Blooming Roses Die Soonest

## **Prelude**

What I never seem to understand is that the world does not appreciate me.

It is not a matter of belief, but a fact. It's as if I was born with bad luck stuck to my fur, and it has never left me.

I'm a strange creature. Bright velvet fur, with darker tabby stripes. I have a white belly, and my eyes are two different colors. One of them is blue, and the other one is green. I have a cropped tail. Why don't I have full tail? Well, we'll get to that later. But what I want you to take away from this is that I have always felt like I never belonged.

As a child, I was loved and kissed and cradled and sung to by my mother, as most moms do. But my life was going to be a blooper reel, and she knew it. Maybe she wanted to squeeze it out of me, get out all of my weirdness. Unfortunately, she never succeeded.

As a young child, I had the tenancy to wander off. I wasn't physical like two older brothers, who used all of their spare time to wrestle each other. I was quite, timid, and afraid of conflict, which made me the ideal target for my brothers. They would fight me and hurt me, and they would make me lie to my mother about where I got the cut or scratch to spare them the punishment. I was terrified of them. If anything, my retaliation was going to be that I lived until they died. It was all a child's game in a child's world, but they never failed to damage me.

"Tatum, two-eyes! Two-faces! Ya got's two colored eyes, don't'cha?" Explosions of giggles.

"Eh! he needs some roughing up, don't he? Lo-o-o-oser!"

"Uh-Oh, Miles, look! He's angry! Oh, lookit him! Has oo' got de sniffoos?"

And my wide blue and green eye would shimmer with tears. My brothers were my enemies.

Their names were Micheal and Miles. Their naming suggested that they were to be the only sons my mother would have. They went together perfectly. Micheal was brains, Miles was brawn. Together they were a strike force. And then I came along. I think they took my birth as some sort of attempt to raid on their brotherhood, to force them out of the spotlight. Which I never did, mind you, but they probably swore alliance with each other just to get rid of me. As different as they were apart, their most common interest was the removal of the newest child.

Obviously, they were young, and knew no better, but there was no doubt that they were heading into darkness. They were always, of course, a step ahead of me in developing into an adult. They grew stronger, faster, and tougher than me before I could get the chance. But one thing I did do better than them was speech. I was always pretty vocal if I wasn't silent. My vocabulary was much larger than them; Micheal and Miles often resorted to one or two syllable words and a wide variety of grunts. But the only thing I could do with my strength of speech over them was insult them, which didn't really work out for me when I received a blow on the back of the head. To have power over them, I needed to be physical, but I knew better than to dedicate myself to how to wrestle in such a violent way.

When I turned about six moons, my mother fell ill. She found that she no longer could get up in the morning without tremendous effort, and she found hunting extremely difficult. She caught a bad cough and her throat began to get so dry and scratched that it started bleeding. The most fearful time of my life occurred when I watched my mother cough up blood. I can't tell you how terrified I was of losing her to sickness. But luckily, a brown tabby with green eyes came by and took care of her. He smelled of rabbit and grass, and fed my mother herbs and other plants. She began to get better with the tom's help, and she grew well enough to hunt again. I don't remember the tom's name, but I do remember him talking about large groups of cats in the forest. Sort of an organization.

This is what happened since that day, when the strange tom came to camp, carrying with him countless opportunities for my families' future -- and mine.

## **Chapter I**

Tatum woke to the early sun and a chattering of squirrels in the trees. Exhaustion tugged at his paws, so he tried to go back to sleep -- with a lack of results. The summer sunlight was dreadfully blinding, so he had to squint to see anything. Even when he closed his eyes, the light still shone through his eyelids. In fact, closing his eyes, he saw peachy pink instead of the usual darkness.

Tatum resolved to pull himself up and start the day.