I looked down my nose at Hannah's curled up form. She looked sad and cold, or a mixture of both, and I wondered why Blaze hadn't so much as twitched a whisker the day after the death-path incident.

Hannah was okay, wasn't she? My heart hurt that Blaze was gone, too, and I hadn't been able to get why his body didn't move after the death-trap hit him. Had it really killed him? If so, why hadn't it tried to eat his body, if the hunt was successful? Did humans just do things like that all the time? All these new words felt weird when I thought about them.

My stomach hurt, and I wished I didn't have those thoughts. Everyone looked so sad now that Fallan couldn't stand and my mother-cat's mate was dead. What did it even mean to be dead? I knew that it meant a cat couldn't move or stand up anymore, but where did they go after that?

"Mother-cat, where is Blaze now?" I rested my paws on her nose and wished she would look happier- in the two days since Blaze had been set into the ground, she hadn't played with me at all. She didn't raise her head to give me an answer. In fact, she turned it away but still swept her tail around me. I almost giggled because her tail was so fun to play with- but mother-cat's face showed she didn't feel like playing right now.

"He's with the Sky-cat now, in her hunting grounds. If it was night we'd be able to look up at him. But..." Hannah took a shuddering breath so I crawled forward, closer to her whiskers.

"We won't see him again until we go to join the Sky-cat, too," she finished. I thought she looked so down that her eyes were going to well up again but I couldn't tell because just then she turned her head towards me, burying her muzzle in my fur.

Poor Mother-cat. Why did the Sky-cat do that and take Blaze away from us? He was so nice, and always played with me. Plus, he was the only one who loved Hannah as much as I did. Something clawed at my chest as Hannah took deeper breaths, clearly trying not to show her sadness.

Spirit, Storm, Midnight and Aspen were talking quietly a few steps away. They seemed to do that a lot since Blaze had... Died. Spirit's eyes were still hollow and made me sad to look at, because they looked so much like Hannah's. She must really be feeling bad that her sister was hurt. Hannah must have, too, but even worse because her mate had died and her own sister had come close to that.

After Blaze had died, everyone tried to keep his body hidden from me but I'd still seen it without meaning to. It was horrible- I'd never even been scared before, until I saw that. Now I wanted to know what really happened- if the death-trap hit him, squashed him with it's huge paws, or hurt him in some other way.

And there was only one cat I would get the answers from.

My belly growled as I walked guiltily up to Storm, wondering if I could ask him to hunt. It seemed rude but it wasn't fair that I couldn't just hunt for myself now. One day Hannah had let me practice a hunting crouch while the other cats trained, but now I knew training was the last thing on everyone's mind. Still, somebody had to think about food, right? I'd heard Mother-cat say it before- we needed to hunt at least once a day for everyone to survive. Yet...

I wouldn't say anything about hunting. How might the big cats feel if they knew I was hungry? That might make them feel worse...

"Storm," I said confidently, and raised my tail when I walked up to him. His shoulders were hunched and I thought he had been watching Spirit, but I wasn't so sure now because his pine-tree gaze was on me. Was he glad someone was talking to him?

"I know the death-trap hurt Blaze really bad- but how did it?" He looked like he was rectulant to answer, but the curiosity was too much not to cock my head up at him. I just had to know.

"It just hit him so hard that he... Died." Storm, too, looked stricken to be talking about it but more uncomfortable then upset. I wondered why and studied him for awhile longer until he shuffled his paws. They seemed really big compared to my head, but I know I'm small.

"Sorry," I mewed and thought that my voice was really high compared to his.

"I just wanted to know if the death-trap actually trapped and ate cats," I said with my eyes trained on the ground. Well, the way I said it just made my question sound stupid.

"The humans control the death-traps, and they're the ones who put cats inside of their monsters to take them wherever they take them," Storm said. I was about to ask where they took them, but no cat would know because no cat had ever come back from there. And if Blaze hadn't been dead, they probably would of taken him, too...

"I miss Blaze. He was a good cat," I said sadly up to Storm. He looked odd, in a way where he didn't know what to say, so I crouched down and started my hunting crouch. At least Storm wouldn't have to talk about the sad things anymore. Did I?

Not really. In fact, maybe he would help me learn how to hunt better! Blaze had never done that before. I think he could tell Hannah wasn't very comfortable with it, but I wanted to learn so bad.

"You should tuck in your legs more."

"But Spirit said that I need to keep low so no prey sees me," I told him.

"You can. Just stretch out your body more," the big black cheetah said, and crouched down to show me. I studied his legs, tail, and the way his whiskers were hovering just right above the grass.

"You've got it perfect," he nodded. "The hard part is staying in that position while moving forward and taking tiny, tiny steps."

I hadn't very much thought about that. More about the crouching, and then jumping on a piece of prey. Just thinking about prey was making my belly hungry, but I wasn't about to say that to him now.

After I practiced a bit more, Storm showed me the best way to pounce from a stalking position and after that, he let me practice on his tail. By the time we were simply playing and the learning part was over, Hannah meowed for me.

"You shouldn't stay away from me for too long," she murmured, and started covering my head with licks. I thought she looked worried when she peered behind me at Storm, but soon Hannah's face turned back to the sad expression it had been before.

"Mother-cat," I said. She doesn't look up, resting her head on her paws.

"I'm hungry," I say quietly. I don't know how else to say that for the past two days I've been starving, and my belly is probably wondering what's going on out here.

"I'm sorry," Hannah begins to say with a sigh, and shuts her eyes closed tight. Maybe it was a bad thing for me to tell her, but I don't believe that she isn't hungry either.

Maybe sad cats don't feel hunger?

No cat has moved or slept (except Fallan) since we dragged her on this side of the death-path and buried Blaze.

"I can't leave the place where Blaze is buried," my mother-cat says quietly. My chest starts to hurt again so I sit down next to her and rest my muzzle on my white paws, just like she is.

"He shouldn't have died." Hannah says, and she is staring at the mound of dirt a few tail-lengths away.

"I know, Mommy." I'll let myself call her it one more time, at least, because I know I'm not an all the way grown-up cat yet. But I can't wait until I am, so I can hunt when everyone else is too sad and tired to do it. One day I'll be the one taking care of Hannah, Fallan and Spirit, the ones who played with and talked to me the most.

Midnight is nice, too, and Aspen was a human-cat kind of like me once, but they talked to me less than the big cats. I might have been called a barn cat, but before Hannah and Spirit had chosen to take me with them was hazy.

I wish I wasn't described as a barn cat once before, because I hate humans after what happened to Blaze.

"What are we going to do without him now?" Hannah said suddenly, causing me to turn my muzzle towards her. I pressed my nose and paws up against her cheek, trying to see if she was crying again or not. She wasn't, thankfully.

"We're going to make it to Cheetah Pride like Spirit says, and when I'm bigger I'll be able to hunt for us like Blaze did." I used to think that Cheetah Pride was only for cheetahs, but Spirit had told me that wasn't true. She'd also said it was a place where wolves never went and where prey was so easy to come by it seemed to run into your paws.

When Blaze had first showed up, he hadn't hunted for us, not really. At night he would go off on his own and deny the other big cats when they asked him to help catch prey. But then, as he started realizing he liked Hannah and me a lot, he'd caught prey for the both of us and acted like a father-cat towards me.

I missed him so much... It seemed like a long time until I would see him again, and I didn't know when that time was because I didn't know when my turn to join the Sky-cat would be.

Judging by the way Blaze's eyes had looked when we nudged him into the hole in the ground, it looked scary. Nobody had told me why his eyes were still open and why his legs looked like that, all messy and fleshy like chewed up fresh-kill. It made me shudder just thinking about it, and want to curl my paws around my eyes because it must have hurt really bad before he died.

Then I remembered Storm had said that Blaze was actually dead as soon as it hit him, like he died on impact. That meant he didn't feel any pain, right? Maybe?

If he was up there with the Sky-cat, I hoped he was happy now. But how could he be when he wasn't down here with us?

I lowered my head and turned away from Hannah. Fallan's body caught my eye, laid underneath a bush. The sounds of the death-traps whirring by were so constant now that my ears didn't really hear them, so what I heard above all of that was a weak cough from the small huddled shadow.

"She's awake again!" I meowed loudly so the big cats could hear. Midnight and Aspen came over, closely followed by Storm and Spirit, but Hannah only raised her head.

Without asking whether I could see Fallan, I bounded up to the shorter cheetah. It wasn't hard to move around the bush because it was so small. Plus, her paws were sticking out from below it. If she'd have been standing up, I knew, her ears and back would have been scraped by the top of the bush.

"I'm so hungry and thirsty," was the first thing Fallan said as I leaned forward with wide eyes over her. She squinted at me, as if it was hard to see- which it probably was when you had only opened your eyes twice in two whole days.

"Give her some space," Spirit ordered us so that she could bend forward to sniff Fallan and her hurt leg. Personally I thought it looked gross, all that nasty pink flesh that was twisted the wrong way. But still, it looked better than it had two days ago and it didn't smell like blood anymore. That was good, wasn't it?

"I'll go hunt now, since she's hungry." Storm said. I think he was glad to be doing something, and I didn't blame him. My paws wanted to play, or run, or do something.

"I'll get her water!" I said excitedly, but then thought- there wasn't any moss around here, only grass. Well, actually, there was a bunch of trees in the distance but I knew none of the adult cats would let me go that far.

Spirit was shaking her head, and her eyes looked crusty and red. Just like Hannah's, her pelt was clumpy and un-groomed. I knew mine probably was, too, and had tufts in certain places. Hannah hadn't recently been grooming me, and I cleaned my own fur a lot more now. It felt fluffy and cleaner when I did.

"We're going to have to move her if she wants to get a drink." The blue-eyed cheetah's voice was a lot quieter now, and I thought she sounded less confident. It would be hard to move Fallan. What if she couldn't stand the pain? If her leg looked like anything, it was definitely painful.

"Hannah, do you want to help?" The voice was Midnight's this time, who pricked her ears in Hannah's direction. My mother-cat looked pained and unsure, and when she looked back at Blaze's mound of dug earth I knew she didn't want to move away from it.

"Come on!" I urged her, running up and tugging on Hannah's tail with my own, though it didn't have much effect. Her tail was even heavy on my back as I finally got her to stand up.

"Thank you." Midnight said, and I smiled up at the black cat with big purple eyes but soon after I felt bad for smiling, because Blaze was dead and Fallan was very badly hurt.

"Okay, you get underneath her and I'll let her lean on me from her uninjured side." Spirit looked determined and hopeful while she put her paws underneath Fallan's flank.

When Hannah stepped up, she looked even more worried and scared than before. Spirit told Fallan to use her other three paws to try and stand halfway before she was lifted onto Hannah's back.

It looked kind of funny at first, Fallan gasping as she was pushed onto Hannah's back, and then almost sliding off until Spirit held her up from the side.

"It hurts," Fallan whimpered, clearly trying not to let her leg drag on the ground. Feeling bad for her, I moved behind my mother-cat to pick up her tail in my teeth so that it wouldn't drag on the ground. Sooner than I thought, though, Hannah stopped and I bumped into her legs. She was breathing hard from carrying Fallan just a few paw-steps.

"Diamond, please let go of her tail. Fallan, there's a puddle right in front of us and I'm going to put some grass underneath your leg so it doesn't hit the ground as hard."

"It's going to hit the ground?" Fallan asked, her voice loud and scared. I couldn't blame her and was curious how bad the injured leg must hurt, when even from scraping my paws on the ground in the mountains had made me want to yowl in pain.

Poor Fallan...

"Can I help?" I asked and Midnight turned to me quicker than I thought she would. I remembered when she had held me down in the ditch two days ago, not letting me run out on the death-path at all. Was I upset at her for it? I couldn't really decide, since she had both protected me and tried to hide me from the truth at first.

Then, I shook my ears. Midnight had done the right thing, and protected me. I pricked my ears up at her again, hoping my eyes shone like hers in the strong light.

"You can go get some of the tall grass around those rocks. Use your claws to cut it, or there will be clumps of dirt, too."

Yes! At least I could help. It wasn't as good as the one thing I wanted to do more than anything, which was hunting. But it would help my Mother-cat's sister so I was glad to do it.

It took me a few moments and I knew every cat was waiting on me so as soon as I made sure the grass was soft like a small nest, I gathered it up all in my jaws and went to give it to Midnight.

"I'm going to hold your leg gently while you lay down," Midnight said quietly, as if she didn't want any cat but Fallan to hear. Still, I leaned forward so I could hear what she was saying.

"It's going to hurt, but if we take you back to the bush that's going to hurt a lot more, and last longer," Midnight told her. I was afraid for Fallan now and so was she for herself, because she was panting and her eyes were wide and fearful.

"Okay," she finally said over her own shoulder. Her back left leg was gripped lightly between Midnight's small paws now, causing her to let out a groan of pain. I flinched from the sound, and then noticed that Hannah's legs were trembling from Fallan's weight.

"Hurry," I said to them, but it wasn't noticed because just then Fallan was slipped off of Hannah's back and her body was supported under Spirit, who was giving shoulder support.

Before Fallan's leg even touched the ground she began yowling, and Midnight had to hold it awkwardly while she used her other paw to scoop grass on the ground under it.

Fallan was screeching now, her eyes shut so tight that I had to flatten my ears. Great Sky-cat, that looked painful... What would happen if Fallan never got better? Would we have to stay here forever?

"It's okay," Spirit said over and over to the smaller cheetah until she stopped whimpering. Hannah glanced back over at Storm's grave and began washing Fallan's pelt in quick licks. Very soon after she had she looked at it again, and then padded away to lay right beside the mound of earth.

I watched her go, my chest thudding painfully. Hannah sure seemed upset that Blaze was gone, even more than the fact that Fallan was hurt. There wasn't anything wrong with that, I thought, but what about everyone else, like me and Fallan? Once Fallan got better, we would keep going to Cheetah Pride, right?

Then a worse thought crossed my mind. What if Fallan never got better, and she couldn't walk ever again? I would of asked Spirit about it, but she looked too sad to be asked such a thing and I didn't want to make her more upset. I'd already got in the way.

Thankfully I didn't have to think about that any longer, though, because Storm showed up with prey in his jaws and immediantly offered it to Fallan. Right after she had eaten and drank almost all of the puddle in front of her, she fell asleep.

Warm prey smells wafted towards me.

I looked both ways and realized no cat was watching me, so I creeped forward to sniff at Fallan's scraps. There was a few pieces of meat left, and as soon as I reached them my belly growled loudly. I didn't want to, but... I was so hungry. No cat seemed worried about eating right now, and I heard that young cats could die if they didn't eat for a long time.

Still, that was a thing for a bad cat to do, or an evil creature like the Howler. I knew that Fallan had stolen prey that was meant for me, once, back in the mountains, but I couldn't just steal hers... Not when she was so hurt, and lying right in front of me sleeping.

Instead, I turned away and crouched down, acting like I was stalking a mouse. If I pretended that this clump of grass was a mouse, maybe I would catch a real-life one soon. By the time Hannah called me back to her it felt like I was pouncing and stalking naturally, but I felt bad when I padded up.

Hannah was still staring at the mound of dirt where Blaze had been buried, her head on her paws and her body curled up.