It's been a long, three days, guys. I created a new forum called StormClan, LightningClan, BreezeClan, and StreamClan RP... after deleting my old one. Sorry to past members of Stormclan. Go search up "Respects to Stormclan" in the forums section. You will find a forum purely dedicated to its memory.

But, enough advertising. Let's get on with the story already.

Chapter 19

Falling from a cliff. Cliff fall. Cliff-Fall.

I woke up from my dream, not in a cold sweat or even in a full-on panic mode, but instead a slow, gradual, realization that I was not hurtling off a cliff, not hunting down my mirror image, and definitely not about to die. Or maybe I was dead already. Hello, is this StarClan? I wanted to ask, even though that was silly.

I was not in StarClan. So I was still alive. But honestly, where was I?

Looking around, I could gradually begin to see my surroundings: a small and compact but comfortable enough den, complete with three unused and dry-looking nests in the corners. One of which I was using.

My right foreleg was notoriously itching, so I shoved away the long, roughly threaded twigs and dead ferns that made up my sleeping area. The itch still wouldn't go away, but I figured that that couldn't last forever- could it? Now that I thought about, I could begin to remember what had happened last night.

Feeling tired, I had asked Duck's Leap- I still couldn't believe that he was the chief of this tribe- and asked him for a place to stay for the night. It still wasn't even evening yet, but I was exhausted, after all, so what could you do?

He looked at me suspiciously, but it was his camp, after all, so who could really blame him? However, I guess I didn't really look all that threatening, so he eventually agreed.

Duck's Leap then led me quickly to a small hollow in the center of a long-dead tree, and explained that this was his father's - the past chief's- past den, except that he ordered to be in a different den because he didn't want to be reminded of his deceased family. That made sense, I thought, fog clouding my mind. Thoughts about tall cliffs...

I couldn't dwell on that thought for long, however, because the moment I sank into my warm (if slightly untidy) nest, it was shut-eye time and everything went dark.

But now that I was awake, I began to notice something peculiar. Everywhere, there was shadowed, and I had to squint to look out beyond the den entrance. It was nighttime, so why did I suddenly wake up here? Sure, there was the nightmare, but...

Of course! The nightmare! I sighed a breath of relief. My sore leg was hurting more than ever. Was there something wrong with it? I began to wonder. The itch definitely wasn't there the last time I checked...

Half-limping, half-walking, I began making my way back out the den entrance. I wasn't feeling so sleepy anymore. Eyeing the spread-out camp in front of me, something weighed down on me.

What was I going to do now? But even as I pondered over my impossible question, I already had a single, pressing answer in my mind: taking revenge. Not on this tribe- what had they ever done to me, anyway, except give me shelter for the night- and not on Cliff-Fall's clan. The one that they call "DarkClan."

No. LightClan. Flutterpaw, too. Remembering how she had suffered so tremendously and painfully the day before wiped the last traces of sleepiness from my brain. Dead, gone, flying to StarClan, all of them.

Because of LightClan and its twisted ways. Brightpool. There was blood pounding in my ears now, a low humming in my mind, a rhythmic, ancient, sound like that of a beating heart when it is enveloped in marigold and its sickening sweet scent. Brightpool.

I growled, began crashing through the thick undergrowth that surrounded the camp, and slowly gained pace until I was left running, running for all that I was worth. LightClan, I thought. You're going to pay; and Cliff-Fall, maybe your fake daughter is worth more than you took her for.

I kept up my speed until I was panting so hard I could barely breathe. When it came to that point, I stopped and started to look all around me.

Trees everywhere. They were tall and looming, and they made me feel dizzy when I looked up at them. Even more dizzy than I already was. For whatever reason, my ankles were hurting like crazy- especially my right one- and my head was spinning around like a fluttering leaf on the breeze.

My pacing slower now, I began walking at a normal speed. There was a throbbing in my foreleg, and I had to try to lean on my left one as much as possible, which made it tire out quickly. Still, I couldn't do anything else, could I?

Feeling more than a little hungry, I tried to remember the last time that I had eaten and, with a jolt, realized that I couldn't. Was it only two, maybe three days ago that I had sat down to eat lunch with Flutterpaw?

You stupid mouse-brain, why didn't you say how much you loved her while she was still there? I wanted to scream at myself. Farewells. They're a hard thing in life. Happiness always ends with a cost of sorrow; always.

I paused for a few moments to stare at a low-lying knob on an ancient-looking tree, feeling it with my good forepaw. The last time that I probably will ever do that, I thought. If you were to ask me the reason that I was feeling so sad about that, I would tell you that I did not know in the slightest.

I burst through a mulberry bush in a distracted manner, the small thorns prickling my side. My pelt stung, but the pain was nothing more than the one on my front leg. Several cats standing before me. Smiling like an idiot. Because I had made it.

"Can I please speak to your leader for a moment?" I asked.

This was kind of a filler chapter, so you guys won't be so stressed out about the plot. If you think this is complicated... then, well, maybe I should sit you down for some small talk. Really, just saying.