They found her three days after she disappeared. She never completed her plan, never made it home.
"Fallen Leaves, I'm sorry. I guess I'm not quite the survivor you thought I was."
The clan knew she had been ridden with sickness for moons now, and it was only a matter of time before it spread from her body to her mind, the contaminate it and drive her to madness once and for all. They were expecting it, really. Later, it crossed her mind many times that no one even bothered to look for her once she was gone.
"Once again, you don't give yourself enough credit. How long did you go without food?"
The elders buried her as always, and many lamented over her fallen body.
"Of course, it was a wonder she made it through that battle of her's at all," remarked a dark brown she-cat, hindpaws laying limp behind her.
"It was an odd thing, really," Jayfeather, their medicine cat stated, who had known that the time for his sister's demise was coming soon.
"Three days..."
"She shouldn't have survived for more that one day, on her own out there."
"Survivor."
"The disease would've either driven her mind mad..."
"Survivor?"
"...or ravaged her body."
"Survivor!"
"But, she was a survivor, that Hollyleaf."
"I suppose survivors belong with their mates, don't they?"
"I suppose they do..."
Indeed she was. A survivor who got her wish.
