An Unknown Threat

Prologue

Graystone awoke to the sounds of a crow, guessing it was pecking through the fresh kill pile she shot up only to remember there was no prey there. She walked over back to her nest trying not to let the hungry rumbling of her stomach keep her up. As she dozed off again there were flashes of claws and teeth as they fought off the attacking dogs. There were too many cats for the dogs to take on, but before the dogs left they had taken all the prey that was caught. She awoke again panting as if they were still fighting. She carefully treaded out of the den and into the moonlight then as she saw the deputy, Stripecoat on guard.

She passed over to him and asked if she could go hunting, Stripecoat noded meowing, "I'll come and let's take Fernleap and his apprentice Jumppaw, She'll want to go on any patrol."

Graystone agreed and went to get Jumppaw. Jumppaw heard Graystone's soft pawsteps or more likely the pebbles walking around camp loosened as she entered the apprentices den.

Pricking her ears Graystone found Jumppaw who was letting out an excited purr. Graystone stepped over to the apprentice, signaling with her tail for Jumppaw to follow. As they left the den Stripecoat came out of the warriors den with Fernleap on his heels.

"Lets go, prey should just be coming out in search of food. Were all hungry but we must save prey for camp," Stripecoat mewed as the small patrol exited the camp.

"I'm gonna catch a rabbit for each elder," Jumppaw squeaked. Fernleap rolled her eyes in amusement.

As the patrol padded to the diamond of trees Graystone opened her mouth tasting the air, there was a squirrel and starling scent drifting around. With one careful paw step after another she made her way to the biggest tree where she could leap onto a long branch if she spotted prey.

A rustle of leaves told her where something was, she leapt up as quietly as she could. Before she could react a branch snapped, falling straight towards her. She was dragged down by her tail still frozen in shock at the fact the branch almost hit her spine. She blacked out only able to listen and remember the experience.

"Graystone? Are you OK? Get some moss," a voice asked, yelling an order at the end. Water was squirted into her face drenching her causing her to wake up spitting out water. She opened her eyes cautiously only to realize she was alive and Leafpelt was standing there. She looked around and saw the other three cats on the patrol sitting with worried eyes.

"What's going on? Why did the branch fall? Who dragged me down," Graystone questioned.

"I dragged you down, Jumppaw told Leafpelt what happened, and we don't know why the branch fell," Stripecoat answered. As he said that a mouse practically ran into Graystone's jaw, making her bite down with surprise.

She dropped it and mewed, "At least we can wait and ambush prey."

Leafpelt shook his head breathing, "They can continue hunting, I have see if you hit your head to hard. We're going back to camp, bring that mouse and any thing else that stumbles into us."

"All right," Graystone mumbled.

They padded slowly back to camp and dropped the mouse in the fresh kill pile. The scents of the herbs lining every wall of Leafpelt's den wafted towards her making her nocius.

"Graystone,I want you to name each piece of preys skeleton," Leafpelt mewed spreading a few birds, rodents, and fish.

Graystone thought over them, she replied, "A thrush, dove , crow, rabbit, mouse, squirrel, tuna, and salmon." Leafpelt nodded bringing the skeletons back to his den. With a flick of his tail he sent Graystone of. Padding towards the warriors den Graystone thought of what would have happened if Stripecoat wasn't there. Thought of dying or being parolized scared her so she decided to not think about it. As she curled up in her nest she was dragged into an inescapable nightmare, reliving the moment each time with a different outcome, though somebody always got hurt.