BOOK 1~A Broken Beginning

Chapter 19

     'Familiar' echo thought as she reopened her eyes seeing Bramblepaw hiss and lash out at a Shadowclan tom and chase them off his territory. Echo muffled a purr of admiration and she closed her eyes again and pretended to be asleep. She felt strong jaws heave her up. She whimpered in pain as she felt herself bounce around as of being carried. Then total darkness.

    Echo woke up in the Skyclan Medicine cat den, her old wounds stinging in pain and she glanced around to see five familiar cats. Blazepaw, Hollowpaw, Snowpaw, Bramblepaw, and Dustpoppy.

     "She'll be better, she just needs rest." Dustpoppy told the five cats there for Echo.

     "You guys..." Echo said, trying to get up but fails.

     "Stay down, Echokit..." Dustpoppy said.

     "I'm not a kit anymore!" Echo hissed at the Medicine cat.

     "Stop, Echo," Hollowpaw told his sister, "We're trying to help and you're yelling at the Medicine cat."

     "Well, sorry for making a correction!" Echo hissed at her bigger brother.

     Hollowpaw gave her a cold glare before facing away in anger.

     "Both of you, stop." Bramblepaw said, trying to calm the tension between the two cats.

     "Shut it, Bramblepaw!" Echo snarled.

     "Why are rouges so mean?" Snowpaw sighed. Hollowpaw licked her ear and nudged her. The dazzeling white shecat padded out hollowpaw following close behind.

     "Bramblepaw, why did you do that?" Echo sighed.

     "I had to. You were going to die!" He exclaimed.

     "That was the plan!"

     "No we need you!"

     "Whatever," Echo forced herself up ignoring blazepaw and and Dustpoppy's mews of protest and limped past Bramblepaw and slipped through the opening.

     She squinted her eyes and padded into the shade of a tree, far in a lonely corner and curled up.

     Echo heard small footsteps behind her and she whipped her head around to see Blazepaw holding a vole.

     "I-I brought you a vole... If you're hungry..." Blazepaw said sadly, dropping the vole and turning to walk away.

     "Thank, Blazepaw." Echo told him.

     Blazepaw froze, "Y-you're welcome..." he said before tumbling aimlessly away. Echo sighed and sniffed the vole. It reeked of "Clan scum", as Bone called it, but it still dragged Echo in as she had been hungry. She nibbed at the fur. It tasted fine. She bit out a chunk of the nice vole, eating it quickly.

     Echo did some deep thinking while she ate the fat vole. 'Why am I trying to kill myself? Because I'm small? I have no mate?' she thought.

Then Bramblepaw flashed through her mind.