How Soilpaw lost his claws

Soilpaw crouched low, so his long stomach fur was only barely off the ground. His tail stuck out straight and low, and was moving. His brilliant green eyes were locked on a rather skinny hare, nibbling on the tip of some bracken peeking out of the snow.

Slowly, the apprentice crept forward, his milky white fur making him hard to see in the snow covered forest. Soilpaw concentrated hard on catching his prey. Not only was it leafbare, when the prey was scarce, but this would be his first catch. He had gone hunting many times, in his three mons of apprenticeship, but he had never caught so much as a mouse. Not to mention this hare could feed the whole nursery by itself.

The apprentice froze as he heard a monster roared by on the near by thunderpath. The hare froze, too, and pricked it's ears for danger. A vision of the hare bounding away flashed in Soilpaw's head. He couldn't let that happen. He pounced quickly, but he was already to late. The hare hopped away as he fell through the snow where the hare had just been sitting.

The young tom quickly leaped after the hare, but it was no use. Every thunderclan cat knew once a hare had started running, it was nearly impossible to catch up. They were to quick. Their short legs were made for prowling, not running, and the hare was soon out of sight. Determined, the apprentice kept chasing, anyway, his brilliant green eyes searching for a glimpse of his prey.

Suddenly the roar of a monster was heard, and he realized his paws slamming on the hard black rock, that formed the thunderpath, as he ran. Eyes wide, he looked to his side, and froze. A monster was roaring towards him with sickening speed.

As the monster rode closer to the scared stiff cat, it's roar seem to grow louder and louder, till Soilfoot thought he never heard anything else again. He saw his rather short life pass before his brilliant green eyes.

I never even got to catch prey for my clan he thought, shutting his eyes tight and waiting to be hit. A sudden wind filled with the monster's stench billowed him till he though he'd be blown away. Then, suddenly, something hit his side hard, he heard a sickening crack coming from somewhere inside his middle. He let out a gasp, as the air was shoved forcefully out of his lungs, and a sharp pain filled him where he'd been hit.

Something wasn't right, shouldn't he have stopped by now? This was when he realized he was still attached to the monster, it was dragging him along. Instinctively he unsheathed his claws, and tried to latch them onto the hard black path beneath him. A sharp pain filled his paws, as his claws were scrapped right down to the nub. Though this pain he hardly noticed, over the pain in his stomach.

He tried squirming instead, and found himself tumbling along the thunderpath, freed at last from the monster. The roar of the monster was fading, as he lay on the hard service, gasping. His chest stung with each breath, and he felt blood trickle from his paws. Slowly he opened his eyes and saw a blurry figure of Pineconheart, his mentor, sprinting to him, mouth his name. He couldn't hear anything though, and before Pineconeheart reached him, his world had gone black.