His pelt strokes against my own intimately as he draws nearer. I hiss quietly as his teeth come close to my neck, his smile all fox and no cat. He stays just heartbeats away from my throat, and then draws himself up so that we're eye to eye.

"What a disgusting sentiment."

***

My paws flail in every direction as I awake, hitting Novapaw in the side several times. He rolls over with a wheeze as he's hit, but to my surprise he doesn't wake up. Peering outside, I find the obvious answer: it's still dark as Jetpaw- Stop thinking about him!- out here.

I sit by the edge of the apprentice den, taking in the greenleaf air, which is familiar from blurry memories. I wonder how warriors, who have seen the same seasons over and over again, compile all of their memories from each season.

As I while away the moments, which I've become adept at doing in the aftermath of nightmares, the sun comes up and all the apprentices rush past me, suddenly awake. Goldenpaw, Crowpaw, Thistlepaw, Novapaw, Sparrowpaw, Sharppaw... no, that's it. I get up and amble after them.

We race through the empty camp, and I notice Gingerkit outside of the nursery. She's smiling in an awfully familiar way. My fur bristles up in a manner that would probably mortify any reasonable mother, if Gingerkit had one. Gingerkit squeaks as she sees me, bounding away into the nursery.

The guilt takes a moment to set in.

Ashlea- Rushpaw, terror of the night.

No, Ashleap and I aren't quite the same. One of us is a peaceful medicine cat with a family and a clear head. The other is an apprentice torn between two times.

Ashleap is better.

The apprentices finally stop before the leader's den. "What's going on?" I whisper.

"No one told you, huh?" Sparrowpaw sighs. "I thought that was Sharppaw's job."

"Typical Rushpaw. Never has any idea what's going on." Thistlepaw smirks.

"Maybe she should get her head out of the clouds." suggests Sharppaw.

"Maybe all of you should stop bickering. Knottedstar is about to explain the rules for our warrior assessment!" Goldenpaw snaps, and that's the end of it.

Knottedstar emerges from her den and stands before us like the cliff overlooks the valley, unknowable, unreachable. There is a stony quiet in her demeanor that indicates that we are standing on the brink of something terrible.

"The test is seemingly simple, though in its nature infinitely complex. We have not had apprentices do anything of the sort before. Your success or failure will determine if we use such methods again." Something about her words sounds eerily like a threat.

"So what are we doing?"

Cinderblaze emerges from the inside of Knottedstar's den. "You will be navigating the tunnels." Cinderblaze tells us.

"We'll what?" asks Thistlepaw. "How does that prepare us in any way for warriorhood?!"
Knottedstar looks down at him with profound interest. "How does one afternoon of prey demonstrate that you have the loyalty or courage to continue said work for the rest of your life? The tunnels were used to assess the very first apprentices, long before our clan and long before the clan from which our first leader came. They were different tunnels, and there were different cats. It is true some anomalies have occurred in the tunnels before. Cinderblaze, Emeraldlight, and myself will be watching your progress, along with your mentors. If you do not return by sundown, we will organize patrols to save you."

No one argues. Sheepishly, Thistlepaw says, "So... what do we have to do?"

"There is a single tunnel up by the north, where the old camp was. We have marked a scent trail to it. You have the whole day to get there. You may not go above ground except for to check where you have come out and if you need help, do not yowl. You will attract... attention. Instead, stay where you are or if there's an exit nearby, dismiss yourself from the assessment entirely."

"That's all?" asks Crowpaw, astounded.

"That is all." Knottedstar assures her. "Are you ready to begin?"

"Yes!" we all say at once. Though the others look astounded by how easy this seems, I'm astounded that Knottedstar of all cats would send us down into the tunnels.

It occurs that this is a test for me especially, not just them.

Knottedstar leads us out of camp and the air grows still. A tunnel sits in the earth near the undergrowth as we approach it. Though I have seen it a million times before, the darkness in its depths is unsettling.

"You may begin." Knottedstar says, and one by one, we file into the underground. It's hard, as all of us barely fit, and must push ourselves in. Despite this, I smell Knottedstar's scent behind me and know that she can do it as well. While she seems larger than us, most of it is fur and good posture. As I continue deeper, her scent recedes and all I have is Thistlepaw's tail before me.

Soon, that too disappears into the darkness. Perhaps he made a turn somewhere I didn't and I continued. The disgusting earth is becoming suffocating, and yet...

Almost there.

I emerge into a wider chamber, big enough for me to walk around comfortably. I take in the scent of musty air and my nose burns.

At least now I'm able to look around. Unfortunately, I can't see much and there's no scent. I know I haven't turned from when I entered, so if I keep going, I should be home free to the north. I pile into another tunnel, a smaller one, and keep crawling. This emerges into another chamber. There's old badger smell, but this is clearly dormant. Nothing to fear.

I repeat this until my paws burn, and to my own delight, the smell picks up again.

Yes.

There's a crack in the next chamber. I've broken something beneath my paws.

Two eyes glimmer gold in the darkness, large and owllike. For a second, I think it's another cat. Has one of the mentors come to help me?

My eyesight has adjusted too well. Though I can't see detail, I see enough to know the beast before me is not a cat at all.

It looks like the creatures from my dreams, with too many limbs and mouth extended to an unnatural degree and curved into an unnatural upward slant. It speaks but all I can hear is loud moaning that trails off into a whimper.

It begins inching towards me, dragging itself along with every leg and every arm, and I edge backwards towards the chamber corner. Stone hits my back and I turn, looking for an escape.

It screeches even more loudly, picking up its gait, and I race around it. Something cold and slimy grabs my leg and I can't stop running. My paws burn as I turn into a tunnel and another one greets me in the next area.

"What do you want?!"

No answer.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

"Thistlepaw, where are you?" echoes a voice from above me.

Crowpaw.

"Don't leave me."

"Don't leave me down here alone."

I can't save her now.

Run!

It's almost on me when I look up.

My heart beats like that of a mouse right before it dies, for the few seconds when you hold a living creature in your paws and dangle its pitiful life in front of it.

I'm the prey now.

I stumble and fall, but to my surprise there's nothing there but me. The room is pleasantly warm and something makes my coat tingle. Sunlight. Has it been one day or four seasons?

I pace towards it, finding I don't care about my assessment anymore, and my paw hits something with a crack.

Bone.

Who died here?

Was it you?

There are flowers growing around the bones. An aster flower grows through the skull, taking in the small amount of sunshine from above.

I sniff the air. There's no smell. It's the wrong passage.

Give up.

I can't.

I want to.

I can't.

I feel unnerved without knowing why. Looking down, I place it- the skull is familiar. The slope of it. The length of the legs. The fragile ribcage that one carried a heart that beat for an entire clan, the eye sockets that once held orbs that saw demons, the tail with flowing gray...

My paws are shivering and I don't know why.

Why did I...

Your own body.

Your own flesh.

Which voice?

You can scream all you want. They'll never hear you.

Ashleap died in the tunnels.

I back away from the ugly ground, fear overwhelmingly strong, and flee. The scent. It's going to be over soon. I have to finish the assessment or some part of me will be stuck here forever.

The darkness engulfs me.

Surely, Lunarshine would know them like the back of her own paw, wouldn't she?

Oh no.

She's more afraid than I am.

In the darkness, the coarse texture of shadow brushes my own fur. A familiar scent catches the air.

A fox wails and I land on my back, struggling for breath as it dives at my throat. Blood opens up from old scars, new wounds interlocked with old ones. I hyperventilate as I stare into Jetpaw's foxish face.

He leans close to my ear, his eyes dreamlike. My heart beats like it does around Pyrewing and Novapaw, now commingled with pure icy fear. "What a disgusting sentiment."

"Yours or mine?" I ask.

He bends closer. "Would you like to find out?"

Everywhere on my body burns and my eyes grow wide. My every breath is fast as I'm held against my will, unable to move and barely able to think. The gut reaction is instant. A single paw gets loose of his grip and I aim straight for the throat, like a rogue. Instead of stopping and scraping down his chest, I dig further and further into the flesh.

He looks at me in shock before his body crumbles into the dirt.

Red. It's all over my paws.

It's just mud. It's just mud. It's just mud.

Fake fake fake fake fake fake fake.

I stumble back again, almost at the point of exhaustion, and like StarClan's voice in the darkness I catch the smell.

The last tunnel.
The exit.

I climb frantically upwards, the earth getting into my mouth and my fur but I don't care anymore. In desperation, I screech as I pull up onto solid ground. The north blows through my fur, the prevalent breezes against the hazy and slightly nostalgic warmth of greenleaf in the old camp.

Knottedstar looks down at me and warmth fills her gaze. I've never seen her so happy as she lifts me up, grooms me with her own tongue.

My breathing stills slowly. The sun is setting in the distance.

I made it.

"You passed." Knottedstar tells me. "Congratulations." The words are maternal. Does Knottedstar know what I've been through in the darkness?

Have the other apprentices experienced as much as I have? I turn around to see them all already there, purring and gossiping as usual- nonetheless, their conversations are a bit quieter than normal, and no one is play fighting or screeching petty insults.

I can't tell if it's because of my absence both mentally and physically from their group for such extended periods of time. Maybe it's because we're tired and ragged from crawling around in the tunnels all day. No matter what it is, they seem to have aged years within a single afternoon. There are ghosts inside their eyes. There's light where there shouldn't be. There's shadow where there wasn't before.

Do you think that they saw...

No.

No. I repeat their sentiment, unaware of who said what.

No and who cares?!
It's over.