Prologue

A thick, dark smoke covered the sky like a black blanket, hanging so low that it was frightening. It blocked out the sky and sent darkness over the land. A dim and eerie dark red light bloomed inside the smoke like a bloody rose that wasn't really there. The world smelled like blood and battles. And even as they closed their eyes, they could still see the menacing cold silver glint of fangs and claws imprinted inside their eyelids, as if the memory would revive itself and charge at them to destroy them once and for all.

This was the world of the clans.

A black hawk circled overhead, just barely visible amidst the suffocating darkness. Its eyes glowed crimson as its inky outline seemed to leave a shadow even as it flew away, emitting an ear-piercing, shrill call of grief, dread and anger over the lands.

As they walked along the edge of a dried stream, the hard ground beneath their paws cracking with every step, they found the scent of fresh blood to grow stronger and stronger. The faint metallic smell that mixed in with the feeling of failure and despair, it loomed over them just like the blackened, gnarly trees that had lost all hope.

Them? They were the forgotten ones.

A dull, lithe red-brown shape moved through the ashes, bare trees and stepped carefully around the last embers and flames that refused to burn out. He was followed by a few more. He wrinkled his nose in disgust as he saw the bloodstained jagged rocks and burning tree bark, a growl rumbling in his throat as he viewed the limp, lifeless bodies that rested on the hard earth.

He lowered his head and narrowed his tired amber eyes, his breaths now exhausted pants in the closing black smoke. "Is this what the clans, what we, have come to?"

A grey and white she-cat, her dirty pelt matted with dirt and clawed with scars, slid up to stand beside her leader.

"War and conflict," she mewed coldly, solemnly, wishing her voice wouldn't crack at every word she pronounced. She hung her head. "Someday it will wipe out our existence. We can't live like this anymore."

The red-brown tomcat sighed and continued to gaze forward. The fire, the ashes… He hoped it would burn the dead bodies and lift them into the sky. The rain that started to pour down… He wished it would wash the land clear of anything that ever happened.

But he knew that couldn't happen. Not anymore.

"What do we do now?" a small grey tom asked their leader, forcing the red-brown tom's head to snap around and stare into his frightened green eyes. As he turned his head around, he saw a dozen more widened eyes gazing at him, looking to him for directions, support and leadership, and he realized that he never felt so helpless in all his life.

"Most of our clanmates have been killed. This land is destroyed," another cat from the small crowd stepped up and asked him. "We don't have a home anymore. What is left to live for?"

He shut his eyes, trying to imagine, remember, what it was all like before war ever broke and split the land. But he was clear that leading the others into the past again wasn't right. It wasn't the past anymore. The past happened, and now it couldn't be changed. The past was history.

But tomorrow was another chance.

He forced a small smile and lifted his head up higher, his eyes glinting with a newfound hope and confidence. It was only a tiny spark right then, but it would grow into a burning flame that will lead them to a new beginning, a new life.

Slowly, he shook his head.

"No, there is always something left to live for," he declared, spinning around to face the ones looking up at him. He planted his paws firmly on the ground, turning his back on the past. "We still have each other. We are survivors, and we didn't get to where we are alone. We are still friends, we are family. And as long as we stay beside one another, we do have a home, and we do have a reason to live."

"But where will we stay?" a young tom padded out from the others and questions, fearing for all of them and their future. "We certainly cannot live here anymore."

The spark from the leader's eyes didn't vanish. It didn't extinguish. Instead, it only grew bigger.

"Then we will search. We will find a new place to live, and peace, joy and harmony will be the only things that surround us," he told them. "We are not part of the clans anymore. We'll find this place. This place, elsewhere." He smiled, and eventually they joined in.

"Because we are one, and one forever."

Please review! It's not very exciting yet and the beginning won't have a ton of action, but I promise it will get more suspense-y and exciting later on! :D I'm also bored so I'll put random little facts about me in each chapter. XD Read or ignore. Both works. XP

Fact #1: I wish I can forget my own age because I think age isn't important.