SURPRISE! I'm back again with the second chapter! Though this is likely the weakest of the three I've done so far, I had a BLAST writing this. Just the deviation from the classic Erin Hunter style to a more contemporary style for this chapter was just really fun for me. Keep in mind, though, that I had to use words from the forest to describe the environment Graystripe was in, so this chapter may seem a little weird. Also, I decided to add in a section introducing a Twoleg who saved Graystripe's life by pulling him from the wreckage. I am planning on him having another significant role later in the story, so keep a lookout for that section!
I am now also taking OC's temporarily! I'm thinking of adding them to the chapters where Graystripe is in Twolegplace so feel free to submit some! Please PM them to me to not clutter up the review section, though. :)
Thanks so much to DappledleafTheBootiful for the follow and the kind review! I really appreciate it!
And now, please enjoy the second chapter!
Chapter 2
~Saviors~
Fire.
Horrendous, blazing fire.
It scorched him, burned his insides, enveloped him in blazing heat.
Graystripe had never been in this much pain, ever. Not even the loss of his friends could amount to something remotely close to this scalding heat.
He was broken, burned, scarred. He could barely move or think. His brain was a mess and the world around him spun like a rock down a steep hill, with colors flashing so fast he couldn't see or hear anything correctly.
All he could hear was a terrible ringing that echoed eternally in his ears. All he could see were flashes of color, bright and dark, black and white, neutral and color, and of time, past, present and future, of which he did not have the capacity to decipher one from the other.
This fire inside him, this incinerating heat, was burning him alive, making him go insane.
This insanity would cause him to never know what would happen around him, as light suddenly broke through his unceremonious burying place and exposed his broken body to the world.
To him, the world had broken around him, and he was watching it swirl in his mind, unknowingly waiting until the world swept him away. Because of that, he would never know that a Twoleg dressed in red and black had just helped him begin his second life.
His name was James. It was a generic name, sure, but he liked it. He was known to the world as James and only James. He only gave permission to his father, mother and siblings to call him Jamie or Jay or whatever the hell they wanted. But to everyone else, he was James.
James always had big dreams. When he was three, he wanted to become an astronaut and fly to the moon, Mars and beyond. When he was five, he wanted to be a ninja and leap across buildings to save the world. (That dream ended quickly when his parents caught him on the roof and his trampoline in the front yard) When he was eight, he wanted to be a police officer and break down doors and enforce justice in the name of the law, (He eventually gave up on that when his dad told him that he couldn't buy him a gun. That was the biggest tantrum he had ever thrown and his mother had laughed at him despite the circumstances) and when he was ten, he wanted to become a billionaire internet superstar. (That's what started 'Shutdown Sundays,' where he couldn't use any electronics. It didn't take him long to figure out why this "tradition" had started)
But when he was thirteen, the week before eighth grade, he decided that he would become a firefighter. It was the career his father led, and when he was promoted to the chief position, he was invited to the party. It was there where he met the rest of the crew, played with the cat and dog that lived there for about three hours, got a free firefighter hat and a free ride around the neighborhood on the big fire truck. (He even got to blow the horn! Lucky kid!)
It was there that he decided on his future career. And when he found out that there would be a class field trip to the fire station, he realized this would be his chance to become the coolest kid in the grade! So, on the bus ride there, he told everyone on the bus how cool the station was, all the while meticulously planning his words so this it would be interesting to his internet-drunk friends.
And it worked! After helping his dad as an assistant tour guide, his way of explaining it earned his a lot of "Dude, you're dad's pretty lit!", "It's cool that you know these things!", and "We should hang sometime!" remarks. (He did not, however, fulfill his other big goal, which was to impress his crush, a girl named Samantha. But that was probably because she stayed on her phone the entire time, so who gives a damn anyways?)
So, as a celebration, he got to stay at the fire station after the tour and spend the rest of the day there. He spent it getting a lot of high-fives and eating the best spaghetti bolognese he had ever tasted. He also got another ride on the fire truck!
But it was there, when he saw the van explode out his window, that his life changed forever.
The first rule in being a firefighter is to stay calm at all times. Even if you can't be.
James had learned that from day one, when he was at the promotional party. However, it was particularly hard to stay calm, because they had taken the biggest truck in the shed and they were the only two in the truck. They were also the closest ones, so they were designated as the first responders.
Immediately, he felt the adrenaline pump through his veins. He had never responded to an emergency before! So he forced himself to remain calm and work through his father's orders without freaking out.
He actually did okay, according to his father. He managed to turn the hose-valve the right way and stop pedestrians from approaching the scene until the rest of the unit arrived, avoiding questions of why an eighth grader was at a dangerous place.
About fifteen minutes after the rest of the unit arrived, the fire was out. Apparently, the workers got careless and left a gas tank valve open, and forgot to both turn off the valve and remove the gas pump. James had never thought that anyone could be so careless.
So, according to protocol, they now had to put on heat-resistant suits and search the wreckage for anything alive. The suits they had in stock were far too big, but because of James' stubbornness, they let him put one on. (It was quite a spectacle. The firefighters could not hold their laughter and many pictures were taken of him. That picture got about 1,000 likes on Instagram)
So they searched the dismantled van. It wasn't the hardest job in the world, since the frame of the car somehow managed to stay suitably intact, but the wreckage was pretty heavy, and James couldn't lift a lot of the hunks of metal by himself.
Then he heard it. A soft mewl, barely audible, as he was searching the trunk.
He shouted to the crew that he may have found something, and began to excavate the rest of the metal, which was just light enough so that he could life it.
That's when he found it. A gray-furred cat lying underneath the wreckage of the roof. For a moment, James thought there was no chance he was alive until one of the crew took the cat in his hands and, after placing his thumb on the cat's heart, proclaimed that he was barely alive.
James was shocked that the cat had somehow managed to survive the explosion. So shocked that he didn't say a word through the high-fives the guys gave him, the big hug his dad gave him and the walk back to the truck. Not even when he watched the crew wrap the crippled cat in cold washcloths.
But as he sat in the truck while they drove to the vet, a thought occurred to him.
He had just saved a life.
It was then that James broke the biggest smile he had made today. That was certainly one way to make yourself happy.
Graystripe woke to a sensation of searing pain.
There was the agonizing fire inside his body that he would never overcome, but outside of it was a new sensation, one prickling on the outside of his body, begging to break in and flood his innards.
Then, among the heat, he started to feel intense chills, like spears of ice pressing against his face, legs and belly. He felt like he was being pulled down a deep, frozen lake, where his fur was turning to ice. The frigid cold began to battle with the agonizing heat, and Graystripe could feel the warring sensations blur out into a mess of intense agony.
His mind was still scrambled and the blur of colors still plagued his sight, but slowly, all that began to melt away, and he began to lose the last shred of his awareness to everything.
Then, as if something clicked in his mind, a solitary, comprehensible thought formed, and he understood it.
Need...to...breathe!
Desperate, Graystripe tried to seize control of his own body, trying to calm it by moving something. He felt like he was just a spirit, slowly floating away from his body into the sky.
Then he opened his mouth.
He didn't know how it happened, but ever so slightly, his jawline broke open a sliver, just enough to part his two rows of teeth and send fresh air into his body. At once his body began to calm, the agony in his body very slowly began to dwindle away, his brain beginning to settle down and his sight focusing on the colors of the image in the present instead of anything in existence.
Then, a second thought entered his mind.
Where am I?
He managed to move his head barely and tried hard to focus. It hurt, but he forced himself to blink, to try and get himself to focus on his surroundings.
After what felt like several moons, his vision slowly began to come back into focus.
It initially seemed like he was in a pitch black area, but as time passed, the details of the space he was in solidified in his vision, and after a couple of minutes, though his sight was still quite blurry, he saw that he was in a very dark, enclosed room.
That was all he could tell. Everything else in the room were either items he didn't recognize or too dark to make something out of it.
He started to get nervous, which was the only emotion his body seemed to tolerate, because of the tensity the body responds to and how it kept the pain in his body in check. However, he also instinctively tried to stand. Instantly, when he tried to move his paws, fresh agony shot through his veins and his cry of pain, muted by his shortage of breath, came out as a pathetic whimper. Even when he stopped trying to move, the intense pain lingered in his body. Graystripe really wanted to vocalize his pain, let somecat know that he was internally burning up and needed help now, but he could not draw the breath to speak, only being able to take shallow gulps of air in small intervals.
On top of that, he had no idea where he was, whether he was dead or alive, or what kind of danger he was in. What he did know what that he needed help. Now. And to do that, he needed to stand.
He forced himself to try again. Slowly, he turned his front paws so that they faced the ground. The pain intensified once again, but he kept pushing on, desperately trying to keep the agony in the back of his mind. Eventually, he made contact with the sleek surface he was laying on. In the midst of the excruciating pain, Graystripe felt a moment of coolness envelop his front paws before the momentary relief dissipated one again.
He now faced the challenge of overcoming his own weight and tensity and forcing his hind legs up. Knowing that even more pain was to come from his wrecked muscles, he forced himself to take a bigger intake of breath than his broken body would prefer to tolerate. The now all too familiar burning rose to his throat and lungs, and he had to put in all his willpower not to fall back over to his side. He pressed his front paws on the ground, filling himself with the sensations of the frail relief. Then, very slowly, he attempted to shift his balance and move his legs, which felt like a separate entity from the rest of his body.
The moment he began to make progress, his internal torment escalated exponentially. Everywhere, in his joints, in his stomach, in his head, the agony swelled to a dominance that was so great that Graystripe thought he was about to explode. His breath was stolen from him as his body, despite its protest, was twisted to move his legs.
Graystripe did not initially notice this, but the pain was well too much for him to handle, especially in his degraded mental state. In the moments following, mist suddenly began to cloud his vision and his eyes began to roll back. He was about to faint and he didn't even know it.
Due to his unnatural focus on the task that was wrecking his body, he did not notice a bright ginger tom sprint out of the mist and directly at him. It was only when his yowl of pain and grief filled his ears did he notice.
Everything in his body seemed to freeze, and the pain stopped for just a moment. But he could not notice.
"Graystripe!"
The tom was calling his name. And he was forced to listen
Tears lined the tom's eyes as his illusion seemed to stare directly at him.
"Come home. Come back to me. Please…"
His mind then produced a fourth thought. This time, it was not a task, but a name.
Firestar.
It seemed to echo, the thought.
Firestar.
It got louder.
Firestar.
Louder still. Almost to the body where his whole body could jubilate it to the stars.
Firestar!
Then, his brain broke from its null, solitary stance, and everything flooded in like a waterfall. Memories, cherished and disputed from the past. Thoughts, questions, about the present, and dark, scary fears about the present.
In that moment, Graystripe remembered everything.
In that moment, he knew that he was truly resurrected.
Then he fell back sideways onto the surface, and pain flooded him once more.
Graystripe now tried to regain his shallow breath, coming rhythmically in long intervals. The searing fire still burned in his belly, but now that he could think for himself, the pain seemed to dwindle to the point where he could barely bear it if he didn't think about it.
Besides, he had different things to think about now that a set of doors just opened and light now flooded the room.
Graystripe squinted hard at the sudden light change. Now, everything was blurry again. As he tried to regain focus, he then noticed that two large figures that seemed the size of a tree were looming over him on opposite sides. Then, all of a sudden, one of the creatures pressed on his belly lightly and began to put pressure. The pain built up to unimaginable heights, but even that was nearly overcome completely by the sudden cold Graystripe felt.
Oh StarClan, no.
Standing over him were two adult Twolegs. And they were armed with sharp blades that were meant just for him.
Graystripe began to freak out. His eyes went wide and he began to flail around helplessly, but as he tried to squirm away, the pain caught up with the adrenaline, and lagged his movement so he could not escape the Twoleg's grip. He tried to look for a distraction for the Twolegs so he could escape, but could see none. He was stuck.
He felt one of the Twolegs take his front left paw in their furless, crystal-white hand. He began to brush the charred fur just under the paw in opposite directions to make a part, revealing the shrouded skin underneath in the process.
Then Graystripe saw it. A silver bramble-like blade held in the other Twoleg's hand. It seemed to gleam ominously in the artificial sunlight they had created. Graystripe tried desperately to pry away from their grip, but his stiff and shattered body would not allow him the strength to move.
Then, with the paw in it's firm grip, the Twoleg plunged the bramble into his leg, and Graystripe, let out a pathetic, muted, high-pitched cry that a bird would mistake for a mating call. That's when he ran out of breath and he could not regain any more.
His eyes, now pained slits, stared in terror at the bramble that now pierced his front leg. A tiny trickle of blood was trailing down his fur and his paw was twitching out of his control.
Then a new feeling crept over him, and he realized he was feeling drowsy. Though it was not the cold wind of death that was beginning to creep through his blood and bones, but the warm, inviting escapade of sleep. To Graystripe, however, it was just as terrifying.
Once again, he tried to hopelessly fight against the grip of the Twolegs, who were now brushing his belly and stroking his head. They had him by his central points of movement.
Must...stay...awake…
Even though he was fighting as hard as he could, the sleep was still creeping up on him. Now, it was taking effect on his damaged limbs, which had begun to lag behind his brain's will to escape.
His back legs were the first ones to go. They were weakly twitching at long intervals before a large convulsion caused them to go still. Then his belly began to relax and smooth out, the lack of movement causing Graystripe's breathing to slow. His front legs, which had been shaking profoundly, then slowed until they slumped down in the Twoleg's grip. At last, the sleep-inducing effect went to his head, and the pain throughout his body began to fade. Graystripe tried to fight against it in one final lifeless struggle, but to no avail. At last, mist clouded his vision and he fell into a deep sleep, the excruciating pain now seeming miles away from his shattered body.
When Graystripe woke, he noticed that he could now move his legs.
He was on his side, much like the position he found himself in when he first awoke, bot he was not on a surface. Rather, he noticed with a jolt that he was floating above the surface, and his paws touched nothing when he stood on his paws for the first time.
The pain was still there, but it felt very distant. It felt more like a thought of the past, then a cruel grip of the present. Graystripe also took this into account and began to look around.
But why was he floating? Surely this was a dream? Then, Graystripe shuddered as another thought crossed his mind.
What if StarClan took away my second life?
He wondered this not out of fear, but of confusion. He remembered when SIlverstream told him that he was being resurrected by StarClan, a privilege he was very fortunate to have, no doubt, but in doing so, they had put him through the worst feelings of pain, fear, and hopelessness that he could ever think possible. It was almost like he was resurrected just to be tortured.
This caused more questions to fill his mind. Did StarClan even mean to resurrect me? Were they punishing me for something? What if StarClan is still mad at me for loving Silverstream? Or switching to RIverClan? What… Graystripe didn't dare dwell on this next thought longer than he had to.
What if they're mad at me for failing to protect my daughter?
Feathertail, Graystripe's daughter, had joined a group of cats that traveled to the sun-drown place, where they had received a prophecy that Twolegs would destroy the forest and they had to find a way home. Tragically, she had not made the journey. She had died saving a tribe of cats from one Sharptooth, who Stormfur described as a terrible monster who had hunted down the tribe for many generations. Graystripe had blamed himself for not keeping a closer eye on them and letting them walk into danger like that. That alone seemed like a plausible thing for StarClan to punish.
Well, if this was a torture method, then it certainly worked, he thought grimly.
Suddenly, the environment around him shifted and Graystripe found himself in the direct line of a bright light. He shut his eyes tight as he blindly stumbled to the side of it, and ended up falling on his side once again. When he opened his eyes, he noticed that he could see moving things from below his stance. Curious, he looked down.
It did not take him long to realize that he was back in the torture room where he had been before. The Twolegs were moving along and around the surface where he could see his own body. When he saw it, he let out a shiver at the state of his body.
Though he was laying down with his belly facing up, he was noticeably crooked. It seemed that his spine twisted involuntarily and jutted up into his stomach, considering the high amounts of swelling there, all four of his legs were broken and swelling in different places, his pads were heavily torn with deep gashes, one of them almost being completely torn off, and his entire body, especially his face, was burnt badly from the fire.
It was not a pleasant sight for Graystripe to see, but it quickly got much worse.
A gleam of light caused Graystripe to turn to his left. When he looked down, he saw a sharp, thin blade clasped in the Twoleg's hand. Graystripe felt himself go cold as he watched the Twoleg grab the leg of his sleeping body and begin to part the fur on it.
Graystripe went cold. He had no idea what to expect, but whatever it was, he figured it wasn't going to be good.
And he was right. Because seconds later, the Twoleg aimed and stabbed Graystripe's leg with the blade, piercing the skin underneath and causing blood to spill down onto the table.
Graystripe was sick with shock, and he was transfixed on his leg as the Twoleg removed the blade, revealing the gash he had just given him. Then, pressing both of his paws on the leg, he put the cut open wider ever so slowly, allowing more blood to spill out of his leg.
What are they doing?! They're going to kill me! Graystripe had never like Twolegs because of how they destroyed his home especially, but he had never thought Twolegs would ever think to kill cats!
He then instinctively looked back at his hind legs, and he watched with horror as without any contact, the fur parted and his skin tore apart, revealing a nearly fatal gash.
It was at that moment that Graystripe could take no more of watching his own death, so he curled up in a ball, and shut his eyes, tears of fear beginning to form on their rims.
StarClan, why are you doing this to me?! I'm sorry! Whatever you're punishing me for, I'll make it up a different way! Please just take me to StarClan! To Silverstream! To Feathertail! Just spare me! Please! Please!
Please… You don't have to listen to me ever again, just this once. Have mercy. Please…
Graystripe tightened the ball he had made himself into, and let the tears flow.
It's a shame he did not see that the Twolegs had made the gash to heal his broken bones. After doing it three times more, and using pressure to fix his shattered spine, Graystripe's pain would be reduced significantly to a tolerable state.
The Twolegs had fixed Graystripe and saved his life.
And he didn't even know it.
Doctors were amazing.
James had always known this through his life, ever since they fixed his leg when he had broken it ten years ago. From then on, he would never throw a fit about going to the doctors for check-ups every six months, because he was always reminded of what they did to help him in his time of need. (And yet four years later, he would throw a huge tantrum about not being able to own a gun at age eight. Such a strange world we live in…)
But now, he had witnessed a true miracle from the hands and skill of doctors, and they walked out holding the gray cat he had rescued, in a much better condition. Emergency surgery works when done by skilled people, he guessed.
But when his dad shook the doctors' hands, he walked up and asked to hold the cat.
Moments later, he was holding the gray scrap of fur he had rescued from the burning van hours earlier. His heart seemed to swell with joy and love as he held him.
That's when his dad asked, "What should we name him?"
James felt a jolt of excitement. "We're keeping him?!"
His father nodded, a big smile present on his face.
James hugged him with his free arm while keeping the gray cat cradled in his other. Looking down at the cat, he thought of many names, but he decided on one that would remind him of the courage he displayed today and serve as further inspiration to become what he dreamed to be.
"Let's call him Ember."
And that's it! Hope you enjoyed!
I know I've been deviating from the events of the book for a while now, but I promise that I'll start with the book events now. Next chapter, Graystripe will be in Twolegplace.
As always, please leave a review with suggestions with improvements for my writing and, if you wish, PM me some OC's! I'll try to use as many as I can throughout the next couple of chapters!
Keep a lookout for Chapter 3! I just might be able to post it before the week is done, so keep an eye out. If not, it will most certainly be ready at the end of the month.
As always, thanks and may StarClan be with you,
~Xerenity
