my heavy eyelids are threatening to fall closed. but today is the day. I know it. today is the day I escape and go back to my clan. I dash out through the small flap the twolegs made for me in their nest entrance. that was a mistake on their part. I run out, clawing my way up the fence. I’m close, so close. and then, against my will, I feel my eyelids closing. no. no. no! not now, not when I’m so close to being free. but it happens. ~ I open my eyes to.. Flurryclan? did it really work? did I somehow make it back to my clan? am I free? it hasn’t been two seconds until I hear a cry of grief. the sound I know so well, the sound I’ve made so many times. and it sounds like it’s coming from a kit. I run over to the source of the noise. as I get closer, I hear more anguish- sobs and screams. the familiar sound feels like someone’s twisting their claw through my heart. and then I see the kit. it takes a me second to recognize her, but it shouldn’t. because the kit is me. tangerinekit, the helpless little kit who lost everyone. eir best friend, xer mama. crying out for help, screaming, begging for someone to come and comfort her, tell e that everything was going to be okay. …but nobody came. no one cared about little tangerinekit. not until she became the medic who could save their lives. and then what? every single cat I healed. they all. got. worse. dapplepaw lost his eye, so did twigpaw. and then.. floatingpaw. he lost their life. because I wasn’t good enough. because tangerinepaw wasn’t good enough. and tangerinepaw has to be better. I have to be better. smilepaw’s just too nice to say anything bad about me. I’m trying to make them happy. and im failing. I lashed out at them. they just responded with sweet, kind words, like the sweet, kind cat they are. they’re too good for a cat like me. a mvrd3r3r. a coward. a good-for-nothing medic. tangerinepaw. that’s me.
