The Cat Of The Prophecy: The Origins Of The Clans- Part 1: The Original Treeclan

Chapter 18: Time is almost up

     I was sitting down bathing my white front paws when Sootfeather and Willowflower padded towards me. There was a look of concern in Sootfeather's eyes, but Willowflower was still too far away to see. She was staring off into the distance behind me not at me like Sootfeather was. The black and white bobtail padded closer to me, her gaze lowered to meet mine. Willowflower's distant expression had changed into one similar to Sootfeather's.  I stopped bathing my self and my pink tongue briefly hung out of my mouth. I stood up immediately and asked, "What's wrong?" 
     "The time is nearing for us to leave this behind and venture into the past." Willowflower meows sadly looking in my eyes but only out of the corner of hers.
     "It is only a few more days right?" I asked curiously. I knew it wasn't far away and that the deadline was drawing to a close. 
     "Yes only a few more days, but I hoping we can make it that far." Sootfeather replied to me sadly.
     "What do you mean? Is everything alright?" I asked in alarm and then continued with my ears held sideways against my head nearly parallel to eachother, "Why wouldn't we make it that far? We have come this far, what exactly is it that would stand in our way?" 
    "Follow us and we will show you." Sootfeather meowed. I nodded and allowed Willowflower and Sootfeather to take the lead. I padded behind them at an even pace, they were still hard for me to keep up with, but I was following them much easier than before. They padded forwards into the woods at a quickened pace, they were clearly in a hurry to show me what ever it is that they are trying to show me. I noticed that we were headed towards the hill that faced the horizon and I slowed my pace. Why are they taking me here? What could possibly stop us from meeting our deadline? I thought. I padded forward until I saw the two she-cat's disappear over the grassy hill. 
     I hesitated at the bottom of the hill before I padded to the top. Sootfeather looked back at me and then turned her attention to the horizon. There were the dark black clouds that I had seen in my dreams and a dense black fog was moving towards us, but at a pace that was barely noticeable to the eye. I felt the back of my spine prickle and the fur on it stand up as I shifted my weight uneasily.
     "That stands in our way." Sootfeather stated staring at the darkness that nearly covered the sky. 
    "It is moving so slow it shouldn't reach the camp in three days time should it?" I asked not taking my eyes off of the dark fog.
    "It shouldn't, but it has covered this entire place before in less than a few minutes." Willowflower explained.
    "But if it has happened before how did you stop it?" I asked. 
    "We didn't stop it." Sootfeather meowed.
    "Then what happened, because I have never seen this darkness?" I questioned.
    "It just disappeared." Willowflower spoke. 
    "Darkness can't just all of a sudden disappear can it?" I asked Willowflower.
    "I don't know, but it did as soon as you came into the woods the first time." She replied.
    "Oh." I meowed simply, at a loss of words briefly.
    Sootfeather glanced at me and then glanced at the thick gas-like cloud of ultimate doom that was creeping towards us. She cleared her throat and then meowed. "I just hope the darkness you face is nothing like that one."
     "If it is. I will find a solution to it I am sure." I meowed showing far more courage than I was actually feeling. On the outside I was holding myself together, but on the inside everything was shaking threatening to throw everything off balance, as if trying to overpower the will I had to keep myself from falling apart. I was mortified, but had hope. If my first visit caused the darkness to disappear then surely I had some effect on it right? What other reason was behind its sudden disappearance? Was it dangerous or would it just be an annoyance? I had so many questions and no one could answer them. Maybe like in my dream, this was a problem to be faced head on, whether it was meant to be literally or figuratively. Maybe it only seem way worse than it really was, but then if that was true than there would not be a need for  there to be an entire prophecy about it.
    "I hope you are right Fernstar, but you are the one in the prophecy, so there has to be something that you can do about it." Sootfeather stated.
     "True." I meowed simply and then continued,  "We need to tell the clan."
     Sootfeather and Willowflower simply nodded and the three of us padded away from the darkness into the camp. I took a brief moment to glance back at the darkness. If this thing isn't the darkness I am facing then what is? I thought softly before turning towards my clan mates and following them back to the camp. I slowly padded through the forest carefully thinking of what to say to the rest of Treeclan.
     I arrived in camp a few moments after Sootfeather and Willowflower. I waited for a little while until the clan had finished their duties and had ate their share from the fresh kill pile. I took a small mouse from the pile, the smallest piece of prey in the pile, to leave everyone else with better choices. After I finished and noticed that the rest of the clan had finished I jumped up on to the rock and meowed. "All those cats and kits, join here beneath this rock for a clan meeting!"
     Every cat in the clan including the four kits were now sitting down below me. I closed my eyes for a brief second and took in a long deep breath in.  I hoped they would take this well and that it wouldn't cause a huge panic.  I glanced wearily at their worried glances and then cleared my throat. "As you all may know in three days, which marks the end of the third moon, our time here will be up and we will have to make the journey into the past. What you may not know is there is a cloud of darkness headed towards this very spot that threatens the chance that we will meet our deadline. It is going slow, but we do not know if it will stay slow." As I finished I heard several shocked gasps, murmurs, and several questions rang out.
      "Why is it coming towards us?" Asked one cat, but with all of the murmurs I could not tell where it was coming from. Of the few I could actually make out I could tell they were extremely worried about what this 'darkness' could mean and they had a right to be. Have we come this far only to be taken out by some unknown dark cloud? I thought softly staring at my paws. I could hear even more questions that all remotely sounded similar to the ones I had asked to Willowflower, Sootfeather, and myself. I still had no answers to these questions. 
      "What is this darkness?"
       "What does it want?" 
       "Why has it appeared now?"
       "Where does it come from?"
       "How will it stop us?"
        Then several more rang out but they were asked at the same time and more cats joined in the conversation. The noise and commotion was so loud that I could not hear myself think.
        So I continued and for some reason they stopped talking. "I do not know what the darkness really is or why it has come, or what it's intent is. All I know is what I have been given through the prophecy and nothing more."
     "Then how do we know we will make it to the deadline before it gets here?" Swiftshadow asked.
     "I believe we will make it. We have made it this far, what is to say that we won't make it all the way. We are Treeclan cats after all right?" I meowed.
    Several yowls of yes rang out and I continued. "Then we will make it for Treeclan!"
   "For Treeclan!!" The clan yowled.
    "From this leader, to every warrior, to the medicine cats, to every kit, we will survive. You know why?" I asked the crowd
   "Because we are Treeclan!" They yowled.
   "Yes! Because we are all Treeclan and we can do anything we set our minds to!" I yowled.
    "Treeclan! Treeclan! Treeclan! Treeclan!" All of Treeclan called including me.
     I stepped off of the rock while the chants were still going on and Sootfeather padded over to me.
     "How'd I do?" I asked her anxiously awaiting the answer.
     "That, Fernstar, is why you are the cat mentioned in the prophecy." Sootfeather purred.