Everything in the camp was quiet when Hollystar woke the next morning, the light breeze ruffled her tortoiseshell fur as she left her den and looked at all the dead cats. How could this happen? She wailed silently.
"What do you want us to do now?"
She jumped and spun around to see Blackpelt standing right behind her, "Don't scare me like that!" she meowed, then rested her tail tip on his shoulder to show that she wasn't trying to be harsh, "Sorry, it's just... well... this shouldn't have happened, and..."
"I didn't mean to scare you, and I know what you're trying to say. You're saying that StarClan should have told us this was going to happen, instead of just sitting there watching us getting ripped to pieces!" as he spoke, his voice was getting louder. He worked his claws into the earth as if he wanted to sink them into some cat's throat.
"Err... sort of" she didn't feel like admitting that that's not really what she thought, "but StarClan did tell me at the moonstone 'something terrible has happened and nothing could have stopped it'"
"If they had told us it was going to happen," he insisted, "we could have run away and saved the lives of all these cats!" he flicked his tail towards all of the cats lying in dried up pools of blood.
"I see you're point Blackpelt, but maybe StarClan didn't know it was going to happen."
"Stop defending them! All they had to do was send a sign or say in a dream 'Badgers are coming to your camp to try to kill you' but no, what do they do? They just sit there watching us die!" he hissed.
Hollystar didn't try to convince him any more, it was obvious that he lost his faith in StarClan. He turned away from her and stalked back to the warriors' den. Snowstorm walked across the clearing from the medicine den, her white pelt sparkling in the sunlight.
"We can't stay here," she mewed, "I had a dream last night."
"What was it about?" Hollystar asked.
"I was sitting in the clearing, and then out of nowhere, a pack of badgers barged through the thorn barrier and surrounded me, then I woke up. I'm pretty sure that means the badgers are coming back."
There was a pause, "Well, we can't risk anything... Okay, we'll find a new part in the forest to live in."
* * *
"We'll be leaving everything behind. All our memories," Hollystar murmured to herself. She had just finished getting everyone ready to leave.
She padded over to Snowstorm and Blackpelt, "Are you ready to go?"
"Yes," Snowstorm meowed. "I have all I need."
Blackpelt murmured agreement and they padded out the thorn tunnel. When they got no more than ten fox lengths, Hollystar stopped and looked back, "I never thought I'd leave this place. It's been my home since I was only six moons old." she meowed. Snowstorm touched Kittystar's shoulder with the tip of her tail sympathetically and they started to move again. I will never see this place again.
