It was cold. And dark. He was shivering. He couldn't see around him very well, but felt the wind, and snow falling softly on his fur. He was hanging by his scruff, in a warm, gentle mouth. He smelled his mother, and knew she was carrying him. He heard distant noises of what his dreaming self recognized as car engines. He was being carried across a busy street. As they approached the other side he smelled seven other kittens, huddled and shivering not too away. His mother was moving her litter of eight kits to hopefully a warmer space. One by one, he was the last. Suddenly, there was a screech, a horn honked, and he went flying through the air. He landed in the gutter, and was knocked out.

Mistofelees woke up mewing and panting. That dream again. He was almost grown, yet he still had that dream every so often. He remembered nothing after that until he woke up nestled against the queen he would come to know as his foster mom, Demeter, nursing and cuddled against her warmth. The large grey tom he knew as Munkustrap told him he had found him barely alive in the gutter. Munkustrap had been on one of his patrols, when he had heard the noise in the street just outside the junkyard, and went to investigate. There he had found a queen cat lying dead in the street, and nearby, seven freezing kittens. He tried to save them but he was too late, one by one they died from the intense winter cold. He sorrowfully turned away and was heading back toward his patrol when he heard a small mew. Looking closely, he saw a black and white tux kitten, smaller than the others, barely alive in the gutter, it's fur coloring making it nearly invisible in the dark. He had grabbed him, and rushed him back to the yard, and sought out his favorite mate, who had just given birth herself.

Mistofelees lay back and tried to calm himself. He was glad he had survived but knowing he had blood siblings and a mom who loved him once always made him sad and wistful. He had always wondered why he, the runt and weakest, had survived, and not his more robust brothers and sisters. Sighing, he closed his eyes and willed himself back to sleep.