Jaypaw stood with his paws on the edge of a tunnel; it made him dizzy to think that the world ended at this one small opening and another one began.

The newleaf wind never failed to make itself heard. It toyed with the long grass that surrounded his lanky frame; Jaypaw could feel its gleeful dance.

"Are you ready?" Cranberrystripe asked.

Jaypaw didn't respond immediately. It hadn't quite sunken in yet. Being a tunneler. Being a warrior. Part of him wanted to speak it aloud into existence. Part of him wanted to roll it under his tongue and keep it there forever. Going down this tunnel would make it real - and Jaypaw wasn't sure he was ready for that.

"Well, sometimes a warrior has to do things when they're not ready," his mentor said with a sigh. "Follow me. I'll keep my tail on your shoulder, or against your cheek at all times."

"No!" Jaypaw said loudly. "I think I'll just go." With a determination to prove himself wearing a coat of a reckless streak, he bundled his muscles, preparing to venture down the hole.

"I don't think so, Jaypaw!" Cranberrystripe exclaimed, surprise coloured violet in her voice. "No tunneler apprentice can just walk right down a tunnel. I know you like your independence, but you're going to stay right behind me." She instructed.

Jaypaw clenched his teeth.
"Sure sure, whatever you say," he muttered.

"And remember tunnelers work in pairs or groups of three. Nothing smaller, and usually nothing bigger. If a tunneler is alone it's just too dangerous. And large groups can get in each other's​ way and again, cause danger." The tortoiseshell's tail brushed Jaypaw's as she started to move forward; he shuffled behind her.

The world darkened around Jaypaw, his world, previously appearing a muddy mix of yellow and red, merged into black. Simultaneously, coldness curdled in his stomach; the air was damp and cool, radiating from the surrounding soil. Jaypaw didn't care so much for the sudden darkness, sure, it changed the colour of the world around him, but it wasn't like it affected his sight. After all, he didn't have any. He felt this way whenever he woke from a dream, where the world was clear around him, where he could see. Only to wake up blind. What was jarring to him was the sudden feeling of being stifled. There was no wind, no air that every WindClan warrior needed. The sky was locked behind thick layers of earth, it felt terrifying, terrifying, terrifying.

With a scramble of sudden panic, Jaypaw turned to flee the tunnel. He felt too enclosed down here. The dirt walls seemed to suffocate him.

"Jaypaw, calm down." Cranberrystripe's soothing, honeyed voice trickled over the crevices his anxiety had left in his skin. For once, her insufferable voice has its uses.

"Sit down," she murmured. He did, mind numb and fear flickering. She sat and faced him, soft paws placed steadily on top of his own. Her touch brought a kind of peace to him; he let a shuddering breath out. It creaked inside his ribcage.

They sat in silence for a short time, though it felt longer to Jaypaw. It wasn't an awkward moment, but a calming one. A peaceful one.

"Guess I'm not much of a tunneler," Jaypaw mumbled, his head turned away from his mentor.

Jaypaw could feel her shake her head vigorously​ in response.
"No, no no!" Cranberrystripe purred. "Most new apprentices find it really freaky coming into the tunnels for the first time. I'm surprised you didn't actually run out! Most do. The sudden darkness is a lot, and we WindClan cats like being close to the sky. Feeling closed in is terrifying for us." The molly paused. She spoke through a smile, it curled the sugars in her voice. "Trust me, the first time I went into the tunnels...It took me a whole quarter​ moon to face going back. Then again, I'd been a moor runner for moons." She stood up. "Come on Jaypaw, let's keep moving. You seem up for it."

Jaypaw blinked, his surprise as grating as flint.
"You were a moor runner?" He reminded himself that he shouldn't care so much about Cranberrystripe, after all, he wouldn't be under her mentorship forever. Harestar would soon see that he could be apprenticed to anyone, not the local disabled cat.

"Well, I had two seeing eyes once, didn't I?" She replied, offering him one scrap of information, like feeding a carcass to a prisoner.
"Now, are we moving or not?"

But Jaypaw stood still for a moment. Cranberrystripe was made a tunneler after she lost half of her sight. So Harestar really was making him a tunneler because he was blind! The thought felt fraying in his throat, he had to choke drown bones of a sparrow blocking his breathing.

As he followed, Jaypaw was surprised to find the tunnel much different to what he expected. The soil felt strong and tough underpaw, not earthy and dry like he expected. There was a kind of clammy dampness against his soft paw-pads. It wasn't like soggy flooded grass after days of leafbare rains. It was a feeling all on it's own.

He tuned out of Cranberrystripe's babbling, it didn't matter to him what kind of projects the tunnelers were working on. After all, he'd be a moor runner soon. Being a tunneler was...good. He didn't mind it. But he didn't want to be one out of pity.

"Jaypaw? Are you listening?"

Jaypaw then proceeded to crash into Cranberrystripe's rump. He immediately jumped backwards. Great StarClan, he'd bumped into a warrior! Bumping into a warrior was so disrespectful! If Crowfeather caught wind of this...

A high-pitched laugh erupted from the molly's throat and the tunnel echoed it back to them. Jaypaw's face tentatively cracked into a smile, quite sure she would cuff him over the ear any moment now.

"Well, there's my answer!" Her giggle faded.
"Jaypaw, come on! It's your first time in the tunnels. You were lucky enough to be chosen for this rank and you're not even making an effort!" This time Jaypaw could hear threads of anger tighten in her voice. He could imagine them wrapping around him like that terrible gorse bush, trapping him inside it.

She wasn't the only angry one. He turned away with a sharp exhale from his nostrils.

He could feel Cranberrystripe's sunhigh gaze capturing him in her blinding glare.
"Well, Jaypaw, since you've decided you don't need to learn, how about you find your way out of this tunnel. You'll find an opening, and guide us out of here." The anger in her voice simmered to something akin to excitement.

Jaypaw didn't understand quite why she was so happy all of a sudden, but he despised it. He despised her ability to be so annoyingly cheerful all the time.
I suppose she thinks this is her chance to prove how I have no clue what to do and why I should listen to her and all that haredung. I bet she wants to show me just how better than me she is, all because she still has one eye!

"Sure." With a voice that could slice skin, he stalked past her, pressing himself against the defined walls.
She forgets how used to the darkness I am. I know how to get out of places without sight.
He walked with a stiff spine and slight caution, whiskers brushing the right side of the tunnel, feeling along it for any change from plain earthy walls.

He could now begin to pull apart the scents that clung deep to the solid walls. No longer did the smell of dirt overpower everything. Now he could smell scents of cats. Cranberrystripe's scent of dead heather crackling underfoot. Violetspeckle's smell of freshly killed rabbit on snow. He could recognise the scent of Heatherpaw's mother anywhere, he'd shared a den with her for so long.
Other scents he could vaguely place to a name. The smell of a river on a stormy day. Must be Swallowtail, she and her sisters carried the scent of a river, but her sisters were moor runners. That kind of clarity calmed his demolition heart.

And then he could smell a lightness, a floral openness than he knew was the world above. And then he could feel it too. The warmth on his face. The change in the air around him. It didn't feel so heavy, and it felt more absent, as if he could chase to the sun and yet would never come close enough to catch. And last, he noticed the pure black that had encompassed him now lingered redness and hues of yellow that curled in the air. Light. Air. Above.

Jaypaw noticed the vacancies in his chest now more than ever. There was a hollowness that had crawled into the space between his bones and built a nest there, a body inside him. Being in the tunnels seemed to emphasise that, dragging the parasite out of its hiding and pacified it with something like hunger, a need. And now Jaypaw felt it. An odd pull from somewhere in his gut, his heart, dragging him elsewhere. It felt deep, embedded within him. He paused. He'd never had this before.

It burned underneath his skin, almost physical in its pull. He gasped as he felt it flowing through him, coming in waves that made his head dizzy and his stomach rupture into his ribs, and then dipping into the blackest of feelings; his lungs shriveling and his bones bruising.

"Jaypaw? What's wrong? Why are you just standing there?" Cranberrystripe asked, her hot breath slipping along his spine.

"I...I think I feel sick," he meowed shakily, words as jagged as his first breath.

"You think? Have you got tunnel nerves again?" She questioned him once more. Her voice blue-tinted, the opposite of festering. She thought he was just scared about the tunnels.

Anger peeled from his hollowed heart, a burst of yellow and rancid rage. He puked it over the tunnel floors, acidic remnants of moons of torment heaving from within him.
"It's not tunnel nerves, okay! For StarClan's sake! You help too much when I don't need your pity, and when I actually need your help, you don't care!"

His sudden explosion left them both in a state of shock. Dripping in the sickness of it all.

"Oh, Jaypaw, I'm so sorry," she murmured. "I didn't know you were so upset. Jaypaw, you've got to understand you're a hard cat to read. Sometimes I think you're okay with something and the next minute you're not. I can't tell when you're upset because you're always so angry. You're short with me. I'm fine with that, Jaypaw, really. But how can I know how to treat you when I don't know how you feel?"

Jaypaw. He hated the way she constantly said his name. Appealing to him, offering him honey to placate him. Well, she'd stuck her paws into the beehive, and bees sting.
"Yeah, well stop trying to know me. I've only been apprenticed to you for three sunrises! Stop expecting to get into my head!" He turned around sharply, lips pulled up into a snarl.

"Jaypaw, how can you expect me to know how you think when you don't let me in?" She began, tone so annoyingly gentle.

Jaypaw said nothing, he merely scoffed as he clambered out of the tunnel, paws digging into the earth as he climbed the small slope. Every part of him begged to run, escape from his mentor, escape from the tunnels. But he knew he could run until his paws tired and his body ached, yet he would still never see more than light and dark. His blind eyes would follow him even to StarClan.

He stood still, letting the air roll over his body, relishing its fresh feel. The scent of blossom and newleaf didn't pacify his anger, but it brightened his eyes and split his spine.

His ears swiveled to capture the sound of Cranberrystripe's paws carrying her out of the tunnel. The muffled, heavy sound of paws in the solid dirt was replaced with a crunch and a brush as she walked through the grass over to him.

"I think we've misjudged each other," she said. Her tone was still as light as ever, but her words were careful and cautious. Jaypaw didn't like being treated like a baby bird.

"Let's go back to camp. You did well today, tracking your way to the opening. A lot of tunnelers struggle, how did you do that?" She asked him. His whiskers tingled as she brushed past him, letting him know they were moving on.

"It's simple," he mumbled, not sure how to speak to her after their argument. "I knew there was only one way to go, at least for a little bit. And then I could smell all the scents of other tunnelers, so I just followed that. The air got fresher and I could see it get brighter as I kept going. And suddenly I felt a draft of air, and I knew it had to be the exit." He followed the sound of her footsteps through the thick heather. Its scent seemed to encase him in a comforting glow.

"That's very good, you know. You used some important tunneling skills without even being taught. The use of recognising and following scents, and being able to find your way out. That's fantastic, especially considering your little panic!" She trilled.

Jaypaw fought the urge to roll his eyes. She sounded so stupid, mentioning his "little panic." But even so, he felt his heart start to shift restlessly in his chest, making room for a yellow kind of pride.

Apparently it must've shown on his face, because his mentor carried on, a grin twisting her words.
"Just when I thought you didn't want to be a tunneler! Guess you're feeling better about it now."

Begrudgingly, Jaypaw had to admit that she was right. He was feeling a little more confident about it all.

"Harestar sure was right to choose you!" Cranberrystripe burbled on.

Jaypaw flattened n his ears to his head. No need to remind me that I'm only some useless blind cat.

The ground dipped underneath his paws. Jaypaw had trekked around the territory twice, three times counting today's expedition of the tunnels, so he knew they were back at camp. After all, what else smelled so strongly of heather and grass, and open skies? The smell of WindClan flooded the area, and it felt like home.

Jaypaw felt the cool grass clasp his paws as he walked toward the rancid smell of fresh meat under the sun. He could smell the overpowering scent of rabbits, as well as the scents of varying birds. He nudged the top piece of prey aside, a sand lizard, to pinch a pipit from underneath it. picking it's limp body up, he strolled, long-legged, over to where he and Breezepaw had taken to eating.

He sat alone, evidently his brother was away from camp. Biting into the soft bird, he relished the taste as he listened to the ambient chatter of camp. "Hey, Jaypaw. Can I sit?" A sun-kissed voice asked.

"Heatherpaw!" Jaypaw exclaimed, looking at his prey.
"Yeah, of course, you can. Do you know where Breezepaw is?"

"No," she replied. "And I don't really care where he is." Her low tone was icy as she dropped her prey next to him; it landed with a soft thud on the ground.

Jaypaw's ears turned towards her voice.
"Did you guys argue or something?" His voice was nonchalant, after all, he didn't care for gossip.

Heatherpaw let out a gusty sigh. "No, not directly. He says some really rude things sometimes!" She took a bite out of her sparrow. "Do you know what he said about Furzepaw? I was training with her and he and Weaselfur walked by and stopped to watch our training. She messed up a battle move, and he turned and said that she fought like a badger having a seizure. Why would he even say that? He doesn't know a single battle move!" She ranted, mouth half full. "Thank StarClan she didn't hear. You know Furzepaw, she'd be so embarrassed!"

Jaypaw shook his head. "I don't know why he says the things he does. He's just like that, I guess."

"I guess he was born with thorns in his fur," she snorted before her disgust turned into laughter  "He forgot that Furzepaw is Weaselfur's daughter. You should've seen the look on his face when Breezepaw said that! I bet he got the biggest telling off of his life the moment they were out of earshot!"

Jaypaw couldn't help but smile at the thought of his brother being scolded by his mentor, the oh-so-wonderful Weaselfur. He loved Breezepaw, he did! But truth be told, he was a pain in the tail!

"So how was your training today anyway? Heard you were going into the tunnels!" Heatherpaw asked.

Jaypaw tore the flesh from his bird quite viciously. He wasn't sure how to answer her questions, and thinking of his day made him wince.

"It went...well, I guess. The tunnels took some getting used to but I did alright. After all, it's not like I have to get used to working in darkness full time," he snorted.

Heatherpaw laughed in response, and Jaypaw felt his lips twitch into a smile. Whenever he joked about his blindness, other cats would get uncomfortable. Crowfeather would sometimes tell him off, but usually he would turn away as if his sons blindness was too much to accept. Nightcloud would get all anxious and reassure him it was okay to be blind. He didn't recall ever asking her if it wasn't.

"It was actually kind of cool down there. I could smell all the other tunnelers who have been through, and Cranberrystripe let me go ahead and find my way out by myself." He took the last bite of his pipit, savouring the taste.

"Wow, that's so cool!" Heatherpaw burst out. "StarClan, isn't tunneling supposed to be super dangerous? And Cranberrystripe let you go ahead on your own already? Ugh, she's so cool. I wish she was my mentor."

Jaypaw felt his fresh kill turn sour in his mouth. So cool? Yeah, more like condescending and pitying, just like everyone else here.
"Yeah, she's cool, I guess," he muttered. "Hey, listen, I'm tired after training so I might go and sleep. See you, Heatherpaw!" He said rather hurriedly.

He got to his paws in a flurry, carrying himself over to the area of flattened ground where the apprentices slept, out in the open.
He could hear Heatherpaw's surprise behind him, but there was a tightening in his chest that urged him to move.

The long grass parted around him as he entered the area. The soft snuffles that met his ears told him that Whiskerpaw was asleep. Jaypaw stretched, hoping to ease this strange itch buried deep within his tender belly. Perhaps it was tunneler's anxiety making him feel so strange. Maybe he was sick!
He decided he'd have to sleep this strange feeling off.