The Hunger Games - Warriors Edition

CHAPTER EIGHT - overload

Hazelkit's p.o.v

I looked up at my mother as we bounded through the trees. She didn't pay any attention. Me and my sister, Birchkit, were following her, scrambling to catch up with the help of our father Moletail.

Me and Birchkit had no idea where we are going, but just had intentions to follow our parents. A small group of some of our Clanmates were with us, too, Milkfur leading.

I nipped at my mothers long black tail. "Nightshade!" I called up to her, as I was a very small kit for my age; me and my sister were about two moons old now. "Nightshade, where are we going?"

My father Moletail replied instead, pulling me gently backward with a paw to stay at his pace. "To a far place," he just meowed firmly, making a point to end the conversation.

Both fear and uncertainty--unwelcomed--had somehow wormed their way into my stomach. I was panting as we finally caught up to our mother again.

Birchkit flanked me, and I felt her trembling still. "Sis, it's okay," I whispered, but she didn't hear me. She was too busy staring out into the forest on either side of us, wondering what kind of shadowy dangers would haunt our dreams tonight. "Hey, sis!" I whispered louder, hoping for her to hear me and get her mind of the thing that scared her.

She turned her head to me swiftly. "What, Hazelkit?" she snapped, her voice low and serious.

I was shocked at her hostility. Usually Birchkit was the quietest kit in all of LeafClan! Was she...had she changed? Had she changed from all of this? Because of what our mother said?

~~~

Two days ago, the kits' mother Nightshade had put them to sleep very early--earlier than Ivykit, Sunkit, and Creamkit, and earlier than usual. It was barely even dusk yet.

When Hazelkit had tried to follow his mother, NIghtshade just flicked her tail and snapped at him, saying to get back to his nest or she'd make him take ticks out of the elders' pelts for moons. So he scurried back to his sister with a thumping heart.

After a few moments of pouting and grumbling, the two decided to creep out of their nursery den and go eavesdrop on their parents.

When they finally made it to a dark, thorny hollow, sure enough; they heard cats' voices. They were recognized as Moletail, Nightshade, and Featherfoot. Why was Featherfoot there? Birchkit had sighed as her brother poked his nose through anxiously.

"Hazelkit, get out!" she hissed. She tried to pull him away with her claws in his flank, but he was much stronger than she was, so she flopped backwards to the ground, panting. "What are you even doing?" she squealed, regaining her balance on the uneven earth.

Hazelkit spun around, small, sharp teeth bared. "What does it look like, sis?" he spat. "I'm listening! If they don't want us to hear it then it must be important!"

"But that's the point!" Birchkit squealed, gasping as she crumpled to the ground with her tiny mottled paws beneath her chin. "They don't want us to hear it! Why can't you just listen to Mom for once, and do as you're told, like me? Why do you always have to be such a mouse-brain?"

Without a reply, Hazelkit dug his way through and halted, sitting beside a young holly bush on the other side, ducking into it to cover himself in the shadows. "Follow me!" he hissed to his sister, who was still nosing her way through nervously. "Be careful, and do what I do!" he called to her softly as he shifted away on the narrow ledge.

He could hear his father just below, murmuring something sadly to Featherfoot, glaring at his mate. Nightshade slit green eyes widened and she bared her teeth, leaning forward.

"You just don't get it, do you?" she snapped angrily, huffing as she watched Moletail shift his paws. "They will have to change. Every cat will. Me, you, Featherfoot, Pearfeather. Even the kits! And they barely know what's going on right now."

"But I don't understand!" Moletail cried, lowering his chest to the ground and gazing up at Nightshade with a pleading look on his scrunched face, which was wet from his tears. "What do you mean, we'll all have to change? We're fine just how we are!"

Featherfoot nodded from beside her mate's brother. "Yes, I agree with Moletail on this one," she meowed softly, glancing around with her pretty pale eyes innocently. "We can beat DeathClan being us."

"No, no, no!" Nightshade yowled, stomping one paw on the ground angrily. "But we will! We have to! It is the only way we will be able to survive these deadly games they'll throw upon us. Jasmine told me so! We will have to grow stronger, and smarter."

Hazelkit was so intrigued by his Clanmates' argument that he didn't realize Birchkit was now huddled beside him, eyes glazed over with intense thought.

"Change..." she breathed, and Hazelkit tipped his head fearfully at his possessed sister.

"B-Birchkit," he meowed, placing one paw gently on her mottled shoulder. "Do-do you really, believe what they're saying? Do you want...to change?"

The little gray-black-and-white mottled she-kit didn't answer, only leaning forward to hear more of the conversation. "Birchkit?" Hazelkit repeated, but was cut short when his father's voice boomed down below in the hollow.

"Well, maybe Jasmine is wrong." Moletail stood up straight, shaking debris from his brown and cream pelt non-chalont-ly.

"Maybe she's right," Nightshade raised her voice, taking a threatening pace forward towards her mate. Moletail did the same, until their muzzles were almost only a claw-length away from each other.

The tom curled his lip in the beginnings of a snarl, a deep and serious growl slowly forming in his throat. "You know what it would do to them," he meowed, his mew catching in his throat.

"I know what what would do to them?" NIghtshade hissed evenly. "I know just as much as you right now, so speak up."

Featherfoot realized what was going on, and rushed forward to split the two. "Hey!" she gasped, backing away into her spot where she'd been sitting two moments before. "No one's changing, you got it?"

Finally, after a very long moment of silence, the couple nodded together, and then broke away to head to their nests for the night. "Got it."