Chapter Ten
Lost Leaves

It had been three days since Flowerkit had escaped the fox.

Three days of living in a haze, tired, hungry, and lost. Three days of traveling in circles, gradually losing hope of finding anything familiar. Of scanning the trees for a landmark he might have seen before. Of searching for any sign of Jake or another cat he knew. And there was nothing.

To make matters worse, the forest around him was changing before his eyes. The leafy canopy above him was dominated by yellows and reds instead of standard green, and some trees had no leaves at all, just bare branches outlined against the sky. The days were growing colder. Chilly breezes wound through the forest, sending loose leaves dancing and making Flowerkit shiver with the cold.

He remembered Ashenbird telling him a little bit about the changing of the seasons. He had been born in greenleaf, which meant that the weather was warm and mild and prey was plentiful. After greenleaf came leaf-fall, where the leaves fell and all the forest was busy preparing for leaf-bare which, according to Ashenbird, was horribly cold and where snow (little white specks that melted on your fur) fell from the sky like rain. Then new-leaf would come and everything went back to normal. This had to be leaf-fall, Flowerkit thought, watching with little interest as a gust of wind sent big brown leaves scattering in front of him.

The blown leaves made so much noise that Flowerkit almost missed the young squirrel dashing through them, carrying a small pinecone. It was either completely oblivious to Flowerkit's presence or just too stupid about the danger he posed. Instinctively Flowerkit sprang forward, his claws outstretched. He missed the squirrel and it chattered in surprise, starting to run away, but Flowerkit recovered faster and slammed his paw down on its tail. The squirrel pulled free, leaving only a few shreds of fur in Flowerkit's claws. The furious kitten charged after it as it ran for the nearest tree and launched itself onto the trunk. However, Flowerkit was close enough behind it that as the squirrel hit the bark Flowerkit's claws hit the squirrel and he dragged it back down. After a brief struggle the squirrel went limp and Flowerkit, his chest heaving, held his prize proudly in his jaws. He lied down right where he was and began to eat.

It hadn't been too hard to find food for himself the past few days, as most of the small mammals were so intent on gathering food for the winter that it was easy to sneak up on them. However, Flowerkit's hunting skills were still weak and most of his hunts were messy ones, when he caught the prey at all. But he was surviving, so that was good enough for him.

Later, as the sun began to set, Flowerkit curled up at the base of a beech tree full with golden leaves, his fur fluffed up against the cold. It was difficult to fall asleep because he kept shivering, but the small tom was so exhausted from wandering all day that finally he just gave up on trying to stay warm and let sleep overcome him.

His dreams were a confusing jumble of darkened images. Voices echoed in his ears, cutting out and ringing back strongly with words that Flowerkit couldn't make sense of. "Under the... darkness..." In his dream, all was black, except for a pair of orange eyes blinking at him from the shadows. "Under the cover of darkness..." The eyes disappeared, and Flowerkit looked down to see blood pooling under his paws, staining the black fur around his claws a dark crimson. "Petals..." Suddenly a mass of scarlet leaves swirled around Flowerkit, obscuring his vision. He cried out, and he heard someone call his name in return. In the gaps between the leaves still circling around him, he saw what had to Ashenbird and he yelled out for her, but the leaves battered back at him and he couldn't run towards his mother. Flowerkit was crying out again when all of a sudden the air stilled and the leaves dropped, leaving the kit surrounded by unbroken darkness. "Blood-red petals will fall." 

The next morning, Flowerkit blinked open his eyes to discover that the world had turned golden and he also could not breathe. The kit gasped and sat up, and as he did so multiple somethings slid off of him and he found himself sitting in a massive pile of loose yellow leaves. The world had not, in fact, turned to solid gold. Confused, Flowerkit gazed skyward. The beech he was under had shed every last one of its leaves during the night and they had blanketed him as he slept. The tree's bare branches made it seem almost vulnerable.

Grumbling, Flowerkit stood, shaking the last few leaves from his pelt. It was time to keep moving.

Pawstep after pawstep Flowerkit walked, his movement due more to momentum really than his own strength. He plodded along the forest floor of broken leaves with certain deadness in his eyes. He was hungry, he was tired, he was cold, and underneath it all, a desperate loneliness had engulfed the tiny black ThunderClan kitten.

He didn't know his purpose anymore.

Flowerkit stopped walking. "I- I'm lost," he sniffled. Then, louder, "I'm lost! Ashenbird, where are you?"

A raven cawed loudly overhead. Startled out of his tears, Flowerkit looked up, his gaze seeking out the large black bird. It was huddled on a bare overhanging branch, outlined starkly against the autumn sky, and it seemed to be watching Flowerkit with its beady eyes. It jerked its beak when it saw that the cat had noticed it. The raven spread its wings to their full extent, showing off its impressive wingspan, and cawed shrilly once more. Slowly, it tipped over, and fell into a dive, pulling out just in time to skim over Flowerkit's head before gliding deeper into the trees. The kit could still see it as it fluttered into another tree to perch there. Its beady eyes met Flowerkit's once again.

Flowerkit wasn't sure if it was curiosity, pure loneliness, or just anger at nearly being dive-bombed that made him follow the bird.

He turned and padded after it, his tail twitching with more interest than he had shown since escaping from the fox's den. His ears were pricked forward, his orange eyes a little more alert than before. The raven cawed and flew to the next tree.

The chase went on, with the raven flapping from tree to tree and Flowerkit running after it. They zigzagged through the forest, and just when Flowerkit was starting to feel as though he was completely wasting his time and energy his paw caught on a protruding tree root and the kit was sent sprawling. The raven winged away out of sight, cawing raucously as though to laugh at him.

Spitting curses, Flowerkit regained his feet and stopped to brush the dirt off of his whiskers. It was then that he noticed a distant roar of noise that he hadn't been aware of while he was running. Curious once more, he trotted a few steps forward... And found himself blocked by a high barrier of strange silver threads.

The trees gave way to this odd barrier, and on the other side of the threads was a square, boxed-in clearing containing even stranger objects and on the other side of the clearing was a solid gray wall. Flowerkit's fur bristled. He had never seen such bizarre structures, but he had a feeling that twolegs were involved.

Ashenbird had told him a little bit about the peculiar creatures. They were tall, with unnaturally colored fur except for their hands and faces, and traveled in the bellies of monsters. They made outrageously large dens for themselves out of unfamiliar materials and sometimes even kept cats as pets. Flowerkit shivered to think that he had stumbled upon one of their dens.

But he couldn't turn away now that he had found something so strange. It needed to be explored NOW.

He cautiously reached out and tapped the silver thread-like barrier with a paw. The threads were hard, but the whole wall of threads wobbled from his touch. Flowerkit jumped back in surprise. It didn't look like he could push through it, and he didn't have nearly enough courage to try climbing it. He looked around for another point of entry, and noticed that further along the silver barrier changed to a wooden one. He trotted over and tapped it. This one remained unmoved. The kitten's teeth showed in a satisfied grin. He could probably climb this one.

He reached up, placed his paws on the wall, and dug his claws into the wood. In a swift motion he leaped up, found purchase with his back claws, and pushed up again. In no time at all he was at the top of the wooden fence. He was a little surprised to find that the tops of the strips of wood tapered into points, but he found that he could still balance fairly easily.

In shock Flowerkit realized that the square of grass he was looking at was not the same as he had seen through the silver thread fence. It was a different clearing entirely, backing onto a different twoleg den.

Flowerkit twitched his whiskers. This definitely needed more investigation. He walked slowly along the top of the wooden barricade, avoiding the pointy tips, and followed the fence when it changed direction to go towards the huge den thing. Yet another fenced-in square of grass could be seen on the other side.

The small black cat followed the fence until he reached a point where he could jump onto the top of the twoleg den and get a higher viewpoint. It was an easy distance to leap, but the roof's surface was slanted and he nearly slid off before finding his balance again. The top of the den was covered in weird stone-like squares that Flowerkit couldn't dig his claws into, and it felt unsafe. Very cautiously he picked his way to the edge of the roof, on the opposite side from the square clearing, and his heart thudded when he saw what awaited.

Laid out in front of him was the sprawling maze of the twolegplace.