Sunrise

Part 1 Extension - Chapter 8

Mudpaw raced along the riverland towards the stream. He had  to know what was going on! The ground thumped under his paws, pebbles the size of deathberries jamming into his pads and working their way into his claws. He shivered, needing no reminder how close he- how close every cat- was to death. Dead autumn leaves crackled and crunched in the crispy air, and Mudpaw's nostril's stung with cold. A holly branch, all six-pointed leaves tiny claws on a black-barked paw, sent thin lines of red across his face, and he stumbled. The blurry woodland suddenly came into focus, and his ears were ringing with an eerie silence that shook him from the marrow to the bone. Scents of rotten leaves hovered in a haze over the ground, and his nostrils flared. A solitary sparrow perched on a pine branch, and Mudpaw held his breath as he waited for it to sing, but the spy sitting on that particular tree simply flew off, cawing in alarm. Misty clouds shrouded the moon like a cloak. The sun did not rise at this hour. He opened his jaws, stinging scents of prey and herbs mingling into vague outlines of reality. He snapped them shut in frustration; these were not the scents he longed to catch. Eyes sharp slits, he brushed aside fallen leaves from the ground with his tail. to his horror, a dead finch lay on the muddy surface, dew glistening from the wingtips from the past storm. They sat there perfectly, glaring at him infuriatingly. He longed to shout back: Are you completely blind?! This thing- it's been dead for moons! It's- It's crowfood! But he knew it would do no good. The churning mud clung to the creature's feathers, swallowing it whole. A thin ray of moonlight shone between the parted clouds, looking yellow on the finch's strangely pale feathers. It almost looked like sunlight... Mudpaw shuddered uneasily. Raindrops from the previous storm had covered the bird. The storm covered the sun. Was it an omen? But why, why?  He backed away from the dead finch in disgust. No wonder the birds had all gone silent and run away. The sight of it was almost unbearable. Not a single creature was stirring in the quiet meadow, so, tail bushing and spine bristling, he turned tail and fled. 

After several heartbeats of searching, he caught the scent he'd been seeking- sunshatter's. Following the trail cautiously, he wondered if he only imagined the tang of blood sour and bitter hanging in the air. He shook it off like a flea. The trees loomed over him, the shadows cackled at him, the moon's narrowed eye glared at him. The whole forest felt strange and unfamiliar. The territory that had once made him feel alive and trilled now felt isolated and cold. Small streams trickled along the ground, muddy eddies swirling and turning his paws dark. His fur clumped together, soggy and strewn with twigs and splinters of bark. The puddles seemed to grow and grow as he neared Sunshatter, and another scent seemed to entangle itself in between his benevolent mentor's. No matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to make out the scent as anything more than a forest phantom, and he stamped into a puddle in frustration. The clearing came to an end abruptly, and as he stood around, wondering how and why Sunshatter's scent had been severed off, he slipped, and his muzzle plunged into the nearest mud puddle.

He yowled, and bubbles streamed from his mouth as he kicked to the surface. He thrust his head above, gasping, and he realized that the puddle he'd fallen into was so deep that not even his tail could skim the bottom. A series of ripples- waves, almost, blundered into him, and he submerged again, his ears filling with murky water. His paws careened into a boulder, and he hissed, loosing breath. Mud churned around his paws, swirling like quicksand. He opened his eyes, and they immediately filled with fire as the salty water burned them. Even in the lethal crisis threatening to consume him, his brain still let him focus on one thought. Wait... Salty?   Mudpaw didn't know many things, but he was sure, one hundred percent positive, that rain was not salty. So how...? To his horror, he realized the the red haze surrounding his vision wasn't just because of the fire that burned his eyes. It was- He almost choked on the mud as he saw a shape floating in the water in front of him. A cat was swimming in a pool of blood.