Chapter 15: In Their Eyes
The first thing I noticed when I woke up was the warmth on my back. I yelped like a little she-cat and bolted away from where Nettlepaw thought it was smart to sleep next to me. Along the way, I tripped over multiple other sleeping bodies, finally landing on an unsuspecting ginger tom. He growled beneath me, but didn't bother to get up. Every other apprentice opened their eyes, but didn't move. Nettlepaw, of course, walked over to me and licked my nose again.
"You're cute when you're sleeping." She mewed. Again with that word. Cute. What the freak does that even mean anyway?
"What is actually wrong with you?" I asked calmly, "Are you trying to get killed?"
Nettlepaw grinned, "I won't get killed." She said it enthusiastically. Like she really wasn't worried.
"Um, yeah you will."
"No I won't, I'm the best fighter my age." She puffed out her chest.
"You're so not the best fighter," The tom beneath me spat, "Nightpaw could beat you. Medicine cats don't even fight."
I scrambled to my feet. My claws were unsheathed, at I pointed an extremely sharp claw at Nettlepaw's face, "You dare lick me again, and you get a claw in your eyeball."
And that sentence, that triggered a chain reaction. It caused me to look straight into Nettlepaw's eyes, which were bright green. In them, I saw a shadow. A shadow of a single cat. And I saw Nightpaw next to the shadow. Nightpaw. In Nettlepaw's eyes. Which was insanely weird. Which caused me to have an insane pounding in my head for some reason. The shadow moved away from Nightpaw, afraid. Not afraid of her, no, afraid to leave her. Seeing that, made my throat constrict. I couldn't breathe. So I collapsed on the ground. My vision was red. The apprentices crowded around me, wondering what was wrong. I couldn't exactly hear, but I thought I heard some cat calling for Cloudbreeze. Then I blacked out.
After that, I saw the shadow and Nightpaw again. Right where Nettlepaw's eyes left of. The shadow was leaving her. Her eyes were watering, and I couldn't help but wonder why. Suddenly, sadness turned to anger. Nightpaw chased after the shadow. She attacked it. Blood filled my vision.
The blood cleared. Nightpaw Afraid. Scared out of her own skin all the time. Cats looked at her strangely. Afraid. They teased her. Made her feel worthless. Caused her to fear feeling. So she sold away her soul. Gave it away. All her emotions. All her personality. The only thing that remained was anger, fear, curiosity. No happiness. No sense of friendship. She was simply there. Listening, but never acting. Doing what she was told. Never venturing beyond the camp, unless she was told. Leaving the camp was what led her to murder anyway.
The only two cats there for her was Cloudbreeze and Nettlepaw. Nettlepaw was her happiness, in a way. And Cloudbreeze was everything else.
Even after everyone seemed to forget, there was still a nagging in Nightpaw's mind. A nagging that someone didn't forget the cat she killed. And that she would pay for it.
And then she met me. I saw our little interaction in her eyes. Her fear, was the fear she saw in her victim's eyes. The fear that dying would only make her disappear. That no one would notice her death. No one would care, but call me a murderer. The whole time, she was thinking about that. About the cat she killed. And how she regretted it. How it caused her to lose her soul. To lose everything she had.
Then everything went black. Again.
It's surprising how often you wake up and someone's staring over you. When you see them, all you can think is holy crap it's the devil coming to take my soul. Well, that's what I thought when I woke up to see Cloudbreeze right in my face. I yelped like a she-cat again. Again. Really hurts my pride, now that I consider that. Toms should never sound like she-cats. Ever.
"What's wrong with you?" Cloudbreeze questioned after she recovered from me hitting her square in the face.
I stumbled around for the right words to use. How would I casually say that I had just looked into Nettlepaw's eyes and learned Nightpaw's whole backstory? I mean, that's just messed up. So..."I looked into Nettlepaw's eyes and saw Nightpaw's whole backstory."
"Oh. Okay." Like nothing was wrong with that. She said it like nothing was wrong with me being able to travel into the mind of a cat and learn their history. Had this happened before? Had I literally just repeated history? Then she spoke again, with that magical mouth of hers, "So you know about her little issue?"
I smirked, devilishly because that's the way I do, "Oh, sweetie, I knew about her little issue the first time I talked to her." And Cloudbreeze's face got all red and stuff. Priceless. I had to contain my laughter. What anger can do to cats. Like make their face red. Red with anger. I like that. Like green with envy, but red.
"S-so you know that she's afraid to feel?" Cloudbreeze asked, avoiding my eyes. You know, now that I think about it, usually angry cats look at you straight in the eye. Maybe some cats' anger's just different. That's possible, I guess.
"Yeah, I also know that you and Nettlepaw make up her soul." That got Cloudbreeze to look at me. She tilted her head in confusion, so I tried my best to explain, "A cat's soul is extremely delicate. Sometimes if a cat doesn't want to feel anymore, she gives part of her soul to her closest friends. Or enemies. Whatever works. In this case, she chose her sister, and her mentor." I was done. I closed my eyes and let it sink in. Cloudbreeze didn't say anything. So we just sat there, letting this whole conversation dissolve into nothingness. And after I'm done collecting my thoughts with both eyes closed, I will pretend that this never happened. Go back to my normal life. Well, as normal as it could get.