"Get 'em!" the punk leader screamed. "Stupid cats!" The gang of teenagers were so close to the family of felines that they could almost feel their hot breath on their tails. Star Fire skidded to a halt. "Keep on going!" he called to his wife. "Don't worry about me! Just keep going!" Crystal Blade felt a hot tear run down her face, but she did as her husband instructed. It would be better to remember him as a brave tom who sacrificed himself for his family. The punks stopped when they saw the red cat standing in their way. "Heheh. One less freak in the world," the leader said. Star Fire shot a stunning array of lightning bolts at the humans, but they continued to advance, despite their shock.
Crystal Blade and Star Blazer heard Star Fire's last scream of pain. "What happened to daddy?" the kitten screeched. "He's gone, Blaze," Crystal Blade replied. "He's gone." Little Blaze felt hot tears streaming down her white face. 'Daddy gone?' she thought. 'It just can't be!'
Crystal Blade stopped in an alley. She gently placed Blaze down and began to catch her breath. Blaze wiped the tears from her eyes. On the ground she looked at her reflection from a puddle. She would always remember her father by the lightning-shaped birthmark over her right eye. The same one she and her father had shared. Despite her young age, she would never ever forget this day.
"Let's get going," Crystal Blade said fighting back her own tears. She scooped the kitten up and took off. They soon came to a busy street, bustling with cars of ever size, shape and make. "We must cross here," she said. "Stay close to me. And be very careful." The two queens stepped off of the curb, and began dodging and weaving in between the rushing cars. Blaze lost sight of her mother. "Mommy!" she screamed. She closed her eyes and made a mad dash for the other side. She felt the hot air of the exhaust and the rushing wind of the cars as they sped over her. She wasn't sure of where she was going. She just kept in that one direction. Soon, she stumbled over a hard surface. She opened her eyes, and saw that she had made it to the other side. "Mommy, we made it!" she squealed. She looked around her. Her mother was no where to be seen. "Mommy!" she called again. She looked towards the street. There, in a bloody and mangled heap, lay her mother. "No!" Blaze screamed. "No!!! Mommy!!!!!" The small pink kitten flopped onto the pavement and sobbed like she never had sobbed before. Her father and mother were both dead...and she was completely alone.
For days it seemed like, the small kitten wandered the streets, not eating. Her heart ached with a sadness she had never before felt possible. When she slept, she dreamed terrible things. She could not escape the haunting sight of her mother, laying in the middle of the road, or the horrible scream her father had given before he was slaughtered. Her young body was no longer filled with the spirited energy it once had. Now it felt old and decrepit, no longer willing to function.
Finally, one day, she overheard a pair of human youngsters talking. They were discussing and old house down on Kensington Square. Blaze crept closer, wanting to hear more. "It's haunted, I tell ya!" one said. "I hears weird noises there every night!" "It just be the wind yas hear!" the other said. "We alls knows that theys be no such thing as ghosts!" Blaze crept ever so closer. One caught sight of her. "Hey! Look at that cat, Winny! It be pink!" "What?" the other said. She looked at Blaze, a shocked look on her face. "Ah, it just be paint, or somethin. It probably had some fall on it's back. After all, Mrs. Jones was painting her shudders pink like that." "It looks hungry," the other said. He took out a small wrapped package hidden in a knapsack. It was a sandwich. He tore off a generous chunk of it, and picking her up gently and setting her on his lap, fed it to Blaze. She purred loudly and contentedly as she devoured the tasty offering. "Sweet little thing," the girl said. "Yah," the boy said.
After she finished, the young humans began their discussion once more. "As I was sayin," the boy continued, "the old Wensworth place is haunted! How else can ya explain the weird noises, or the weird lights that keeps flashin in the windas?" "Probably just the wind," the girl said. Theys probably just some homeless person stayin there to get out of the cold. It's winter, ya know." "Yah, but no one will go near the place. Not even the construction people to tear it down! They's all too scared." Blaze had herd all she needed to know. She gave the boy one last loving rub against the arm, and took off in the direction of Kensington Square.
The old house looked dead and ruined from the sidewalk. The old iron gates were rusted and covered in thick decaying vines of dead English Ivy. Blaze took a deep breath, and, gathering her courage, crept into the overgrown, weedy yard. She looked around at the peeling paint of the once white house. It left the old, rotting wood bare to the elements. She walked up onto the leaf-strewn verandah. An old porch swing creaked back and forth in the icy-cold breeze. Blaze took a cautious sniff of the air. Nothing peculiar. Examining the old wooden door, Blaze pawed at it, casing it to creak open. I rush of dusty, wet air met her, causing the fur on her head to ruffle. She took another sniff, and crept inside.
The inside of the house was no better than the outside. Leaves were strewn across the peeling old carpeting. Old furniture littered the rooms, covered in numerous layers of dust and cobwebs. A plume of wind rushed through an open window, stirring up a puff of dust from the floor. Blaze's nose twitched, and she let out a great sneeze. As soon as she did so, a great bolt of lightning shot out from her, riccoched around the room, and struck a flowerpot resting on the window sill. It shattered into a million pieces, strewing old nutrient-deficient soil all over the floor. "Whoops," Blaze whispered.
Her expedition soon took her upstairs. She was startled by a bizarre howling noise coming from a small room on the left side of the hall. She quickly shoved aside her fear, and punched the door open. There, an open window hung, allowing the wind to enter the room, making the horrible sound that had startled her so. She jumped up onto a desk which stood next to it, and closed it. The howling immediately stopped. A bright flash caught her her eyes, and squinting, she looked toward the source. A handheld mirror was propped up against a bookshelf, reflecting the light from the sun. Blaze gently placed it down. Now that she had discovered what was causing all the strange things that the human children had talked about, the house did not seem at all haunted.
A few minutes later, Blaze had made up her mind. This house, this secluded building would be her new home. And she also decided that she would avoid the pressures of society for a while. She needed time to heal her strong emotional wounds, and this old house would help her do that.
She lept onto an old dusty velvet sofa, and settled down. Curling up into a small pink ball, she drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.