw for a little bit and make sure she was actually ok. Shadowpaw was still confused as to why he felt that way when he saw that cat attack her. After all… he's never felt that way before. He shook his head clearing it.

Rosepaw nodded, looking at him funny,, "I don't see why not." she mewed as she headed towards the fallen tree.

"So this den," Rosepaw mewed, as they approached the den he mentioned, "Is where all the warriors sleep. Warriors are apprentices who completed their training and passed their assessments."

"Assessments?" Shadowpaw echoed, looking back at her in confusion.

Rosepaw nodded and stopped at the entrance of the den, "Assessments are tests that a mentor usually gives their apprentice when they feel like their apprentice or apprentices are ready."

"Oh… that makes sense." Shadowpaw said. Rosepaw hummed in agreement and turned to the entrance of the den.

Shadowpaw looked at Silverpaw opening his mouth to say something; however, before he could get a word out, she walked away towards the entrance of camp. Shadowpaw looked away, confused as to why she did that. He looked at Rosepaw who looked after her sister in sadness. She sighed and turned to the den again.

"What was that about?" Shadowpaw asked, he wanted to know why Silverpaw avoided him and her sister. Weird, I don't have any siblings and if I did I would want to be as close to them as possible.

"Well… a few days after mine and Silverpaw's apprentice ceremonies She went out to practice her hunting, her mentors orders. I heard she was doing great, especially for her first time; however she saw something that no cat should have to see," Rosepaw stopped tears flowing from out of her eyes, Shadowpaw moved next to her, comforting her.

She looked up at him and swallowed, "Thanks, anyways, as I was saying, She saw something that no one should of saw. I don't know what she saw. She didn't tell me, but when she didn't return to camp we went searching for her. We eventually found her in a clearing next to our parents bodies, which were all mangled and torn up. At first, just like you, we thought she was dead, she was covered in blood; however when we brought her back to camp Fernleaf noticed that she was still breathing, so we brought her to the Fernleaf's den and set her down in a nest. I volunteered to lay next to Silverpaw, to keep her company even though she was asleep, Fernleaf agreed. During the night, after everyone, including myself, went to their nest. Silverpaw started screaming, kicking out and saying 'No! Why! Please!' I quickly woke up Fernleaf, and helped her calm down Silverpaw. When Silverpaw woke up the next day I tried asking her some questions, but she wouldn't answer."

Shadowpaw looked at her in shock. Wait… what… oh… oh no. He felt some tears come to his eyes and he looked at the ground. What.. wha- He felt someone's brush up against him and looked up to see Rosepaw looking at him in concern. He dried his eyes and nodded at Rosepaw to show that he was ok. I promise Silverpaw. I will make you better, because you didn't deserve that… you didn't deserve to have your parents killed, and to watch it happen.

Wait what? Hmmm, something doesn't seem right here. As always review, favorite, follow, and now that the sellout is out of the way, I have a question for you all, what is your most favorite story that you've read on this website, preferably Warriors or Wings of Fire by Tui T. Sutherland, but you can tell me whatever one you like. (Please tell me Warriors or Wings of Fire, I need more stories to read. ;-;) Also go check out my editor's story "Talons and Teeth" a Wings of Fire fanfiction. Anyways till next time everyone!

Me: No wait… I didn't get to say anything… btw, me is Wildspeaker,

Whiteclaw26: There, you said something. Now 'till next time'.

Wildspeaker: I got to be fast… Hi.