Here you go, helloilovecats!

It started with an eye-- an eye of green and gold with slitted pupils that blinked slowly, deliberately. Then the pupil widened, expanded until it ate up the eye and the red around it.

Darkness. A whisper of foreboding. "Beware, Finchclaw."

His mate's fur ripped wide open, blood spilling from it creating a river of red, more blood than a thousand bodies could possibly contain. The bodies of all the kits he'd ever cared for suddenly joining the deluge of redness.

"The roots will strangle the prey, yet will thirst for more..."

The blood suddenly solidified and hardened into a brown scab, then twisted itself into a mockery of a living tree. It reached out with its roots and caught a squirrel, then a mouse and bird by the necks and squeezed.

The crack of their necks was impossibly loud.

"It will reach far, poisoning the hearts of others..."

The tree of blood split into more, and more and more trees, all twisted and crooked with bark rougher than any true pine or oak. Faces seem to be carved into the trees by an invisible claw, and their snouts twisted in malice. "Beware, little bird..." It was a gross mockery of a true mew, something that sounded more as if it had escaped a snake's mouth instead of one carved as a cat's.

"It will speak through the mouths of others, spreading darkness and fear..."

A cat suddenly materialized, then it was seized around the neck by the blood-trees. Its fur was a color that couldn't be defined as its mouth was twisted into a grimace. The roots squeezed, and a chocked mew escaped its mouth. "Beware us...fear us...run, little bird!"

Suddenly Finchfeather was standing there, his feet sunk into the marsh of the blood of his beloved mate and kits.

Guilt gripped him, latching onto as if he was its only lifeline. I'm sorry, he thought, though he didn't know how it was his fault, simply that it was his fault and his fault alone.

As if the thought had summoned them, they suddenly melted out of the blood-trees, horrible caricatures of the cats he loved formed of their own blood and connected to their source.

"Finchfeather...save us..." they cried, voices broken and warped. Kestrel reached out a paw, as if reaching for him from across a river.

And then there was a river, but it was black with something he somehow knew was sickness and death. It expanded, growing steadily and eating up the bloody ground until it lapped at Finchfeather's paws. One droplet touched him, burning like a thousand fires, and he yelped and leapt back.

Then the water suddenly rose up and covered him, no longer burning but freezing cold. He choked for breath, then saw his mate dive in to save him.

But instead, her claws sliced across his throat nearly, cleanly, without hesitation.

"No one is who they seem..."

He felt the blood streaming out of his neck, felt his body sinking toward the bottom, only there was no bottom, and he kept sinking, sinking...

Then he was outside of his body, floating above it all, just a pair of eyes once more. Yet he could feel the wind, knew that it blew with enough force to rip his pelt from his skin, knew that even claws sunk deep wouldn't save a cat from being blown away. And so it was that the trees of blood, despite their roots dug deep, were ripped out of the ground.

"Your enemy will be your friend..."

The marsh suddenly shifted to a surface with no discernable features, like the surface of a Thunderpath. The black shapes of cats leapt, clawed and bit at each other in terror, before suddenly turning, together to face a new force, three times their own.

One of the cat's pelts was suddenly visible-- a grey tabby, strong and tall at the front of the forces.

Creekstar.

The two newly united forces suddenly charged, with some staying behind to mourn the fallen, but they were ripped away by the wind and slammed against the wall of a cliff that hadn't been there a moment before.

Their blood formed the face of a cat, who opened his mouth and hissed, "Fear us, for we will destroy you..."

The forces continued struggling fruitilously, with Creekstar in the lead, against the gale. The enemy, though, seemed similarly affected. But then they pounced, slamming into the struggling cats.

The defenders suddenly split into two again, but their holds slipped, one by one, and their blood joined the others on the wall.

The face on the cliff wall purred.

"Unexpected heroes will guide them..."

The defenders then reappeared, joined once more as the attackers pounced again. Two small cats shoved their way to the front, shouting words he couldn't hear but he knew were of encouragement, reassurance.

"But beware, if one hero falls..."

One of the small cats suddenly fell, their blood staining the soil a red deeper than should be possible, before suddenly rising up and swallowing the rest of the defenders.

"...the Clans fall with them..."

Suddenly, Finchfeather was on the ground once more, in a body that was real, tangible. He looked up, seeing the cliff was above him, and suddenly heard the mews of the fallen, all of then uniting in his head and rising to a cacophony of noise.

"Save us..."

Another cat hit the wall violently, sliding down yet not dead, still breathing brokenly. "Help..."

The voice that had been ever present in his dream gasped. "No! Don't touch him!"

Finchfeather blinked, but it was too late-- he'd already reached and touched the wounded cat. He gasped then, found himself being sucked onto the mind of the strange cat.

Flashes of images then, a starved forest, a flooded mountain, a dried up river, cats so thin their ribs were clearly visible.

The same voice moaned in despair. "No...pay them no heed, young bird...StarClan demands it..."

But it was too late, Finchfeather already felt understanding, sympathy for the strange attackers. Then he saw, in an image clearer than the rest, the cat whose mind he now inhabited lash out and kill a grey tabby in a fit of desperation before being thrown to the wall.

Creekstar...he killed Creekstar!

The sympathy evaporated faster than the morning dew, and Finchfeather felt his body jerk away from the fallen cat, and his mind was free, free to think once more, in charge of his body once more.

Then he felt rather than saw light drench the battle field, and he was suddenly aware that he was lying down on something soft and green.

"Beware..."

Finchfeather's eyes blinked open, sudden terror seizing him. He turned to look at the kits, feeling a strange sense of relief for some reason beyond his understanding.

His fur smoothed. As usual, he hasn't dreamed.

But far away, he could still here a voice whispering: "Beware..."

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