Several days have passed of my recovery. I've mostly been asleep for all of them. The times when I wasn't asleep, I laid there thinking about Tornado.

One day, the pain in my back and legs feels light enough so that I can finally move. I peel myself off of the ground and scan my surroundings. The sky is its usual dull gray, and one of the tunnels are nearby. An entire crowd of cats are mingling in the distance next to a tree. I squint my eyes, uncertain of what I'm seeing at first, but it's true. There are so many cats there. What are they doing?

"Forest!" a loud voice calls.

My eyes dart over to Rain, who just climbed out of the tunnel. She races straight to me and breathlessly meows, "Are you alright? I'm telling you, Forest, there's been so much going on these past couple of days!"

       I nod. "What's with all of those cats?"

        "They're cats from all over Gardinia," Rain responds, wildly gesturing towards them with her long tail. Her eyes are wide and bright. She looks like she's going to run around the field in pure joy. "The war is over! Since Ice died, the leadership of the Superiors was passed on to Mirage. I don't know what you did to her that night, Forest, but she surrendered yesterday. Mirage, out of all cats, surrendered."

        My eyes widen in surprise. So Mirage is, in fact, alive. She must have fled from North when he arrived to rescue me and Ash.

        "That's great!" I meow. "So, does that mean the rebels win?"

        "Well, of course they won, silly!" she purrs, lightly poking me in the chest with her paw. "And now everyone in Gardinia has gathered to decide what to do with the damages caused by the war . . . and what to do with the Earth cats." This time, she gives me a sympathetic look.

        "There's also some bad news," she cuts in before I can say anything. "Not anything to do with the end of the war or the meeting, but . . ."

        Rain's speech drags off, and her gaze falls to the ground. The joyful mood that she had before suddenly disappears. "I'll explain what happened. Want to walk with me to the meeting?"

        I nod, and we start walking. The air lately has been much chillier than before, icy and cool against my fur. I've heard from the others that this is the start of the cold season. I figured out that the seasons apparently don't work the same here as on Earth.

"What's wrong?" I ask, peering over at Rain. It must be really bad news if even Rain is so affected by it.

Rain stops so abruptly that I almost walk ahead of her. I take a step back and stare at her. She still refuses to look directly at me, and her ears are flattened to her head.

        "Rain?" I touch her side with my tail.

Her voice comes out as a soft whimper. "Forest . . . Ash died last night. His injuries were too much for him to handle."

        A dark, doomed silence stretches between us. The world starts to spin around me, so I sit down next to her as the realization quickly overcomes my mind.

        "Oh, Rain," I whisper. I try to think of what else to say, but that's all that comes out of my jaws. "Oh, Rain."

        With shaky paws and flattened ears, she sits down next to me. We just sit there and quietly stare at the sky as if we can see Ash's spirit up there. The cool breeze ruffles our fur. It makes my entire body shiver, but it's a brief distraction from the sadness that engulfs me.

        A moment later, she explains, "I'm trying not to show my sadness to everyone else, but it's hard. He was like my guardian. I told him everything. I trusted him."

        The darkness of the night. Mirage's treacherous, glowing eyes. And blood, so much blood.

        My heart quickens until it slams greedily against my chest, and my eyes widen and glaze over as my ears ring. It feels like Mirage is choking me all over again; my throat keeps getting tighter until I can barely breathe.

         "Forest! Are you alright? Forest!" Rain repeatedly screeches my name as she stands up and shakes my body with her paw.

        Shortly later, my breathing clears up as I force myself to take deeper breaths. Once I recover from the panic attack, I turn to her and gasp, "It should've been me. I should have died, not him."

        And then I spill everything to her about what happened that night. How Mirage and I barged into the fight and found Stripe, how Ash eventually managed to kill Ice, and how I wasn't able to get help in time because I became occupied with attempting to fight off Mirage. When I finish speaking, I am so washed up with guilt that I can't even look at Rain anymore. I stare at the crowd of cats in the distance instead.

        "Forest . . ." Rain softly brushes her tail against me. "Of course it's not your fault! I knew you were there, Forest. It's alright. You did your best at defending him, and that's all that matters. Come on."

        She nudges me and continues to walk. Releasing a sigh, I stand up and follow her.

        After another moment of silence, Rain quietly meows, "You know, I've already been trying to find peace. Before he died, we told him that the war ended, and he looked satisfied and . . . at peace. It makes me happy that he died achieving what he wanted his entire life."

I stare ahead of me, focusing on the lone tree in the distance.

"Is North okay? I heard he saved me."

Rain snorts. "Him? He came out unharmed. Mirage barely even touched him. As far as I know, she just ran off as soon as he appeared."

Once we arrive to the meeting, everyone turns their head to look at us, and I suddenly feel self-conscious. The wound on my back starts to sting again, so I keep my gaze on the ground and sit somewhere behind all those cats so that I wouldn't be as noticeable.

As usual, Rain stays at the center of the crowd, being her usual talkative self and trying to figure out what happened while she was gone "taking a break," as she casually mentions to the others.

"We found a solution to dealing with the Earth cats!" someone yowls.

My ears perk up, and I push through the sea of cats to get a better view. Two cats I don't recognize drag a young, terrified-looking feline in front of everyone else.

"She says she can take everyone back to Earth!" one of them meow, pointing their tail at the cat, whose gray fur is bristled with nervousness.

I squint at her and realize that I, in fact, recognize her. She was one of the cats that Ash used his power on back when I was a rebel. The group of cats around me cheer excitedly. Their eyes shine with happiness, a deep contrast to their fur, which is full of dirt, dust, and wounds. When I look at my own fur, I realize mine looks the same. A dark thought comes to me about what the Superiors had done to us.

When I peer over at the clan of Superiors, some of their fur is bristled in anger. Most of their tails are drooped to the ground. Despite their anger and sadness, none of them speak out, though. That's when I notice that none of them had the leadership and power over everyone else like Ice did. Now that he's gone, they don't know what to do. They are scattering apart.

Rain says to everyone that the cat can only take one Earth cat at a time, but that they would eventually get to all of them.

Some of the Earth cats start to rush forward, but Rain stops them by blocking the way. "Hang on. One of the Earth cats here had contributed to the last battle, and I would like to give the first spot to him. Forest, can you come over here?"

My heart skips a beat as she looks at me. For a moment, I feel like my paws are stuck to the ground, but I force myself to slowly walk forward to Rain. Everyone turns around and stares at me, and the fur on my back prickles.

As I limp to her, she yells to the crowd, "In case any of you are wondering who this young tom is, he escaped from an Earth-cat camp to join Team Gardinia. He battled for the sake of the rebels, and he was an important part of our win."

When I finally get to her, she gazes at me sadly and meows, "Thanks for everything, Forest. I'm going to miss you."

She steps to the side, clearing the way to the cat with the same power as Ice had. I start walking to her, thinking about Earth and its animals and sky.

But then I stop. I turn and look back at the others. North is ironically standing in the middle of the crowd of regular cats, away from the other Superiors. For a brief moment, I lock eyes with him, and when I look away, I remember things. My power. My unfinished business with Mirage. Tornado.

        I shake my head and murmur under my breath, "I can't leave."

        "What?" Rain hisses to me. "What's the matter?"

        "I can't leave," I say, this time louder. "I'm glad that everyone else can leave. I really am. But after everything I've been through, I just can't go back and pretend that none of this happened. I'm sorry."

Suddenly, everyone's eyes feel like flames burning holes through the my fur, and I can't stay here. Bowing my head, I bolt away and into the fields. I keep running until the stabbing in my back forces me to stop. Just as I recover from my run, North bursts out of nowhere and hisses, "For goodness sake, Forest, why didn't you go? You said the other day that you missed Earth!"

"I know," I pant, looking up at him, "but I viewed the negatives to going back to Earth, too. Do you imagine what would happen if I accidentally turned on my power in front of the humans? I would be a freak show to them for the rest of my life!"

North is obviously ignorant about the crazy things humans on Earth do sometimes, since he snorts, "Yeah, so what? Is that the only thing that held you back?"

I grit my teeth at his annoying voice and growl, "No, but if you keep saying snarky comments, then I'm not going to tell you why else I ran."

"I won't say anything."

I give him a blank stare. "I don't believe you."

"Yes, you do."

"No, I don't!"

"Hey, I saved your butt from Mirage. You better tell me, Earth cat."

Of all moments, why did he have to remember that now?

"Fine," I groan. "You win. I met so many cats here, and I didn't want to lose them. You know, I didn't have any friends on Earth. All of the cats in my town stayed inside with their humans except for me. I had someone who was close to me, but I found out the other day that he was taken to Gardinia before me and . . . dead. I might eventually go back to Earth, but now isn't the time."

North stays quiet as the grass lightly rustles behind me. I assume wind is the cause of the rustling until North slightly cranes his head and peers behind me. "Hey, Rain, do you think this loser is telling the truth?"

When I look behind me, Rain is sitting there and purring in amusement. "Ha, I can't believe both of you guys just noticed me! I've been sitting here eavesdropping for your entire conversation. And, of course, Forest is telling the truth, Fluff-brain."

North's fur rises as he gives Rain an unblinking death stare. "Call me that one more time, and I will scratch your guts out."

"Call you what?" Rain's eyes are wide and innocent-looking as she stares back at him. She purrs, "Come on, you know I can beat you in a battle before you can even say rabbit. Get out of here, Fluff-head!"

The fluffy cat falls silent as he continues to stare at Rain. Finally, he glances at me and mutters under his breath something like "Once an Earth cat, always an Earth cat."

And then he lumbers away, leaving Rain and me alone.

"You know," Rain remarks, "I really feel bad for you sometimes. That cat can be alright some of the time, but mostly, he's a pain in the butt."

I meow, "He seriously listens to you, though. I wonder why."

"Probably because I used to be his leader." Rain snorts.

After we stop talking about North, she looks at me with concern and asks, "Are you sure you're staying?"

This time, I nod without hesitation. "Yes. Do you want to walk back to the meeting? I want to talk to some of the Earth cats before they leave."

And I know that everything will be okay, now that the war is over. One thing that I know for sure is that I'm safe. No one will try to kill me anymore.

I finally know my fate.

~~~~~~~~

That was the last chapter, guys! I had so many ideas on how to end this book, and it was difficult trying to choose which one to use. I think I like this one, though!

Don't delete this book from your library yet! There's going to be an epilogue coming up, and I promise it will make up for all of the deaths. 😊

~Midnight 🐈