Sounds of monsters and twolegs filled the night in the dark and desolate twoleg-place. Frenzied barking sounded from one side of a fence, followed by a loud yowl of pain. A very scrawny brown tom with a muzzle grey from age ran around the side, blood dripping from his flanks. Three huge dogs followed him, their barking never ending.
One of the dogs, growing bold, pulled off from the others and in a mad dash towards the cat fastened his slavering jaws around his hind leg. The tom struggled and hissed, turning around to rake his claws across the dog's muzzle. The dog yelped in pain and surprise, and stepped back to the others.
"Pod!" A loud, feminine voice mewed followed by a hiss. A dark tabby she-cat leapt out of the shadows, a pale grey tom and a small speckled brown tom racing behind her. The dark tabby raked her claws down one of the dog's flanks while the other two cats fought off the other ones. Thoroughly battered and wounded, the dogs turned tail and ran.
"Pod…" The tabby she-cat murmured sadly at the hurt cat. "Pod… Are you okay..?" She sniffed at his leg and nosed him to his paws.
"Ahh…" He moaned in a voice heavily laden with pain, "I... don't think I can make it much longer, Jingo..."
"You have to, Pod!" Jingo yowled, lashing her tail and letting the old brown tom lean on her shoulder. "Chirp, Frisk! Help me bring him back to the den!" She called over her shoulder to the accompanying cats.
"He's bleeding badly, Jingo…" Chirp, the grey tom, murmured quietly. "I'm not sure he'll make it back to the den…"
Jingo whirled on him, fur standing on end. "Are you suggesting that I just leave him here!? If he's going to go- which he won't! - he should be at the den with everyone else!"
Chirp narrowed his eyes at the tabby she-cat and shook his head.
"He won't last any longer, Jingo. He's old, and hurt. He's dying, Jingo. The life is bleeding out of him. I suggest laying him under the bush there and saying your final goodbyes."
Jingo sighed and listened to Pod's shallow breathing. "You're right, Chirp… Go back to the den, tell everyone what's happened. I'd.. I'd like to be alone with Pod.."
"Very well, Jingo." Chirp nodded, his ears twitching with sorrow of leaving his friend to die.
"Is.. is Pod going to die…!?" Frisk mewed, fear in his eyes. "I'll miss him..!" His tail drooped with despair.
Pod coughed, raising his glazing eyes at the young tom. "I'll be gone.. soon. Don't worry, young Frisk. I'll be with you in here." He set his tail near Frisk's heart before breaking into a coughing fit.
Watching the two cats leave into the darkness, she lead Pod over to the dark-leaved bush nearby.
"Are you sure you won't survive..?" Jingo murmured, pressing her nose into Pod's fur.
"I'm sure, J… Jingo.." He coughed out, splaying out on the ground with a sigh. "My old bones want rest… And they'll get it…"
Looking up, Pod's glassy eyes met Jingo's clear ones.
"Oh..! Jingo…!" He murmured, his voice sounding distant. "Find.. Find Brambleclaw.. And his patrol. They'll help…" He trailed off.
"What..?!" Jingo gasped, whiskers twitching as she remembered the forest cat's who wanted to find the rogue, Sol. "Surely I can't find them! I'll never find their forest.. I don't even know what way they came from..!"
"Then the dogs will kill you… One by one… by one.." Pod's voice trailed off one final time, and Jingo waited until she knew her friend was dead to press her nose into his fur one final time.
"Goodbye, Pod. Your death is surely a loss…"
"Jingo! Pod is dead!?" A dark, heavyset tom mewed in disbelief as she walked into the abandoned twoleg nest they used as a home.
Jingo inclined her dark head. "Yes, Hussar. He's dead and gone. He was killed by the dogs." On the last word, a hiss came from behind her.
"Dogs… Mangy vile fox-dung eaters!" a cold voice came from a dark pelted tom. "What do we do now, Jingo?"
Unblinking, she answered. "We need to go find the forest cats that came here some moons ago."
Hisses and mews of disbelief came from around her.
"Jingo, how will we do that!?" The black tom hissed again.
"I don't know, Jet. But they're our only hope."
