DEPTHS OF WATER

A/N: Sup. This is my first warrior story I'm uploading, I say that because I used to write really bad ones when I was younger XD. Anyway, I just wanted to see if I could. This story starts two generations after the real books, so it's like the younger generations grandkids. The grandkids of really important cats are most of my main characters. I put different characters in my own couplings and used those, so yeah. Enjoy! Hope you like it! In a few chapters, I'll have all the names and descriptions because…well it'll be a waste of time if I do it now since EVERYTHING is about to change. R&R please!

-2XA

Prologue

Moonlight filtered through the trees, hitting the earth in shafts of white light, and causing eerie shadows to fly across the ground and unto any surface. There was only silence here. A silence that made the fur on your back stand up and the voice in your mind tell you to run away- fast. The sort of silence that made you jump at every rustle you thought you heard, or every breeze of air you imagined. Although you thought you were safe, you couldn't rid yourself of the feeling that something was about to happen. Sadly…you were right…

You heard it first, before anything reached you, it reached your ears. You tried to understand the sound, but it was far before your time, a noise that would not be known by you. You try to ignore it, but every instinct you have is telling you to run again, even though fear holds you to the spot. The sound grows closer, like dry leaves as they brush against each other. As it grows louder, your fear does as well, and finally, when you see the crest of blue in the distance, you run. You run, but it still reaches you.

The blue water swallows you, taking you into its depths and taking the air from your lungs. It tosses you, spins you, crashes you, and you scream beneath the waves. Fear overwhelms you, and instead of swimming, you thrash out of fear. Time seems to stop as you continue to reach for the top of the water, but you are disoriented, and you can't tell which way is up. Finally, you reach the surface, jumping out of the water and gasping for breath. Your paws hit the water with great force as you try to keep your head above water, but you are not a fish, in fact, you're not even a Riverclan cat. You feel your legs grow tired, and as you slip underneath the water, you wonder if it is the last time you would ever see the moonlight…

Underwater, everything is up, down, right, and left. You search desperately for something to cling to, and find a seemingly sturdy surface, but when you reach out to claw into it, your claws cannot breech the shell and one rips off. You yowl into the water, releasing the air you had been already struggling to hold. You gasp again, inhaling water, and only making you feel more breathless. The water has faint traces of red in it from the blood on your paw. You realize as the water stings your paws that you have many cuts from trying to grip the surface before, and you think that perhaps it had been a tree. Your thoughts are delusional, like wondering when you will next get a vole from the fresh-kill pile; you amuse yourself with the thought until you realize that you have been getting deeper in the blue water. The new thought that crosses your mind is much darker. I am going to die…

Adrenaline pulses through your veins as you make a last attempt to spring yourself out of the water. Again, breaching your watery weight, you yowl into the night darkness, screeching for help…anyone's help. You don't know what territory you're in, except that it's not your own. You don't see trees, so you assume its Windclan's moors, although maybe the trees have blurred because of your speed in the water current. You start to give up hope. You start to hope to Starclan that you made it into the stars beside them. You start to let the fear swallow you and let the water as well. AS you fall beneath the water line and are taken into the blue depths you feel a strange calm, as if dying was no bother anymore, and that you were fine with it. As you slowly sink lower, you start to admire the pretty sparkle of the blue water. At least you'll have a pretty grave...

Your breathing has already started to slow down, and so have you. You've let yourself simply float, float and watch the shimmering water around you. You smile at the moonlight filtering into the water. Maybe swimming wasn't as bad as you had previously assumed. Dark spots start to cloud your vision, but unlike you thought, your lungs don't burn anymore…truthfully…nothing feels like anything anymore, except for the strange calm that you let swallow you. You blink slowly matching the time you close and open your eyes to the slowing heartbeat that pounds in your ears. Your breaths are gone, and you are in no hurry to take the next one. You don't think of anyone you leave behind, you don't think of anyone, no one besides the starry furred cats you now see before you. One of them nods their head at you, beckoning you. You want to swim, but you can't reach them. You give a quizzical glance, but you make no more effort to move.

Suddenly the current starts taking you to them, and you are no longer confused, as you are coming fast to the cat. As the cat grows closer, it seems to look familiar to you. Maybe it is a mother, or a father, maybe even and aunt or an uncle, or a best friend, or a cousin. Maybe it was your mentor, or a leader you followed dutifully, maybe it was just someone you loved, or someone who loved you back. Perhaps it didn't matter anymore, because you could no longer feel anything but the love that the starry cats were showing you. So many more had appeared as you'd come close, and each one gave a bitter-sweet glance at you, glad, yet sad, that you had joined your ranks. You closed your eyes without a second thought. Taking in all the feelings of love and warmth they gave you. You waited for your eyes to open in the starry home of Starclan…

CHAPTER ONE: WATERY GRAVE

BLUEHAZE…...THUNDERCLAN

The water washed over me with so much power that I had no time to prepare myself. I was horrified, almost too scared to do anything but thrash around in fear. Finally, when I gathered my wits, I started to try and swim upwards, but as I did, I was shoved into something so hard, that the arm that took the most force of it shot arcs of pain upwards. I yowled silently in the water, panicking because it hurt far too much to swim, and you had no understanding of how much relief flew through me as I felt teeth grab my scruff and leaf me to the top of the water…

I jumped awake. Head popping up, looking around in so much complete fear that you'd have thought I had just woke up from death. Just a nightmare Blue, its fine… I thought to myself, taking a breath as I stood up, stepping over the warriors that surrounded me around the den. I almost snorted in amusement when I saw Cricketfang, his tail flung across Blackrain's nose and his paws laying across Spottedwave's back. His back legs were flattened and prodding a very obviously uncomfortable Greeneye in the stomach. She moved a little, but he only kicked her back into place. I laughed to myself, traveling lightly into the bright sunlight outside. Thank goodness the rain was gone, things had gotten very aggravating in the camp all day long. The Thunderclan cats had started arguing with each other out of boredom. It was almost amusing, unless you just wanted some silence.

"Hey Bluehaze," Oceanblaze's voice was soft behind me, and I turned to greet her, giving her a grin that she returned slightly. "Why are you up so early?" The unease of my dream returned and I quickly averted the question.

"I wanted to be awake for the silence," I said, then, flicking my tail for her to be quiet, I pretended to listen to the silence around me with happiness, I gave her a wider grin when she giggled at me. "Anyway, why are you up so early?" Immediately she looked to her paws, ears flattened as she became nervous.

"Actually…I wanted to ask you a question that's…sort of related to that…" She said quietly, looking around, it looked as if she was checking to see if anyone was in the clearing that might hear us. As the moments passed by, my curiosity grew.

"What's up?" I asked as she stepped towards me, before whispering,

"Do you have this really bad feeling that something going to happen really…really bad?" I looked at her in surprise. Secretly, I'd been harboring this feeling for a while. The feeling that something bad is going to happen, and that it will change so much…I'd been trying to shove it aside, but nothing seemed to work.

"Actually…sort of…I even had this nightmare-"

"About drowning?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"I had the same dream…I was drowning, and I couldn't breathe, but right before I could stop breathing, I hit something that was floating and scrambled on it…when I looked around…everything was ruined…" Oceanblaze spoke quickly now, fear rising in her voice as she continued. "Everyone was gone…Luckily though, it was a dream…right?" She added fast, as if trying to reassure herself. She probably was. I nodded.
"Yeah, it probably doesn't mean much…it's just that we had similar dreams, I was drowning, but someone saved me…so see, we didn't have the same dream. We just both dreamt about drowning. That's probably normal since all the rain." I answered, and as I spoke, I reassured myself that it was true. It made sense…sort of.

"Right! That's what I thought!" Oceanblaze grinned in relief, "Alrighty then, I'm going to see if Yellowrock can put me in the dawn patrol, you want to come?"

"Sure," I answered. We started padding towards the tall rock, and when we got there, we saw Yellowrock sitting below it, yawing in exhaustion.

"You were on the night patrol, weren't you?" Oceanblaze asked, concern in her eyes. I looked at him too. He looked unkempt, but not too bad.

"Oh I'm fine," He responded, giving his daughter a lick on the head, he nodded politely at me, but said nothing. "Anyway, is there anything you want?"

"Yeah, we want to get on the Dawn patrol. Will that be good?" I asked, teetering awkwardly on my back and front paws. It was always weird when I was around father's and daughter's…usually I got jealous…and remembered…things that happened to me when I was younger. I tried to avoid it…but fatherly love in a clan was basically everywhere.

"Yep, why don't you take Tawnyfern and…someone else you don't mind waking up, just tell me before you leave who you picked…" Yellowrock ordered, yawning again. Oceanblaze regained her concerned look, but kept her tongue.

"Great!" I turned to Oceanblaze and gave her a look full of trouble, "Let's go jump on our friends…"

…..

"I still can't believe you did that to me…" Cricketfang muttered, shaking his head. I let out an amused mrrow at my brother and cuffed him over the head with my paw. Oceanblaze and Greeneye purred in laughter.

"Keep up all of you," Tawnyfern said, sounding faintly amused herself. "And don't be too loud, we don't want to wake up anything and with you all talking so much we wouldn't be able to hear it and we'd get a nasty surprise and potentially a few injuries…" She warned. We quieted down…a little. Greeneye and Cricketfang started playing hopscotch, leaping over one another and landing very quietly while Oceanblaze and I stifled our laughs. After a while, we stopped, and instead focused on the actual thing we were supposed to be doing.

"Hey Bluehaze, get the Lake border really quick with Oceanblaze and then we can turn around," Tawnyfern ordered, "Find any trouble, yell, we'll wait here." She sat on the ground and flicked her tail at the surrounding area.

"Race ya!" Oceanblaze said, running fast toward the lake.

"No fair!" I said as she disappeared into the trees, racing, loudly may I add, after her. When I came to the edge of the forest I saw she had stopped running and her eyes were at the shore of the lake. The new shore of the lake. Never had I seen the water up so high, it was almost touching the edge of the forest, with a couple of steps I would be paw deep in water.

"Bluehaze look!"

"I see, it's up really high. Never seen it all the way up here before."

"Not that! Riverclan territory! Look!" My eyes followed hers, and I saw Riverclan territory. Though it really wasn't Riverclan territory, it was just water, moving water…Water moving so fast that I could actually see it progressing towards us. I couldn't see where the water ended actually...it was just blue as far as I could see. Fear gripped my stomach as I remembered my dream…

-…Lungs burning without the oxygen and black dots blocking my water-filled vision…-

"I don't think it was a coincidence about our dreams," Oceanblaze said, fear making her voice a pitch higher as we both stood frozen in place.

"Yeah…me either…" I then remembered Tawnyfern's orders, and I guess Oceanblaze did too, because without hesitation we both turned and ran together back towards the others, and when we reached them, we didn't stop to pause…

"RUN!"

GHOSTSHADE…..SHADOWCLAN

I was running…as fast as I could…away from the water surging after me. I knew I would have nowhere to run soon, unless I could reach the edge of the next body of water fast enough before it grew to wide…sadly it was too late…the water would be impossible to simply jump over…As I was running and panicking to find a new place to go, I saw a dark grey shape moving in the water, and then it disappeared from view. I didn't realize it was a cat until I jumped into the rushing water to save it. I grabbed it's scruff quickly, and with the extra strength I had, swam up to the surface with all my might, pulling the gray, Thunderclan smelling she-cat up with me…fear rose in my chest as the current dragged the both of us…even faster now…forwards…I was sinking…I was going to drown here…

I woke up on my feet, looking around at the hisses that soon followed my awakening. Whoops.

"Sorry you guys," I said quietly, stepping around all of the Shadowclan cats as I made my way outside. The dream still haunted me, but I pushed it aside for the moment, focusing on other things…like my stomach. I padded out into the open clearing. It was far too early for anyone to be awake now. Yet still I saw Sundart ahead of me, sitting and looking up at the blue sky. "Hey." I mewed a greeting, admiring the she-cat's pretty green eyes. Of course, I prepared for her cruel words, and was surprised when she gave a weak mewl of a response back.

"Sorry if I seem off but…something's not right today. It doesn't feel right…" She said, looking down at her pews and moving around the dirt around them. She was usually cynical, sarcastic, narcisistic, but not pessimistic. I mean she was, but in a strange, twisted, cheery way. She was the prettiest she-cat in the clan, completely uninterested in any other tom, and proud of it, but today she wasn't herself. At all.
"What's up?" I asked, sitting beside her and trying to see what she was looking at. I failed, the sky was empty.

"I don't know….it just feels…weird. Do you have the feeling?" She asked absent-mindedly. She finally looked at me, worry in her green gaze. "I had a strange nightmare that was way too realistic to be just nothing…" My heart skipped a beat at her words.

-…I would never wake up to see my clanmates again. No more hunting. No more grooming. No more sun-bathing. I would drown slowly and painfully…-

The memory of my own dream made me shiver, but I said nothing, only listened to see if she'd say anything more.

"I mean, do you think that maybe…maybe it's Starclan?" She questioned skeptically. It was rare for a cat that wasn't planning to be medicine cat to have dreams with Starclan, but it had happened before. I wondered if my dream was also of Starclan. Instead of stating anything about myself, I went with the Starclan question.

"It'd be unlikely…but maybe…why you though? Why not a medicine cat, or a deputy or leader?" I countered, and she sighed sadly.

"I don't know. I just want an explanation that doesn't seem so bad…"

"Yeah, I hope your premonition is wrong." She had no idea how wrong I wanted her to be.

"Ghostshade, Sundart, what are both of you doing awake so early?" I heard Hawkshred, the deputy, call us and give us a questioning look. We moved towards him.

"We just…woke up…" Sundart offered, giving her best I'm-pefectly-alright-not-really look. He must've got it, because worry shined in his eyes.

"Alright, just, while you're up, why don't you go hunting with Jaystorm and Liontail?" He asked, and we nodded almost relunctantly. I didn't think I would catch much, because now that I had Sundart mirror my feelings, they seem to have grown in intensity and I could no longer ignore them. I was really distracted. Distraction messes up a Shadowclan cat's light, silent tread.

We had no idea what we were coming up to.

STARCLAN…DURING THE STORM

The starry cats welcome each new-arrival with open-hearts. These were true soldiers, and soon they would know the turmoil that the cats below would have forced upon them. Truthfully, the cats below were not the only cats that would have destiny after disaster. The starry cats also searched for the star-filled pelts of the cats that would guide the ones below. The names of the cats hung high in every mind. Even the new-arrivals felt the need to find these needed cats, but these cats deaths were the most long-lasting…and they knew that patience for those below would be needed. When the first cat broke into the starry ranks of Starclan, all the cats eyes moved to her. She was wide-eyed, as gray as twilight, and shivering with fear. As the realization dawned on her that she was in Starclan, disappointment rose in her eyes, followed by anger, and a single muttered swear on the cursed water that drowned her. When she noticed that all eyes were on her, she stood up straight, eyes confused, and curious as she looked around.

"Uh…hi?" Her voice rang out in the nearly silent afterlife.

"Hello." A sleek blue-gray she-cat welcomed the other feline with slight enthusiasm.

"You're…?" She questioned the she-cat for her name. Although she was legendary, she knew not to expect to be known by the young one, and it didn't shake her, as she did not think of herself as others might.

"Bluestar, I was a leader of Thunderclan, far before your time." Bluestar answered with a slight purr. This she-cat shared blood with her. She was kin of Mistystar, a leader from Riverclan. Bluestar was happy to finally meet her, even under the horrific circumstances.

"Oh," She said, and only then did the recognition dawn in her silver-gray eyes. "You're my…grandmother…"

"Great-grandmother actually," Bluestar purred with amusement as the she-cat looked amazed to meet her. "But that's another matter, for a far brighter day. Today, we must speak Silvereye," Bluestar said, her voice taking a dark tone. Silvereye narrowed her eyes.

"What about?"

"The new clan will need you…it will be confused, startled, and fearful…we think someone there age, who knows them better, would be of more help. We want you prepared to send messages to the ones who made it. Starclan will need to be more interactive if the clans are still to survive."

A/N: Weee, Chapter one is done! (Rhyme) Hope you liked it, review please!

~2XA