Whisper: A Warrior Cat Fan Fiction

Chapter One: Greyfeather

Greyfeather woke to an electrifying scream. Feminine, grief filled and terrible, it sent a quivering jolt down his spine and turned his heart to ice. Leaping to his feet so fast that he nearly fell, he stumbled out of the warrior's den into the cold dampness of the night.

"What in Starclan's name happened?" Greyfeather yowled at the deserted clearing, "Who screamed?"

Only the stars were there to hear his cries, bight and unblinking.

Greyfeather's heart pounded as he scanned the camp once more. He did not iminge that sound, he was sure of it. Some cat was in horrible danger.

More warriors begin to stream out of the den behind him, their eyes clouded from sleep and their fur bristling – proof that the death-like screech was real. He felt fur brush his side and recognized the light scent of ferns and sea salt.

"What was that?" Dawnblaze said, her eyes glowing in the moonlight, "Greats Starclan, it sounded like some cat was being murdered."

The cat screamed again, sounding less urgent than last time, lower and more drawn out, almost like...

"That's my mother!" Greyfeather gasped, "That's Ploversong!"

He took off, squeezing under the rock tunnel that marked the exit to camp, pelting between the sapling trees. The marshes, he thought, she's in the marshes. Only Starclan knew what she was doing there at this time of night. Had she been bitten by a snake? Cut by a piece of two-leg trash?

He leaped over a channel of slow-moving saltwater, and begin weaving through the stiff stalks of grass. Mus squished between his paws, making him shiver. "Ploversong!" he yowled, throwing back his head to the stars. The grass was way over his head, even if he stood on his hind legs, making it impossible to see anything. The scent of rotting vegetation clogged his nose. "Ploversong, where are you?"

His mother wailed again, only a few fox-lengths in front of him. He shot forward, skidding to a stop at the banks of another muddy channel. Ploversong was hunched with her back to him, her body shaking with sobs.

"What is it?" Greyfeather asked, suddenly terrified. "Ploversong, are you okay?"

She whipped her head around, green eyes glowing feverishly. Nestled between her front paws lay a tiny ball of black and white fur.

"Saltkit," Greyfeather breathed, padding over to his brother's limp body. "Is he...?"

Ploversong snarled, throwing herself over Saltkit's body with her claws unsheathed, "Yes, yes he is dead. He's dead." She was panting, her jaws parted and her muscles bunched, tail lashing like snake. She leaned in, so close that he could smell the gull she had eaten that evening, "And you killed him."

"What!" Greyfeather leapt back, his hackles rising, "I was in the warrior's den all night! Ask anyone. Why would you even think that I would want to harm one of your kits?"

Ploversong shrank back, wrapping herself over her son's body again, "Because you've done it before."

Greyfeather let out a snarl like a fox, flattening himself to the damp ground. How dare she! She was his mother, for Starclan's sake! Why couldn't she believe him when he said that he hadn't killed his sister, Rosewhisker? And now she was accusing him of murdering a kit so small that his eyes were barely open.

Just as he opened his mouth to curse Ploversong to the Dark Forest, Dawnblaze burst though the reeds, Marshfoot, the deputy, and the medicine cat, Sunpool, hard on her tail.

"Ploversong, darling, are you alright?" Marshfoot rushed toward his mate.

The pale tabby and white she-cat scuttled backward, hissing, "No, great Starclan! Our son is dead!" She shoved Saltkit's limp body, almost hatefully, toward the deputy. "And Greyfeather killed him!"