Chapter 3: Blue Eyes and Two Black Paws

I shivered, looking down at his wide blank eyes. Was he the cat in my dream? Wondering if he would live to tell me, and praying to the general Superior Beings he would, I turned to the old tom.

"Could you—what's you're name, 'cause I don't know what to, like, call you, so...?" I said nervously. How's that for razor sharp wit, huh? He gave me a long, impassive stare, and I half-expected him to suddenly crack up laughing and say, 'Jeez, you're twitchy! I was joking! I'm not a mysterious bearded mentor of the spirits! I'm just a doctor! Actually, I got my degree more like, 'doctorate of sales,' but you still have to call me doctor! Anyway, my brother...' But he didn't.

"Storm," he said. His voice was deep and rumbling, like an earthquake, (I'd imagine). "You may call me Storm. Have you finished licking his ankle?"

I shook my head, and hesitated, wanting to ask Storm if he was going to be okay, but the coughing, half-conscious cat thrashed beside me, and with a quick glance at Storm, who was spreading a chewed-up mixture onto a pad of moss, I bent down and began licking. Suddenly, I sat back up again, staring at his foreleg, which was bent at a crooked angle and paddling frantically up and down, steadily oozing blood. His foot was black.

Just like mine.

He's a gray tabby with blue eyes and white feet. Just like me, backwards—I'm a dark gray tabby, he's a pale gray one; his eyes are dark blue, mine are light blue. His eyes are the same deep blue in my dream, and he just said one of the lines of that... prophecy thing I heard. And he has one black paw.

"There are two," he rasped again. "but soon there will be only one..."

My head jerked up, my eyes wide. He went on, thrashing in his half-conscious sleep.

"Pebbles clattering on the blood river's shore beneath scampering paws..." he said in a low, choked voice. Suddenly my heart was beating a lot faster than usual. "One black paw will lash back... And find another... Even the brightest star... hides secrets... And even distant mountain ridges can reach... the stars... Even an accident can save the cats who need you most... Dark... moonbeams... light the fog..." he jerked and rolled over,his breathing fast and shallow. My head was pounding.

Suddenly Storm was next to us, applying the poultice to his leg, and giving him some strong smelling herbs to eat. He coughed, half-choking half-retching. I drew back. Lying down in a relatively dry corner of the cave, I watched Storm rush back and forth in the cave, gathering herbs and making another poultice, feeling my pulse pumping in my arm.

I understood now. One black paw, me, had lashed back at Ridge and his gang of nutcases, and found another black paw—this guy. 'There are two' black paws. The accident to save the cats who need me most was the car accident this tom had been involved in, and the dark moonbeams and fog were also in my dream. It all fit! All I'd needed was the missing piece, and that was this tomcat here. The pebbles that were clattering on the blood river, the rumored one in the forest, were me also, because I'd been on the shore of that river.

And soon there would be only one, because I'd been swept away by it.

I looked over at the unconscious tom, whose eyes were now closed, and was still waving his front and back paws like he was trying to run away, and suddenly I felt sickened. I was watching a cat die. I wondered how painful it was to lay there, swimming in and out of consciousness, knowing there was no hope and struggling to stay in the light and not be dragged into darkness...

"The only thing holding you back... is you," he gasped, and, coughing and thrashing, he rolled over and went still. Suddenly his eyes snapped open. He blinked, and slowly turned his head and stared at me with completely conscious sea-blue eyes.

I stared back my mouth hanging open, and his mouth fell open too.

"You!" he gasped.