Reaperstorm | WARRIOR CAT OC ORIGINS

Chapter 2

His time for thinking was dramatically increased. The young tom was now edging on nine moons, but he was hardly the same skinny, well-kept cat that he'd been in his early days.

His fur had grown much longer and harder to upkeep without constant grooming, his muscles far bigger--the black and white cat had spent every one of his waking days learning to hunt all kinds of prey, upping his build immensely with the amounts he'd do so. With so much free time came far too much time to think and dwell on the past--to listen to the same ideas and gruesome thoughts pollute his mind as he filled each day with hunting anything that so much as twitched in his vision.

Despite the circumstances, he considered himself lucky every day that he was able to make it so far on his own--and resented his kin for ever abandoning him to figure it out on his own.

It wasn't easy as any cat would tell you; to know just what time to strike and when to use your claws and how to be stealthy. All of it was enough to make his head spin as a kit but with time he overcame it, this strange animalistic drive to survive overtaking all else. Some nights he'd watch cats enter and leave the barn from a post up high with a bitter hatred burning in his paws--it was the very thing that gave him strength no matter the time of day.

It wasn't until one early sun-up that he awoke to the sounds of distant yowls.

He woke up in a panic, gripping to the surface he laid upon with claws to steady himself as he saw a gathering of cats--probably about five or six of them--venturing out beyond the fields.

His heart began to pound in his chest.

Exhilaration filled his body and clouded his brain.

He waited until their tails were swallowed by tall grass and they were out of sight before hauling his large form from the wooden beam he'd lounged upon as he jumped a fence and began sprinting the flatlands of grass that pathed the way to the barn. In all his time of learning to be stealthy, he'd learned how to be pretty much silent as he navigated closer to the big wooden structure, slinking along the overgrowth surrounding it until he reached the open doors.

His heart pounded. His eyes narrowed to slits as he smelled the familiar smells of old. The scents he'd grown up around, and more specifically, the one who had caused him so much pain and suffering.

The tom made his way through the dusty space, crouched low to the ground, his plumed tail brushing the ground gently as he poised himself so it wouldn't sweep against the texture of the floors and make a sound.

He was as silent as the night, which is why when a cat unknowingly swerved in front of him, he felt a panicked buzz shoot down his spine and puppeteer his bones as he easily tackled them to the ground, cutting off their yowl as he pulled out their throat.

He heaved softly. He looked down at the limp mass.

This felt so much different than killing prey. The way the blood that smelled sickeningly similar to his own stained the whites of his fur as it pooled out onto the ground, the way he watched their body--his own anatomy--slowly lose all light in front of him.

It was absolutely liberating.

As his pulse quickened and he felt a wave of euphoria. The nameless cat stalked forward, following the scent of dirt and sawdust. He leapt onto boxes and balanced along beams until he found the one he was looking for; her. Ivy.

His mother.

The young, large tom glared right into her curled sleeping form, feeling nothing but a blinding hatred and the burning memories he'd been forced to relive over and over playing on repeat behind his eyes.