To all my dear readers: welcome to the story of trust and betrayal, the story of shattered minds and deceptive plans, the story of agonizing suspense and heart-pounding action, the story known as Twisted.
This is the product of a mind-blowing fit of inspiration, a laptop, and a little bit of research. I have to say, I'm quite proud of the story idea, and where I'm planning to go with it. I'm even proud of this teensy little 546-word prologue.
Hopefully, this will pique your interest and have you eagerly anticipating the rest of the story. And the only way I'm gonna know about that is if you review/follow/favorite, right?...that was a not-so-subtle hint, there.
Let's delve right in, shall we?
The first betrayal came three days after it happened.
The betrayal shattered the night in a flurry of claws slashing through the darkness and torrents of blood pooling on the ground, and it culminated in screams and howls of anger and a wild chase through the dark, starless night.
The Clan lost two cats that night.
One was their dead provider, and the other was the one who killed him, who could not be considered a Clanmate now.
The Clan was frightened, and with good reason. The dead provider had been very well-liked, and had not had a single enemy to be spoken of within the Clan or without. His sudden murder was horrifying, unexpected, and completely unjustified as well. The provider who killed him had been one of the sweetest, kindest cats, as well as the best hunter in the Clan.
Needless to say, the Clan was in utter disbelief and complete denial, and refused to let it really sink in until much, much later.
They were wary, but gradually became more relaxed over the next two days, chalking the betrayal up to desperation and madness from it. They were a young Clan, being roughly cobbled together from coarse rogues, sneaky loners, and soft kittypets, and they had no sense of a real Clan yet, nothing that would bind them together unfailingly.
The second betrayal came on the fourth day after the first one, when another cat made an attempt on a Clanmate's life, escaped, and ended up dead, drowning in the nearby river.
Now the Clan was vigilant, suspicious. They had lost another Clanmate in a betrayal that night, another Clanmate whom they had once believed to be one of the most loyal in the Clan. The cats were fearful that this would happen again, yet fervently praying that it wouldn't.
The only ones who were completely unaware of the Clan's growing unease were the kittens (whom the other cats called innocents) and the very youngest novices. They spent their days blissfully playing with their siblings or doing various light chores around camp, and play-fighting. None were aware that the Clan was on edge and guarded, that something was going on that could not end well for the Clan.
The third betrayal came five days after the second, when an older novice was found slyly combining deadly herbs in the medicine den and mixing it with the poultice for the Clan's only current senior, who very nearly died as a result of the tampering. The tampering, it turned out, was intentional.
So that day, the Clan lost the novice who would have become a provider soon, and the Clan's already fragile loyalty began to split at the seams.
In the days between betrayals, the leader tried to hold them together, and tried to keep the Clan functioning as normal. He promoted several innocents to novices and appointed providers to be their teachers.
But no cat could disguise the fact that with the continued betrayals, the Clan was beginning to fall apart, drowning in hopelessness.
When it had happened, less than a moon prior, they had thought their troubles were over. They had thought that they could finally live a peaceful life.
But now they knew they had been wrong.
It had cursed their lives.
Just you wait 'til the real action begins...
Yes, this Clan system is a little different. I'm using different terms for most rankings. Warriors are providers, apprentices are novices, et cetera. More background information in the next chapter.
Review, now. Don't forget.