eleven ࿈

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      It was the cold that woke Smokeflood from restless, dreamless sleep

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      It was the cold that woke Smokeflood from restless, dreamless sleep. She took a deep breath, eyes snapping open at the unfamiliar scent. Her heart raced, and she shot up in her nest as she looked around, not recognizing her surroundings. She closed her eyes, remembering. Right. She lay back down in the moss and fern woven nest, looking out of the den she was crammed in. Pine nettles coated the camp clearing like a cloud of russet bedding. ShadowClan. Rain had persisted on through the day and paused through night, but a slow patter drizzled down in the early morning light. Smokeflood tucked her head in her paws, eyebrows knit and eyes downcast. It wasn't a dream after all.

She went to close her eyes again, wishing for sleep to welcome her still-tired body once more, when a high, young scream echoed through camp. She was on her paws in an instant, streaking out the make-shift den she had been staying in with the other less-injured RiverClan cats. Another few warriors had popped out of the warriors den to see what was going on, though, Smokeflood didn't recognize them. The scream had come from the medicine den, and it was followed by gasping cries.

"What's going on?!" She stuck her head into the den situated in the rotting stump of a fallen pine, the trunk and it's branching fronds of the same fallen pine serving as the warriors den. Honeybreeze, yellow-golden tabby fur covered in cobwebs and poultices, was still, and her kit Kestrelkit lay crying by her side. Leopardnose stood by, as well as a few other ShadowClan medicine cats, all not quite able to look at the kit. Honeybreeze was dead.

"She won't wake up..! She won't wake up! Please, Honeybreeze, Mom! Wake— wake up...!" Kestrelkit gasped for air as he cried. He pressed his muzzle into her shoulder and muffled his cries.

Smokeflood blinked, taking a step back from the den. Oh. His sister Spinekit is gone too, she didn't come back with them. Smokeflood swallowed, hanging her head. She herself never really had parents; her mother had died during her kithood and father unknown and absent in her life.

"S-Smoke-p-paw..?" Kestrelkit whispered, and the dark she-cat quickly came to his call. He looked so small in the half-light of the den. Bushes and bracken built up and wave around the thick exposed roots and rotting core of the pine tree, a few heavily injured RiverClan warriors blearily waking to the kit's crying.

       "I'm sorry, Kestrelkit," she murmured, looking down at the wide-eyed ginger tabby.

      "I want to go back to the nursery. I want to go back, please take me back!"

      "I can't," Smokeflood whispered. He sniffed, and let out another small cry, smashing his nose into his mother's cold fur once more. I can't take a kit to some bloodbath. But..., she looked out of the den, I can take myself to a bloodbath. See if there's still fighting. Look for survivors.

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