"Starclan...save me."
Everything, the whole world, all living beings, seemed to stop, to pause, to freeze. The she-cat held her breath, eyes wide, jaws agape, fur bristling. The wind seemed a hundred times more sharper, more colder, as it tugged at her pelt and pulled through the cold, leaf bare air, making the black waters ripple. The trees seemed to sway, creaking eriely in the cold silence of the night. She couldn't help but shiver, not from the cold but from the sight, from what she saw floating in the water. In all her life, she never saw anything so...so abnormal or erie.
It had been, before this sighting, an almost too normal of a day. She had taken her annoying apprentice out for some training, had gone to see the elders, watched the kits for the queens, and went out hunting. The only thing that wasn't normal up until now was that she was put up for night patrol.
Like there's anyone to look out for, we're surrounded by nothing! she had thought before, mumbling about the poor intelligence of her deputy and the poor attitude that was owned by her apprentice. Oh how much of a pain he was to train. He simply went on and on about how much better he would be than everyone else once he graduated into warriorhood. As if. He'd be better at being a loudmouth than anyone else in RiverClan. As for the deputy, she remembered when she used to fancy him. Then she found out about his liking for another she-cat. Then she never considered him as handsome ever again. Just when she heard he liked someone else, she immediately didn't have the same feeling when someone said his name anymore.
She didn't realize she had walked right up to the pond's shore until she felt a burning icy sensation on her paws, causing her to jump and look down to see the water lap hungrily at the shore, drenching her paws in the icy substance, causing her to cringe and back away, her eyes darting back to gaze upon where she thought she saw something float in the dark waters, only to see nothing.
"I'm probably just drowsy. The sooner I get out of here, the better-"
Crack.
Jumping once again, she whipped around to face the intruder, fur bristling and standing on end. But she saw nothing.
I hope Batpaw isn't trying to scare me, she thought, tail lashing, claws unsheathed. Still glaring at the dark forest, she tried to ignore the sense of foreboding creeping up her spine like a large, invisible but ugly spider, inching slowly but visibly making the process of crawling up her spine and squeezing itself in her ears and into her mind. She turned her head back to look at the water when she caught a flash of color, white to be exact, flashing by in the woods, but not making the slightest sound. Frozen, the she-cat watched it as it made it's way through the woods, not even noticing her. But what was it?
An intruder, she thought , her eyes flashing. She took off after the creature, highly on alert and trying to make as less noise as possible. Following it deep in her territory, she somehow manage to catch up with it in a fair distance but when she got close enough to pounce it sped ahead, the she-cat landing in the cold ground with a thud. Grinding her teeth, she chased after it, not even bothering to quiet her bounds. She was not letting it get away. Not without a fight.
Then she ran into a tree. Literally, one minute she was speeding, next thing she knew, she was flat against the trunk and bouncing off, tumbling to the ground. Dazed, the she-cat lay there, staring at the canopy of leaves above her, birds fleeing from the branches from her collision. Slowly, so she wouldn't give herself more of a headache, she lifted herself off the ground and almost tripped over her paws, so she steadied herself by spreading out her legs and closing her eyes.
Once her head stopped swimming, she opened her eyes to see that the white thing was gone.
Deciding to herself that it was just some rabbit (a very large rabbit), she headed back to the pond so she could get a drink. Padding slowly back to the small body of water, her mind wandered back to the thing she saw floating in the water. After a moment or two of thought, she reckoned it was just a small branch that fell off a tree and was drifting on the surface before sinking.
Wood doesn't sink.
She shook her head to rid of these uneasy thoughts just as she approached the pond. Looking down at the ground, she paused, ears flicking forward in interest. Eyes narrowing, she bent down to look at the strange design imprinted into the dirt. It looked like a cat's paw, but more...slender around the digits and thin. Snorting about her sanity, she clawed at the dirt to cover up the print and continued her way to the pond, her throat parched from the sudden urge to drink water. Reaching the shore, she bent down to lap up the water with her tongue when she found something odd about her surroundings but she couldn't figure it out. Then she noticed the water. It was a full moon out, the time was moonhigh, and moonlight drenched the whole territory in many shades of silver and gray, illuminating the forest. But the water was still pitch black, with no reflection of the moonlight at all. In fact, now that she looked at the water a bit more closely, it didn't even look the slightest shade of blue. It was just black. Dark black, with no bottom in sight. Not even a star reflecting off it's surface. All tranquility of her surroundings, of the night, suddenly drained out, leaving only nothing in it's wake. Nothing but foreboding, forlorn feelings. That's when she heard it.
Click click click. Hissss.
Blinking, she looked up, but saw nothing. Bending back down, she heard it again,
Click click click click...
It sounded like it was coming from in front of her and then it sounded like from the behind. Ignoring it, she continued lapping until she saw a small disturbance in the water, with large ripples heading in her direction. Thinking it was only a duck, she extended her tongue to drink again when she saw crimson in the water, swirling in little ringlets and ribbons, twisting and curling around the ripples like smoke. It looked like it was dripping from above..
SPLASH.
A small, lifeless body of a kit was plopped right in front of her, even more blood pooling from it's destroyed body and flowing away in thicker ribbons. She gasped, startled at the sudden sight of the dead kit. She was about to scream when she heard that sound again, except it sounded right in front of her.
CLACK CLACK CLACK CLICK HISSSSSSS
A flash of white and in a moment of terror, all was lost.