*shrugs* Petalpaw is a little bit depressive here, methinks! Oh, well; I haven't written her in such a long time, and the mental Petalpaw in my head has seriously changed since then! Unfortunately, this also means that she's slightly OOC from where she was in the last book. This is... hmm... well... almost a month since they escaped? /had to check some of what she wrote to make damned sure of that\ So, Petalpaw has changed a lot since then. I mean, after 2 months of trauma, this is all so different to her...

Anyways, enjoy! ^.^; And, Brightspirit, for reviewing, you get a free Rock plushie! :3 It's only virtual, but maybe I'll draw one! ^.^; We'll have to see; I'm still mainly just learning about my tablet. :3

Chapter 1

"Get up, sleepyhead!" yowled Birchpaw, suddenly shaking me awake from a dark, nightmare-filled sleep.

I let out a terrified screech. "No!"

"It's time for training!" Birchpaw announced.

I growled at him, "I'm coming! Calm down!"

"Jeesh! No need to be so touchy," Birchpaw complained, drawing back. I wasn't quite sure why, but I was always in a terrible mood after one of my nightmares. It wasn't fair to take my anger out on poor Birchpaw, but somebody had to learn. Obviously, he hadn't heard that I was not to be disturbed violently in the mornings.

"No. You know what?" I snapped, getting up and rounding on Birchpaw. "I know you heard. You have to have heard. I'm still recovering from my ordeal, and I'm in no mood to be violently disturbed by some clueless idiot in the mornings! It just causes me to be afraid, and I don't like to remember!"

"Oh, sorry." Birchpaw's eyes widened. "Again, I'm so sorry! It won't happen again." And with that, he scuttled out of the den.

I sighed, looking after him. I hadn't meant to hurt his feelings, or even to terrify him that much; the whole point was to make sure I escaped with my own sanity intact! However, I had probably somehow scared him off in the process.

Nice going, Petalpaw, I thought sarcastically to myself. You've just scared off your brother.

That brought me to another thing. How could a cat that clueless and chatty possibly be related to me?

I swear; I'll never understand StarClan. They always seem to make things confusing, and especially for me, I thought. In fact, I'm having difficulty understanding the Clan at the moment!

It had been three quarter-moons since the kits and I had been saved from slavery. Rose had moved into the nursery. It turned out that her kits were coming in another quarter-moon. She had thought it took one moon until birthing, when really it took two. She hadn't been too upset about it. In fact, she'd been quite pleased to wait!

"Nah, that's fine," she said, purring and entwining her tail with Lunar's.

See what I mean?

In any case, Rose was happy, I was pretty much happy with the Clan warrior's training that I had been deprived of for so many moons, and the Clan seemed to be safe.

….For now.

Personally, I just wondered when Rock would make another pass at it. When he'd decide it was safe, and then pounce. With Rock, it would probably be soon. He'd just wait until the Clan cats' minds were generally cleared of the incident, and then he'd strike again.

With a bit of shock, I realized that I no longer really thought of myself as a 'Clan cat'. I mean, I hadn't been here for so long... and I had been tortured so much… that now I was more skittish, afraid, and I honestly couldn't consider myself as part of any group. Not a slave, yet, not a real cat, either; I just couldn't get back into the Clan's routine!

You would think that any cat would be hilariously relieved to be free of them, but I'm just terrified that they'll come back. We didn't kill them, they didn't kill themselves, they didn't get caught by Twolegs; no, they're still out there… somewhere…, I thought to myself.

And I'm worried that they're going to hunt me down again.

I shook my head, successfully pushing myself out of my depressive thoughts for maybe a moment or two, and focused on the matter at paw. What was I doing, anyway? I could no longer remember, but… oh. Yeah. That. First off, I had to go apologize to Birchpaw—not that he would remember if I left it a little while, because he was just that kind of clueless, and especially very forgetful, cat—and then I had to go train or something. I tried in vain to remember what Birchpaw had told me when he'd woken me up all rudely, but I could no longer, seeing as how he had scared me so badly…. Yeah. Given the state I was in these days, I figured that I had better apologize.

Whatever, I could just go do it later, I figured as I stepped out of the den and into the bright morning sunshine. It was obviously almost noon, so I wondered why no cat had woken me up before then.

"Oh, hi!" I suddenly heard Cloudypaw's voice behind me. "You're finally up! How're you feeling?" she asked breathlessly, skidding up beside me.

"Oh, umm… well, okay, I guess." I sighed.

"I heard about the incident with Birchpaw." I could feel eyes on me, and when I turned to look I found that Cloudypaw was staring at me intently. "What happened? Are you okay?"

"Yeah… I'm fine," I muttered, turning away from her. "No need to worry about me. Really."

"No, Petalpaw, I know that look," she insisted. "I didn't spend a whole lot of time around the medicine cat as a kit for nothing, you know! Shortly after you… well… left, I saw the same look on our mother's face; and… on a lot of cats' faces…. You were liked…." She trailed off.

"No, really!" I insisted. "I am totally fine. Don't worry about me. Please," I requested, in a quiet voice that sounded more like the one that I'd use in front of Rock and his cronies, rather than the Clan cats that I lived with now.

"Well, okay." Cloudypaw blinked at me. "Just tell me if there's anything I can help with, okay?"

As I turned away, I felt confused. I felt kind of angry at Cloudypaw for interfering, but there was something in my mind that was just telling me, asking me, saying that I seriously had to rid myself of the mentality that I wasn't a Clan cat. Maybe this was a good thing after all.

I guessed that I would just have to find out.