Foxgaze's Haunting

Chapter 20

(Cat above is Rabbitpelt)
Foxgaze woke up gasping for air. Her fur stood on end and her claws dug into the ground. Leafshade startled her "Woah Foxgaze! Are you okay?".

"Of course I'm not!" Foxgaze hissed. She took a ragged gasp as she recalled what had happened in her dream. One of your kits will be a monster but you wont know which one until it's too late. The tortishell groaned and lay down, claws still unsheathed.

"You were whimpering in your sleep" Leafshade pointed out quietly, almost as if he didn't want to "and you kept muttering the name Adderpaw".

"It was just a bad dream" Foxgaze told him, her voice shaking a little bit.

She looked outside. The first lights of dawn were just peeking out over the horizon. Foxgaze sighed, staring at her breath fogging the chilly air "We should get back before the other cats wake up".

"That seems reasonable" Leafshade snorted. He seemed depressed when she mentioned they had to back to camp.

The air was freezing cold as they stepped outside. Foxgaze shook the frost out of her fur. Leafshade licked his paw and brought it over his ear silently. The forest was silent as they began to pad back to camp.

***

"Glazepool, Rabbitpelt, Agileclaw, and Longfang. Will you four come on the dawn patrol with me?" Foxgaze mewed in the warrior's den.

A half moon had passed since Foxgaze had snuck out with Leafshade. She kept having the feeling that Lakeheart was watching her closely...when she wasn't coughing her lungs out in her nest. Leafshade and his sick mentor had allowed Foxgaze to leave the medicine cat den because her tail had healed enough to the point where it was a bobcat-like stub.

The four warriors all got sleepily to their paws. Longfang winced as he got to his paws and made Foxgaze wonder when he would retire to the elder's den. She stepped outside with the four other cats and paused at the camp entrance. She couldn't help but notice that Agileclaw and Glazepool were sticking very close together and kept nuzzling or playfully bumping into each other. They must have decided to be mates. Foxgaze thought to herself.

"Shall we?" Foxgaze flicked her tail stump in an effort to question them.

"Yeah" they said in mumbled unusion. Together, they set out to hunt and set borders. As they passed the creek, filled with ice from the hills Foxgaze felt Glazepool brush up against her "Hey Foxgaze! Guess what?" she mewed.

"What?" Foxgaze purred. The fluffy grey she-cat was always full of surprises.

"Agileclaw and I are mates!" she exclaimed. Foxgaze glanced around and saw the striped brown tom looking around, pretending not to listen "and I'm going to have kits!"

"Wow. That's great" Foxgaze grinned. As much as she was happy for her friend, the mention of kits made her flinch. The fluffy grey she-cat nuzzled her shoulder before bouncing back over to Agileclaw. Foxgaze dug up her skinny mouse that she had caught earlier, the patrol watching her hungrily. She looked around and meowed "What? Did anyone else catch anything?" she began to worry.

Longfang's ear twitched "I caught a squirrel".

The other cats were silent. Foxgaze felt her fur begin to bristle "Anyone else? Other than Longfang?"

Rabbitpelt grunted from the back "We couldn't find much prey. Everything's either dead or hiding deep in their burrows". Foxgaze stated blankly at the patrol. She turned around and said quietly "Come on. Let's head back to camp".

She set her mouse and Longfang's squirrel on the floor of the elder's den. Grassblade wrinkled his nose "That's it? I thought warriors could hunt".

"That's all we could catch" Foxgaze sighed. Sometimes elders just didn't realize it was Leaf-bare.

"Oh hush you old badger" Stormfeather mewed playfully "Do you remember being young and having to hunt during the cold season?".

Grassblade grunted and bit into the mouse "That was before my bones ached like StarClan had cursed them".

Curse..."Well okay I'm go now" Foxgaze muttered before she turned around and left. She was met by a wail of pain.

Every cat in the clearing seemed to freeze in their tracks. Leafshade raced out of the medicine cat den. His fur bristled on end as he announced to the scared cats, grief tinting his yowl "Lakeheart is dying!"