At the entrance of the medicine den, the strange cat lifted his head and looked down at the two kits with piercing blue eyes as the striking moonlight illuminated his fur.

"My name is Jay's Wing," the cat said. "And I'm a sharpclaw of the Tribe of Still Water."

Jay's Wing? Sharpclaw? Tribe? Foxkit's head spun. That doesn't make any sense.

Icekit spoke first. "Jay's Wing? Are you just pulling our tails?"

The cat's expression changed. He suddenly looked far less stoic and intimidating. He looked at the two kits as if he had just lost something. "No I'm not… pulling your tails as you put it."

"Really? 'Cuz you look just like Jaypaw."

"I know. That's why every cat thinks I'm him."

"But you're blind and everything. I really think you're Jaypaw."

Jay's Wing sighed. "I'm not blind. Or at least I wasn't until I arrived here. I'm suspecting some higher power put me in another cat's body. Jaypaw's."

"Higher power? Like StarClan?" Foxkit questioned.

Jay's Wing shrugged. "Maybe. Hey, what is a StarClan anyway? I keep hearing cats talking about it but no one's ever told me what it was."

Jay's Wing suddenly seemed a lot less scary.

He's never heard of StarClan? Foxkit blinked. This definitely isn't Jaypaw.

"StarClan is like… StarClan cats are our warrior ancestors," Icekit explained.

"They live in the Silverpelt," Foxkit added. "And each star in the sky is a StarClan cat. Only leaders and medicine cats can talk to StarClan but every cat joins them when they die."

Jay's Wing nodded. "I think I get it. My tribe worships the stars as well and we become stars when we die. Any sharpclaw can talk with them though. Most don't really like going to the Starpool though."

"Starpool? Is that like the Moonpool?" Icekit asked.

Jay's Wing shrugged again. "I don't know. I've never been there. I only just became a sharpclaw myself. Or I would have if I hadn't ended up in this stupid place before my trial was over. Wait..."

"What?" Foxkit asked but Jay's Wing didn't respond. He stared off into the distance. He seemed to be off in his own little world.

Leafpool padded anxiously beside Squirrelflight as ThunderClan approached the tree bridge leading to the island. This was the first full moon since Jaypaw's incident. She had already spoken to Littlecloud but this was her first chance to talk with Mothwing and Barkface. She was apprehensive about what they had to say.

Leafpool was the youngest medicine cat but somehow she doubted the others knew much more about this than she. Head injuries were uncommon for cats. Not unheard of but Leafpool couldn't think of a single cat who had hit their head. Well, she had but usually those cats were dead. Head-hitting had become more of a figure of speech than a reality. When cats acted bizarre, it was normal for a cat to ask if they had hit their head but it was meant almost as a joke. No cat in the clans had any memory loss for reasons other than old age, kittypets had the Cutter to care for their injuries, and rogues and loners usually ended up dead when they got hurt. Leafpool was sure no one knew anything about this.

The tabby felt a tail tip on her shoulder. She glanced over. Amber met emerald. Squirrelflight gave her a comforting smile. "Don't worry Leafpool. It's not like they can tell you it's worse than it already is."

Leafpool sighed. I suppose that's true.

"Lighten up," Squirrelflight encouraged. "Firestar's making Lionpaw and Hollypaw come to distract them from everything that's been happening and let them have some fun. Same goes for you. You must be even more stressed than they are."

Leafpool purred softly. "You don't know the half of it."

One moment, Jay's Wing was standing in that den with those two ThunderClan kits. The next he was thrown into a memory. Or maybe a dream. He couldn't tell the difference. He just knew he wasn't standing in the waking world anymore. I can see.

He would be overjoyed to have sight again if he was anywhere but here. Earth and shadows surrounded him. He was in the tunnels. He knew the medicine den wasn't down there, he knew this was in his mind. This isn't the entrance… I only remember going down. Is this what happened after that?

A roar caught his attention. Not a roar like the great beastly cats that he had heard about in legend. It was more like a crashing sound. It was deafening and only grew louder.

Jay's Wing looked around, searching for the source. The tunnels were narrow, maybe a foxlength up and across. And they winded. He couldn't see much around him other than dirt and the occasional stone.

Jay's Wing closed his eyes. As much as he wanted to savor his sight, he knew having fewer senses strengthened the others. The sounds became clearer in an instant and Jay's Wing strained to focus. Where's that sound coming from…

Jay's Wing sensed something behind him. He turned. At first he saw nothing. Then he felt it. Vibrations…

And then the tunnel exploded.

Not really. But judging from how Jay's Wing reacted, anyone would have thought it had.

Water. Lakes and lakes worth of water came gushing down the narrow tunnels. Jay's Wing hardly had time to let it register before a thin layer leading the wave hit his paws and sent him into a dead run.

Over the roaring, cackling filled his ears. "Day One: First Quarter: Floods."

Jay's Wing flattened his ears despite knowing that would do nothing to block out the voice. It was in his head. He was a softpaw, no sharpclaw was allowed to talk about the trial but he was sure he had never overheard anyone mention voices like this.

"Who are you?" he yowled.

He heard cackling again. "My name is unimportant. I am the Proctor of the First Day. Escape my floods before the second quarter and you become a sharpclaw. If you don't… well. The last one made it to the Third Day and let's just say Ink doesn't make the Third Day as easy as the other two."

Jay's Wing shivered. Three days? A trial on each one? He had never heard of that. Probably because no one lives that long down here.

"You better run little Jay," a voice distinctly different from the first said hauntingly. "I sense something in you… I hope you get a chance to try your paw at my trial."

Not if I have anything to say about it. Jay's Wing shivered. The first voice had been female with a malicious tone. This new voice was male and dark. He didn't want to meet its owner.

Jay's Wing felt the water lap at his paws. He glowered and poured more energy into his paws, pushing himself to go faster. In his mind, he could hear the two voices laughing at him, a third joining them. They were mocking him.

"Keep on running little Jay."

Leafpool scanned the island as ThunderClan arrived. It seemed WindClan and RiverClan had arrived before her own. Good. That meant she had more time to talk with Barkface and Mothwing.

With a tail flick goodbye to her sister, Leafpool bounded across the clearing to the corner where the medicine cats sat. Mothwing and Barkface were talking about something while Kestrelpaw and Willowpaw were chatting excitedly.

Willowpaw was the first to notice the ThunderClan medicine cat's arrival. She smiled brightly and waved her tail in greeting. "Hi Leafpool!"

"Hi Willowpaw," Leafpool greeted. She nodded to Kestrelpaw who nodded back. Leaving the apprentices to their own devices, she turned to Mothwing and Barkface.

"We need to talk."

"Where's Jaypaw?" Mothwing asked casually. Leafpool closed her eyes. Oh Mothwing…

"Jaypaw…" Leafpool trailed off. What could she possibly say? By StarClan, why is this always so hard? "Jaypaw's injured."

"Oh. Is he alright?" Mothwing asked.

When someone asks if someone is alright or how someone is doing, the answer is always fine. Even if they're not. Over time, the question had lost its meaning. It was a formality more than anything. But Jaypaw's not fine. "No."

Mothwing visibly flinched. Barkface frowned. "What's the matter? Did he fall? Was he attacked?"

"I don't know," Leafpool answered. She spoke quietly, not wanting the apprentices to hear their mentors' conversation.

"You don't know what happened? Is he unconscious? Has he injured this throat? Can he not speak?"

"No, no. He can still talk," Leafpool assured. She paused. "He has… He has a head injury of some sort. He thinks he's a different cat."

Barkface and Mothwing looked shock. Mothwing's mouth gaped, Barkface's eyes were wide.

"Another cat? Who does he think he is?"

"Someone named Jay's Wing. Jaypaw seems to have a pretty complex background for this cat in his mind. He says he's a tribe cat, a sharpclaw, and that he has a sister named Dove's Wing. He doesn't talk about himself much, at first he thought he were holding him prisoner, but it's clear he has an entire identity figured out for this cat he thinks he is," Leafpool explained. She looked at her paws. "I don't know much about injuries to the mind. I don't think any cat does. I already spoke to Littlecloud about it."

"Spoke to me about what?" A small tabby tom broke from the mass of cats and made his way to where the medicine cats sat. "You're just now talking to these two about Jaypaw?"

"What happened to Jaypaw?" Willowpaw spoke up. Leafpool flicked her ear in annoyance. They'd been speaking quietly to keep Willowpaw and Kestrelpaw from overhearing but now it looked like they'd have to come clean about it. Or not. Mistystar rose from her place on the great oak tree and threw her head back to the sky in a yowl.

"Cats of all clans, let the Gathering begin!"

Jay's Wing's mind snapped back to reality. His vision returned to its familiar darkness, his fur was no longer soaked, and he could feel the cool ground beneath his paws. What was that? A dream? A vision? A memory? He had never experienced something like that before.

"Jay's Wing?" Jay's Wing turned to the source of the voice. It was the she-kit. Icekit, that was her name. He could feel her and her brother's gazes looking up at him. "Are you alright? You kinda zoned out for a few heartbeats there."

"I'm fine." A few heartbeats? That felt like half a day! "What was I saying?"

"You were telling us how you ended up here..." Foxkit told him. "In Jaypaw's body, I guess."

"Right," Jay's Wing said. He thought for a moment. If he'd been asked yesterday, he would have absolutely no idea how to respond but that memory flash he'd just had… "I remember… I remember three voices. In my head."

"In your head?"

"Not in an insane way. Like someone was right there with me and I just couldn't see them," Jay's Wing told them. "She- the first one was a female- said she was the Proctor of the First Day of the trial. The other two, they were the proctors of the second and third day. The second one was a she-cat, the third was a tom. I think I heard the first one call him Ink. She said he was scary."

"What's a proctor?" Foxkit asked.

"I don't know."

"I think it's kind of like a mentor?" Icekit guessed. "Except they just watch. They don't teach anything."

"That makes sense. They weren't really there but I could feel them watching me," Jay's Wing said. He shivered. "It was weird."

"Maybe they were StarClan cats," Icekit suggested. "If they could talk in your head like that, they must be pretty powerful and only StarClan cats have powers like that."

Jay's Wing chose not to mention the prophecy. After all, he had promised Hollypaw and Lionpaw that he wouldn't. "I guess."

"But why would StarClan cats bring you here?" Foxkit asked. "It doesn't make much sense. Jaypaw was doing just fine here. No offense, but I like it better when he's in his body."

"None taken. I'd much rather be home than here," Jay's Wing responded.

"The night sky is made up of more than stars…" Icekit said. "Maybe someone else put Jay's Wing in Jaypaw's body."

"Like the moon?" Foxkit snorted as if the idea was ludicrous. He laughed. "Imagine if- wait."

"What?"

"If Jay's Wing is here in Jaypaw's body…" Foxkit started. "Then where is Jaypaw?"

"... and WindClan has nothing left to report," Onestar concluded. He looked to the ThunderClan leader. "Firestar?"

Firestar nodded and dipped his head to his old friend as he got to his paws to speak. How should I put this… "Prey is running well in ThunderClan. ThunderClan remains strong but we had an… incident on our territory."

"An incident?" Mistystar questioned.

Firestar nodded. "We believe that something attacked one of our apprentices. We do not know what it is and no one has seen it but I advise the other clans to look out for it."

The crowd broke into murmurs. The other leaders exchanged a few glances.

"Did you check for scents?" a cat called out from below.

"Of course. Unfortunately the scent of blood overpowered everything in the clearing and stained the dirt too deeply for us to find anything. Even so, whatever it was it left no other trace."

"Are you sure then that it was an animal that attacked your apprentice?" Blackstar asked. "It's possible that your apprentice could be lying to avoid punishment."

Firestar dipped his head. "No, we do not know what exactly happened. And our apprentice does not remember what happened to him."

"Sounds like he's lying," Blackstar muttered under his breath. Firestar flicked his ear at him. Blackstar nodded. It was a secret signal between the leaders. It meant they were to discuss something privately after they were done with their reports.

"ThunderClan has nothing left to report," Firestar finished. The assembled cats broke into conversation among themselves as per usual and Firestar turned to his fellow leaders. "Do you want your deputies to be involved in this conversation?"

"Do you want them to?" Mistystar asked.

"I really don't care."

"Then it's probably best that they are not. We don't want to raise suspicion."

"Very well."

"So what is it your not telling us?" Onestar asked.

"The apprentice that was injured was Jaypaw," Firestar said lowering his voice so eavesdroppers could not overhear. "His siblings and their mentors found him unconscious and bleeding on our territory. He woke several days later with no memory of what happened or who he was."

"Oh StarClan," Mistystar whispered.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Onestar said, dipping his head.

Blackstar was less accepting. "I apologize for accusing a medicine cat of lying but have you considered the possibility he knows more than he's letting on?"

"What do you mean?"

"Jaypaw's blind. He has been his whole life," Blackstar started. "If I remember correctly, he originally had Brightheart as his mentor and planned to train as a warrior before switching to be a medicine cat. I hear he has a reputation as cold and and unfriendly."

"I don't see where you're going with this," Onestar said.

"As I'm sure you remember, I lived as a rogue for a time," Blackstar went on. He looked uncomfortable. That wasn't exactly a point of pride in his past. "I saw… things that are… The clans are very different from the rest of the world but that doesn't mean that the clans are immune to certain… things."

"I still don't see where you're going with this," Onestar said again. "'Things' isn't a very descriptive word. It could mean anything."

"Have you seen a creature that can do something like this?" Mistystar asked.

"No. Well, depends on how you look at it," Blackstar answered.

"Just get to your point, Blackstar," Firestar instructed.

"I'm saying Jaypaw may have injured himself," Blackstar said. Firestar blinked and felt his blood run cold. What? "You said the blood overpowered the scent, there may have not even been a foreign scent to begin with."

"A-are you suggesting that Jaypaw tried to take his own life?" Mistystar uttered, shocked. Blackstar nodded.

"That's ludicrous," Onestar stated. "Cats- any animal really- would never-"

"They do. I've seen it happen," Blackstar said sharply. "Depression and emotional pain hurt more than any claw or tooth."

"But to go that far to escape it… And at such a young age…"

"I'm not saying it did happen. I'm just saying it's a possibility," Blackstar stated dismissively.

"An unlikely one," Onestar pointed out. "We all have lived through war. Cats of every clan have lost loved ones and I have never heard of a cat going such far lengths to escape pain. Leave the clan, maybe, but never that."

"Loss is a different kind of pain. It strikes, it can be dealt with and healed," Blackstar told them. "I don't know Jaypaw but I suspect he feels a different kind of pain. Not one that just struck him one day. One he has held with him since the day he opened his eyes. None of us understand how he feels. He likely feels a different kind of pain. A constant one. All around him. Unhappiness and unfulfillment can push a cat to his limits."

Firestar finally found his voice. "I… I don't think Jaypaw would do that. Sure he isn't the happiest cat. I… I don't know if I've ever heard him truly laugh or genuinely smile but I think he just doesn't know how to express it… He's blind, he doesn't know what emotions look like. How can I expect him to express them like every other cat?"

"Or he doesn't feel like every other cat," Blackstar pointed out. Firestar looked at his paws and suddenly felt incredibly guilty. What if Blackstar is right? I don't think Jaypaw would do that to himself but he… he's so different from his peers. Blackstar's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "Was there something else you wanted to tell us?"

"Hmm? Oh, right." Firestar cleared his throat. "Like I said, it was Jaypaw's siblings and their mentors who found Jaypaw. When they found him… Well, they didn't find him. They were lead to him."

"Lead to him?" Mistystar echoed.

Firestar nodded. "They haven't told anyone except me. I don't really know what to think of it myself, I'm not sure if I believe it or not."

"Just spit it out."

"They say they saw a ghost."

"A ghost?" Onestar's eyes were practically bulging from his head.

"Don't tell me you believe in ghosts," Blackstar scoffed.

"Of course I don't!"

"Ghosts are lost spirits, are they not?" Mistystar questioned. "We know cats' spirits go to StarClan when they die. The idea of ghosts isn't that far out there."

"I know but seeing one?" Blackstar chuckled. The tense air had long since faded and had been replaced with a much lighter one. "I always imagined spirits were invisible. That's why we can't see cats on their way to the Silverpelt."

"Maybe ghosts are different?" Onestar suggested. "If what Mistystar and Blackstar said is true, ghosts spirits trapped down here with us. Maybe the invisibility is temporary?"

Firestar shrugged. "I really don't know and I don't really know. For all I know, one of them just saw a rogue and the others were so high on adrenaline their memories got warped. I just wanted to warn you. However I advise you don't tell your clans. It all seems kind of ridiculous."

"Well then." Mistystar let out a long breath. "That's the most exciting talk I've had in awhile. RiverClan! We're leaving!"

"WindClan after them!" Onestar yowled.

Firestar felt a weight lift from his chest. He hadn't realized how worried he'd been about how that talk would go.

Firestar felt a tail tip on his shoulder. He looked over to see Blackstar's yellow eyes staring into him intently. "Talk to Jaypaw, will you?"

Firestar nodded, surprised by the concern Blackstar was showing for a cat who wasn't his clanmate. "I will. And thank you."

"Anytime." Blackstar dipped his head and jumped off the branch. Firestar lingered for a moment longer before doing the same. Oh Jaypaw. How could I have been so blind?