The Rising Moon

Chapter 6

Sunfern picked his way carefully along the streambed, paws weary. Moonfall and Scarfeather dragged on slowly behind him while Frostpaw and Springpaw bounced ahead. How do apprentices always have endless energy?! He thought to himself.

"I don't know, Sunfern, I don't know." Scarfeather meowed, yawing, as if reading his mind. Moonfall looked at him curiously.

"About what?" She meowed, tilting her head. Scarfeather shrugged. They padded on in silence. Frostpaw stopped, waiting for the others to catch up, but Springpaw ran ahead more.

"Oh Frostpaw, it's wonderful!" Springpaw gasped. "Come on everyone! Come see this!" She ran back to them, her paws barely touching the ground. "Come on, come on!" Scarfeather muttered under his breath and pushed ahead.

"Sunfern!" He yowled in wonder. "Come see this!" Sunfern raced ahead, Moonfall hard on his heels.

They all stared in wonder at the sight before them. A lake, huge, was lying in front of them. Woodland, forest, moorland, and marsh surrounded the lake. A couple Twoleg houses scattered around, and one area had a wooden structure.

"They call that a barn! And look at that territory! It looks just like Moonclan's!" Scarfeather meowed happily, pointing first to the wooden structure and then to the woodland territory. Sunfern nodded in agreement.

"I'll bet there's catmint there! Let's go!" Springpaw meowed, racing to the woodland area. Moonfall chased after her, with the others following.

"Springpaw, be careful! There's Twoleg houses!" Moonfall screeched. The ginger and white she-cat didn't listen and pounded on ahead. After running for a while, they all stopped at the woodland area. Springpaw came bounding out of the bushes.

"Let's rest here for a few days. We'll need a few days to find catmint, plus we'll have to avoid Twolegs, which will make it even harder." Scarfeather meowed. Sunfern nodded, and so did Moonfall. They went through their procedure of hunting and gathering moss.

Once they had gathered the moss, they looked around for a place to sleep. They found a tunnel, it was beat down, but still a tunnel. They padded through the beat-down entrance to see towering walls of rock, with caves and what seemed to be dens, although it was unclear.

"It feels like home." Moonfall meowed, looking around in awe.

"But how could it be? Not many cats live in large groups like we do!" Scarfeather said.

"Let's just set up our nests in one of the caves." Sunfern suggested.

"Sunfern's right! We need some sleep." Frostpaw said like it was his idea.

"Well let's go then, we'll explore in the morning." Sunfern said thinking; Wow. I feel like a real deputy!

They found a large den big enough to be a warriors den and fixed themselves nice, comfy, nests to sleep in for the night. "Goodnight everyone." Sunfern meowed. He then yawned, spun around in his nest about five times, layed down, got back up because he was uncomfortable, spun around a few more times before laying down in a comfortable position, then finally, drifted into sleep.

In his sleep, he got glimpses of cats. It started off with glimpses of orange tabby fur, then brown tabby fur, flashing across his vision so fast he could barely see them. He knew by looking at them that they were toms, but why was he having this strange dream?

He woke up, but it was still dark, pitch black, so he closed his eyes and fell back asleep. He then was disturbed by nightmares of twolegs, tearing up the land, crushing cats. There was blood, as well as the unmistakable scent of fear and grief. Tons of cats, destroyed, crushed, starved, badly wounded, sick, and infected. He couldn't take it anymore. He burst from sleep, his fur fluffed up twice his size. He let out a wail of despair, and he felt immediately reassured when he found Moonfall beside him, and he buried his muzzle into her fur.