Alone [Solo]

Briarthorn trudged along the alleyway. He'd lost track of the days since he left the clans. It had been moons, and many gatherings must have come and gone. Surely everyone knew of his betrayal. What had become of WindClan? What had RiverClan done to them because of his actions? Briarthorn shivered, not only because of the Leaf-bare cold. He'd taken a life from a leader, and than just left his clan to deal with it. What had he been thinking?! How would this make anything better?!

Briarthorn continued to walk. His lean frame had grown frail from a lack of suitable pray. All he had been able to eat was the refuse of Twolegplace along with the occasional rat. He longed for just a taste of rabbit, or a nice hare... But there were none to be found in these foul lands. After what seemed like a lifetime, Briarthorn reached the end of Twolegplace. Here, fields laid open with Twoleg nests dotting the countryside. As he walked through one of these fields, the scents of the tall grass reminded him of home. Overcome with exhaustion, he collapsed under the weak Leaf-bare sun and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep as the day crawled on.

As the sun set, 12 year old John sat with his newly acquired BB gun across his lap. Some racoons had been attacking his chickens, he had lost two already. He was not going to do nothing while his chickens were dying! He'd gotten this BB gun for his birthday last week, and he'd been practicing. John knew that racoons are nocturnal, and that was when the attacks had been happening. He planned to wait up as late as he needed to, It was the weekend after all, and shoot that racoon if it dared to show it's face around his house.

About halfway through the night, Briarthorn woke up. He felt extremely hungry, like he could eat anything. Maybe I could find some prey in this grass... He turned his nose to the wind as he advanced across the field. He was surprised, as he came up to a large Twoleg den, to smell birds. The Twolegs had set up a small pen with a little den for the birds to sleep in. The birds looked about half his size. The longer Briarthorn looked at those defenseless birds, the more he wanted one of them. They were food. Real food. And their wings looked too small for them to  fly properly. On top of all that, they were asleep. It was an opportunity he couldn't pass up. As quietly as he could, Briarthorn snuck into the hen house.

John had been nodding off, but was awoken by the sound of hens squawking. This was it! The racoon was back, and it was attacking his chickens! He aimed his BB gun at the entrance to the hen house, waiting for the predator to emerge. It walked out of the entrance, and John pulled the trigger. The thing he hit yowled in pain and dropped the chicken. His aim had been off, and he'd shot it in the leg instead of the head. But as he walked towards the injured creature, he could finally see that he'd hit... a cat?!

Briarthorn yowled as a sharp pain attacked his back thigh. What had hit him?! He dropped the bird he had been holding, his vision going fuzzy. He looked up and saw a Twoleg walking towards him. Had the Twoleg been what attacked him? He hissed at it and tried to run away, but ended up falling on his face. That leg wouldn't support his weight. He stumbled back the way he came, through the tall grass. He wasn't going to let that twoleg get him. As he walked on it, the pain in his leg became unbearable and he collapsed. Briarthorn had lost the Twoleg in the grass. Now that he was alone, he began to inspect his wound. It looked bad. It also looked unlike any injury he had ever seen. It was such a small point, but the pain spread so far... As he inspected his leg, he saw a small shiny object in the wound. Was that what had hurt him? It certainly didn't belong in his leg. Carefully, and painfully, Briarthorn removed the shiny object. It was a small sphere, and made of a very hard material. He wrapped his leg in some of the tall grass, stopping the bleeding for now. He was too weak to go any further tonight. Injured, and still hungry, Briarthorn fell asleep.