I ran, terrified by an unknown danger. Shadows swarmed around me, and I felt paws reaching for e, trying to stop me. Terror seized my heart, where was I? I was in a forest, trees and ferns whipping past my face and cutting into my sides. Blood trickled down my sides, down my paws, leaving bloody paw prints in the ground. Paw prints that carried my scent. Paw prints he could fallow.
I heard him behind me, silent paws thudding gently on the ground, eyes glowing. Darkness began to creep along the edge of my vision, and finally a paw reached out and touched me. Pain and suffering rocketed through my heart, breaking it in half. I stumbled and fell, and he was upon me.
At first I thought he was the same age as me, but he was smaller, much smaller, and black. He had small tingles of white around his muzzle, he was older then he looked, and had a determined look in his ice-blue eyes. My first impulse was to brace myself for a fight, so I tensed and waited for him to draw the first blood.
But it never came. I opened my eyes and he was still looking at me, calm and unmoving, not even panting from the chase. It's just a dream, I reminded myself, just a dream, and he can't kill me. This, however, did not ease my thoughts as he reached down to me, eyes locked with mine.
"What are you doing?" I tried to growl bravely, but it came out a squeaky as a kit. I reached up to push his paw away with my own, but instead they touched, paw to paw, and stuck. The black cats' eye glowed red, and At once pain flooded down my leg. It circled inside of my like a hurricane, lightning falling from the sky and slashing at my heart, which trembled and jerked.
Wind swirled around both of us, but I was hardly aware of it. A feeling of bliss caught my heart suddenly as visions flashed in front of my eyes. A cat, dark gray, walking alone on a twoleg trail one night, stopping for a rest and then a fire-colored cat darted across right in front of him, black shadows swirling around him, leaving glowing red paw prints in the ground.
Bats flying overhead, screeching into the night, painful sounds to my ears. They swooped low and lunged at me with open teeth, eyes closed and screaming at me. Finally one swooped down even closer and opened its' mouth to reveal many sharp teeth as he lunged in for my throat.
"Stop it!" I finally cried. The wind fell and the fire evaporated from the black cats' eyes, even though our two paws remained locked. They glowed in a beautiful array of yellow and gold, wreathing our paws, creating a gentle warmth that chased the pain and despair that the black tom had given me. The black tom stared at me some more then the light faded around our paws and I pulled mine away from him.
It felt as though it was on fire, and I gasped when I saw it. My entire paw had turned black. I looked up in terror at the black tom and then at my paw, what in StarClan was going on? He breaths became shallow and fast, staring at the black paw, which looked so odd on my light gray fur.
"Who are you?" I whispered; eyes wide with fear. The black tom broke his gaze from me and looked around, shadows of cats slinking in from all around us. They were all black, with bright red eyes and thin, as if they were starving.
"Who am I?" meowed the black cat, his ice-blue eyes sparkling like diamonds, "The better question is who are you." I was dumbfounded for a moment, looking at my paw and then to the cats around us. They let out eerie howls of support to the black cat, which smiled and raised his head, howling like a dog. Then the black cat looked strait back at me.
"Seven moons or seven days, I can wait whenever!" he howled, "Truth by told it's not that long. It's when the moon shall waver!" Above him, through the trees and in the clear black sky, in brilliant pale gray moon steadily turned redder and redder, "The curse mark is in place, there's no time to waste, and the return of Scourge is definite!"
Yowls sprang up everywhere and then the pain in my paw grew and grew. Suddenly the blackness felt my paw and began traveling upwards, scorching my fur and biting into me as it inched along my fur and settled on my shoulder, where it mad itself into a shape of a circle with three lines coming out of it, like a windmill.
It burned like fire and I crumpled to the ground, twitching. The black tom leaned in and then gently licked me between the ears. With a flash and a dog howl I jerked awake in the apprentice den, panting hard and alert, my senses were suddenly blocked out by a severe pain in my shoulder. I crumpled back to the nest, shivering in fright and pain. Nearby my friend Sparklepaw and her brother Sinewpaw hurried over.
"Flightpaw, Flightpaw!" Sparklepaw yowled in my ear. I wanted to answer her, but blackness was tugging at my heart, and the blackness began to grow more and fiercer.
"Sparklepaw; her shoulder!" snapped Sinewpaw, and they both gasped, I could only assume one thing, the black mark that the black tom had given me was still there.