LostHope's Path

Chapter 10

A/N: There will be a lot of romance in this chapter... ew.

It happened like a storm.

Lostpaw was depressed. Always. And nothing could ever help her, it felt like.

She cried herself to sleep every night silently as not to wake the others. The dark wouldn't take another victim tonight, she vowed, and the rest of her days were monochromatic in the ominous, horrible, horrible mood.

Waking up come morning, she would feel numb to any physical pain in her stump, and leaf-bare had begun to call, but she was never cold, she was built from the hollowness that filled her bones...

It feel like the weather had seeped into her heart,

forever freezing, 

forever dark.

Lostpaw glanced up from her soft, slow descend into the camp clearing, spying Raggedstar already there at the edge of the forest, meeting her with a sinister, piercing glare.

Time for my 8th-something moon of training to begin. Raggedstar still refused to make any of the apprentices a warrior, for reasons nobody knew.

Suddenly, a wired Mintpaw flung out of the medicine cat den. Lostpaw flinched, somewhat dodging the pale grey she-cat. The willows of the den entrance parted in the breeze of the hyper cat's wake. Lostpaw's gaze traveled among the herbs, remedies, and nests lined neatly along the walls. Small red berried were there too among the mix. Deathberries.

If I could just sneak in there.... and.... take one. My pain would be over. Forever.. .

She suddenly froze, hearing pawsteps, and averted her gaze, and her thoughts, ready to bolt.

"Hey, Goody-one-paw..." Thunderpaw gently cuffed Lostpaw's ear with a sheathed paw, breaking the doldrums of depression a little. "What's up?"

She just gazed at him softly. He was already 14 moons now, and  filling his once-huge paws. Lostpaw was only less than a moon younger, yet she was resembling more a wind-beaten kit than what a ShadowClan apprentice-should-be-warrior should look like. "Nothing much..."

"You're lying, Lostity-paw. What's wrong?"

"I....I'm..." Lostpaw bit back a flood of tears. "I'm fine, Thunderbutt." 

Fine. Depressed. Stupid. Worthless. Broken. Handicapped. Crippled. Suicidal. And...I need you... 

Thunderpaw purred. "I'm glad to hear that. I'll talk to you later."

He began to pad bouncily toward his new mentor, Tanglemeadow. Lostpaw just sighed. Deathberries would be nice. She thought, beginning to walk onward. Deathberries would be lovely.

Training that day was bitter and fruitless. Raggedstar was as great as a mentor as always............ yeah, right. The leader's attitude toward her apprentice hadn't improved, or gotten better since becoming leader blew up her ego more than ever.

 And nobody knew.

It was like drowning, while watching everyone else breathing free.

She couldn't take it any longer.

The night's unfeeling fingers slipped through the leaf roof of the almost-empty apprentice's den. Lostpaw rose shakily to her three, weak paws padding softly about a fox-length forward in the den. Thunderpaw's moss nest groaned under the overgrown apprentice's weight. His nose was buried deep into his paws, and fluffy tail. Long little tufts of his thick gray fur stuck out adorably. His pelt rose and fell with every soft little breath. Just wake him up!