Chapter 6: Goodbye

"I see other cats in my dreams... They wont tell me if they are dead or not. I don't know, I want you to come with me... I don't know if I can make it out there alone." I told him. He closed his eyes as if he was just thinking. But he just shook his head sadly.

"Im sorry Moon, I love my farm and all of the barnfolk that are with me. I do believe you when you say that you see dead cats in you dreams. Its not that, Im just too happy at my farm for me too chase after something that I am not even sure will work. What even was it again? Clans that your not even sure what it means?" He responded to me. I nodded sadly and then just looked away. The only cats I would meet that would stay with me were those cats in my dreams... And even then I wasn't all that sure they were real. Also... Squirrelflight had left me too, she didn't believe I could do it either... I would prove them all wrong.

"Alright Owl, I will spend the night here with you because it is already getting late... But in the morning... Im afraid I have to say goodbye to you... I will miss you, and I don't really know where I am going, so I might not ever see you again." I told him sadly. He walked over to me a pushed his pelt against mine. I would miss him, I missed Tristan too but this was a cat that knew how to make it out here. And I could have used his help.

"Can you teach me how to catch that rabbit though before we head back." I asked me. It brought I smile to my face and took my mind off of all that was happening for the moment.

"Of course, see the cats in my dreams teach me how to hunt... I know they are real, there's no way my mind could just think of things like that, things that I had never seen before." I said to him, he nodded and moved in closer to listen to everything that I was about to tell him.

"Alright go on... Its about to get dark and I'd like to give it a try before it is too late." He told me. I nodded and then continued talking trying to remember what Onestar had told me last night.

"First you want too make sure they are not in the direction that they can see you. They have a very good sense of direction. And you have to hide yourself so that they don't hear you like the mice would. Then you have to run as fast as you can to try and catch the rabbit." I told him, he nodded and then put his head down trying to think about all that I had just told him. It was a lot to take in and he would have to change his way of hunting.

"Okay so I do what you do? And when I get close I have to run?" He asked me, I nodded and then began heading further into the marshlands. "Its going to be late when we get back, there might be coyotes nearby so we are going to have to hurry and run once we get near the barnyard."

I nodded and then we sat back trying to smell if there were any rabbits nearby. But I couldn't smell anything nearby.

"Hey! You cats need a place to stay tonight? I overheard something about coyotes and those things are dangerous to be around, I have a place not too far away." Said a younger shecat, not too much younger than me but she had not fully grown to her full size.

"No, we will be okay. We will get back after I teach my friend how to hunt a rabbit." I told her. A little bit annoyed that the cat was going to be slowing us down even more. It would be super late by the time we got back, she was so loud that every rabbit nearby would have ran away at this point.

"Don't listen to that little fart... He's never seen a coyote in his life. He doesn't know how dangerous those things can be. Im sure we can spend the night here that way we will be safe from those things." He told the young shecat. She had her head down a little bit after what I had told her and I felt a little bad. I didn't mean to sound that way I just wanted to get back at this point... It was true that I had never seen a coyote in my life. If the stories that Tristan used to tell me were true then i didn't want to go and see one, and they looked a bit true by their reactions on their faces when they even said that word.

"Sweet, can you teach me how to hunt a rabbit? I've tried catching a few things but always fail and my owners just leave some stuff out for me in the morning so Im never all that hungry in the first place." She said to us. I guess I could teach her how too do it too but she was annoying me a bit.

"Sure, what you gotta do is try to sneak up on it in the direction they are not looking and make sure your body is lowered so if they do look or if they here you then hopefully they don't see you... Its just like catching a mouse, you just got to be quiet and make sure you can not be seen." I said to her. She looked a little confused. I shook my head, what about all of this did she not understand? I wanted to get this over with and she was slowing us down so much.

"I've never caught a mouse before." She told me. My goodness, this cat... She must have not listened to a single other word I said. She didn't have to catch a mouse to understand what I was saying surely right?

"My goodness... Just watch Owl after we share this meal together, I caught one not too long ago." I said to her. I then picked in up from where I had left it after she had started talking to us in the first place.

"Sorry mean cat... Im just curious I've never been out here like you have, besides you look like a kittypet like us." She said to me. I was a kittypet and I just wanted to get this over with. I was ready to go back and get some sleep after all that walking I had done in the last few days and all the hunting I had done today.

"That's because he is, or rather, was and Im not a kittypet Im a barncat, I dont really have any owners but the barnfolk give me food in the winters." Owl responded to her way more politely then I had to her. I would have been nicer maybe if Owl would have told me that he would come with me, and I hadn't had exactly the best sleeping patterns I had the last few days.

"I don't know what a barncat is... But it sounds cool! Alright its starting to get really dark so go ahead and show me before it gets too dark." She said to us. I picked up the rabbit I had caught earlier and she showed us the way to her place while we were sniffing around trying to smell if there was another rabbit anywhere nearby.

Suddenly Owl then stopped and then lowered his head. I then smelt the rabbit and turned it the direction he was heading. There was a rabbit with its back turned from us just eating up some small little pieces of grass.

Owl then began to head towards it doing it the exact same way I had shown him and told him. He was doing it perfectly...

Suddenly he jumped from out of nowhere and I was confused because that was not what I had told him to do.

"Run!!! Coyotes!" He yelled... I stopped and my heart began to race. I saw them from not too far away and they began to howl and more began to come from that direction. The rabbits had then already ran off.

All of the sudden my body then just stopped and I didn't know what to do. The shecat was already heading in the direction to her house and Owl yelled at me to follow and I began running.

I wasn't nearly as fast as either of them because I had always eaten a lot of food whenever I lived with my owners.

I kind of wished that I hadn't done all of that because then I could be going a lot faster than I was now. But I just had to clear that thought from out of my head as I was running. Tristan had told me about all those stories of how they would howl and keep on howling and then they would kill any cat in their sight. And for once I actually believed some of the stupid stuff he would say to me. Those things looked like they were pure evil and would tear me in half within a second.

"Quick! Im over here!" The told us. We then switched directions a little bit and I was then beginning the hear the paces of the coyotes getting closer and closer to us. I wasn't ready to die... I had a destiny this wasn't my way to go out... I couldn't fail all of those cats that were looking up to me, or rather looking down on me because they were in the stars as Firestar had told me.

"Why are they out here? We weren't that close to the foods!" Owl yelled. We kept on running not even thinking about talking.

Suddenly the shecat then hopped over a fence right ahead of us. This one was shorter but it looked more painful and you could see through it. Owl followed her and I was close behind. I jumped not as far as I needed too and easily got over it.

A few moments after that I head the coyotes land on the fence and they began gnawing on it. Suddenly an owner nearby opened the back porch and yelled and they ran off. It was the most scared I had ever been in my life, I was nearly 100% sure that I was about to die and follow Squirrelflight and Firestar to wherever they were at right now.

"Wow that was fun! I have no idea why those things were out there." She responded to Owl. I had just began sitting there trying to catch my breath. That was the fastest I had ever run in my life, even faster than that day those dogs were coming after me.

"Me neither, I thought for sure that we were gonners, there were about 6 or 7 of those things in that little pack." Owl told us. I hadn't seen enough too know how many there were I was just too busy running as fast as I possible could.

"Well welcome to my place... I have a little cat door that you guys can go through, if you guys live anywhere nearby than you can come and hang out with me anytime you want. I don't see other cats around this area too much and when I do they are a bit mean." The shecat told us. At this point I didn't even know her name but I felt a bit bad that I had been so harsh on her earlier. She seemed like a sweet cat and cared about anyone she saw.

"Thanks, my name is Moon, that cat over there is Owl, I'm not living with him, I've got a bit of a journey I have to go on but I will tell you about that in the morning, right now I want too sleep and eat and then go hunt something in the morning, I didn't get any of that rabbit I had to run that would slow me down way too much. Also Im sorry that I was mean its been a rough couple of days for me." I told her. She nodded and then we headed through the cat door. I had only heard of those, but Tristan had told me they were for stupid cats that would go outside and most of them would die. Maybe it was true, I hadn't really met any older cats out here, besides Night but she never went behind the fences she had told us.

"Yeah his owners threw him out and he got chased by dogs his first night out there." Owl told her. I would have liked to have been the ones to tell her that but it wasn't that big of a deal to me so I just let it slide. She certainly was a sweet cat and I had felt a bit bad for the harsh words earlier, I hoped that she would forgive me. She was let us stay in her place.

"Im sorry to hear that, no offense but maybe it is because you were a mean cat like you were earlier." She said to me just staring at me. I laughed and then just sat down on one of her couches. "Hey don't go there my owners don't like when I cat gets on there."

"Well, I wasn't mean before its true what Owl said, I've just had a rough few days and haven't been reacting to it all that well. And my owners threw me at because my male owner was mean and he always scratched my female owner." I told her. It was true, me and Tristan were good cats. It was a shame what happened to him, he wasn't exactly young but he didn't deserve that.

"Im sorry, my owners are always sweet and give me food, I just don't see them around much, sometimes they'll be gone a few days at a time, but they'll always leave plenty of food and water for me." She responded to me. My owners were never gone that long, and I wasn't too sure what exactly my male owner did besides sit around the whole day and yell at us.

"Anyways... You want too tell us your name? Moon already had told you ours." Owl said to her. She nodded back and then told us her name.

"My name is Mint, sorry I just didn't think about it after what had happened earlier, my minds just been stuck within those thoughts." She told us. Mint was a nice name, for a sweet cat such as herself. She looked very nice looking and sweet, it was a shame that I would have to be going early in the morning tomorrow. She would be a nice cat to have as a mate. She was nice a sweet and I had only met a few other shecats before and none of them were quite like her. I still felt really bad for the way that I had treated her earlier.

"Its okay, my mind is like that sometimes too... Anyways is there a good place I can sleep? Im tired and I will have an early day tomorrow." I told them. She nodded and then nudged us to go to the other room where there was another cat in there that was much older and his chin was completely grey as the rest of his body was brown.

"Hey Mint, was wondering where you were at, got some friends huh?! Its been a while since I saw some other cats." He said to her. He looked like a nice cat too, and it seemed a bit weird that they were both nice sweet cats, they must have been raised by some good owners.

"Yeah we got attacked by some coyotes! I'll tell you all about in the morning Hunter... We are so tired." She told the cat. He nodded and then quickly fell back to sleep. She had some small mats that were for cats that I had when I was really young. But then I had clawed it up and my owners had never given me a new one.

I sat down on the mat beside Mint and looked out the window through the fence at the vast world that was ahead of us. Soon I would be out there on my own and I would have to find those clans that Firestar and Squirrelflight would always be telling me about.

I took that thought into my sleep praying that Squirrelflight would come back and at least try to talk to me.

I woke up near the house that I used to live at, there were no fences this time and the house was by itself. Why was I here? I wanted to go by the lake and learn how to hunt, there were plenty of other animals like that bird that Night gave us the other morning. Surely I wasn't done with my training! There still seemed like there was so much that I would need to learn.

Suddenly I saw Tristan stare at me through the window which for some reason was opened. As soon as a saw him I ran up to him and then smiled. It had been so long since I had last talked to him, and if he was here then that definitely meant that those other cats were dead.

I hopped up the window but then suddenly noticed that he was gone... It was a bit disappointing I had wanted to talk to him for such a long time. Suddenly I heard him from the house but it was completely dark and I could not see a single thing nearby.

"Run Moon, run!" He yelled. Run from what?! Those things could not get anywhere nearby me. If he was talking about dogs at least.

But then suddenly I was back in the moor from yesterday and I was all alone. I heard the howling. There were coyotes nearby! I had to run like I did before.

I saw the fence that signified that I was near Mints house.

"She will be there!" I heard Firestars voice from inside my head. What did he mean! I suddenly heard the Coyotes running after me and I began to run as fast as I could.

But no matter how fast I tried to run it seemed like her house was getting further and further away.

Suddenly I heard dogs from the front right side... There were about 50 of them! I began running to the left side but there was another pack of coyotes over there too. They were smiling at me and then one began to talk.

"You can run! But no one will save you!" It told me. I had never been told my Tristan that coyotes could talk! If that was true then maybe I could have reasoned with them last night.

I looked in every direction but all I could see were Coyotes and dogs just staring at me, they were smiling and drooling, as if they were looking at me like their lunch. Which they probably were to be fair.

Then one of them jumped, I closed my eyes ready for the end.

I woke up and Owl was nudging me, he looked a bit scared and I was confused what was going on. There was a dog that was about to kill me a few seconds ago... But I shook my head trying to clear my mind from the thoughts of the dream last night.

"Are you okay?! You were yelling about dogs! You kind of scared me." Owl told me... I looked at him confused. I had no idea what he was talking about. All I had remembered from the dream I had was I was running as fast as I could and something was trying to get me.

"Yes Im okay Owl... I have to go now though... Goodbye."