Lost Hope: Book 6: Future of Hope

Prologue

A dark brown tabby she-cat slunk across the bloodied and torn-up ground. The dark trees loomed above, framing the starless sky; the Dark Forest. Viperfang smiled slightly to herself as she picked up the pace. She was on her way to a few different locations that day, part of her normal perimeter check to make sure everything was in order. She could make someone else do it, but she knew that they would all inevitably miss something crucial. It wasn't worth the risk.

    She came upon the little island she had put that intolerable apprentice and noticed something. Or rather, she didn't notice anything at all. The island was vacant. Forestpaw was gone. Viperfang let out a sharp hiss and began to hastily check around the island, searching for clues as to how she could have possibly escaped. She found the body of a cat, or the remains of one at least. This was a tom though, not Forestpaw.

    "How did she get off the island?" Viperfang muttered with an irritated flick of her tail. She paced along the rest of the shoreline, but could find no other indication as to how the little apprentice had managed it. She let out a sigh and then unearthed something close to the water line. She held it between her paws and took a breath. To anyone watching, she disappeared out of thin air.

    Viperfang reappeared a moment later in a forest, blinded by the shimmering glow from the surrounding trees. When her eyes adjusted she took off through the forest, leaping over a stream and bounding past the white trunks of the trees, her sharp eyes scanning the landscape. At the sound of voices, her head snapped around and found a pair of cats just a couple foxlengths beyond the edge of the forest. It was the offending apprentice herself and what Viperfang could only assume to be her rescuer.

    "Oh, look how clever," Viperfang said in a quiet hiss. "But just watch, little one, before leafbare ends, the Clans will be no longer." And with that, Viperfang was in the Dark Forest once more.