A/N: wow. this one is just pathetic. i guess this is why i don't write in first person very often, huh? i'm like completely incapable of making lenghty stories with this style of writing. which really stinks. but, whatever. i still want to know what you think, okay?
Faster, I tell myself, you have to run faster!
Over and over again, I repeat the command in my mind. Telling myself to move quicker, to take longer strides, to do something to get those horrid beasts away from me.
Beasts. That's all that I can call them. I don't know what other name to use for those creatures, because they aren't cats. They aren't dogs. They aren't anything that I've ever seen before. That any cat has ever seen before.
So I call them beasts and I try to run from them.
I leap over a root that is sticking out the ground, pulling my legs up to my underbelly to make sure they don't snag. I land in a pile of dark sand, still wet from the recent rainfall. Near black dirt flies up and dapples my otherwise white pelt, staining my fur dark, and my paws skid beneath me.
I have to scramble to keep myself from falling into the thick goop. By the time I have steadied my aching legs beneath me, I can once more hear the pounding of paws behind me. Then heavy breathing and, now, it isn't my own harsh pants that fill my ears.
As I dig my hindpaws into the mud again, pushing off and trying to regain my speed as I race across the undergrowth, I can hear my mentor's voice in my mind.
don't go out into the forest alone, Snowpaw. it isn't safe out there right now. not until we find the creature that killed Tigerstripe and Brackentwist. only go out with myself or a patrol.
I wish that I had listened to him. Wildstep is always right about these things. He's always so smart. And me? I'm not even able to get back to camp.
I went out to try and catch some prey for my starving kin.
I may not return, with or without it.
Something snarls behind me and I realize that I wasn't fast enough. Hot, rank breath reaches my nose. I take a deep breath and then fling myself foreward - just as two rows of sharp fang sink into my scruff.