My life as a Scent-Seer had gone from great to terrible in a matter of hours.
Striker and I had not told mother about Swiftstep and Silvertoes, in fear of her starting a fight about it with dad and getting herself killed. But she was getting worried. She had "supposedly" sent my father out to look for them, and he hadn't returned since. I knew he wasn't looking at all.
However, that was not the worst part. I could now see into other gnawers' thoughts and discover their secrets, and those gnawers were starting to realize. Rasper was upset when I told him I knew about his love for Silkshine, a pretty female who lived by us. He tried to attack me, but Striker swiftly came to my defense.
I didn't know how to explain to Flamefur that I knew how she had stolen from another gnawer, but she was extremely angry with me, for a kind female gnawer. Striker suggested that I keep my nose to myself for a while.
Striker and I had gone from having a normal
brother/sister relationship to being as close as that of best
friends. It felt like we were all each other had, and we spent most
of our time together, as far away from our father as possible. It was
hard concealing the fact that our sisters were dead from our mother
and preventing her from going into the hideaway den and seeing the
decaying bodies. But we were in this together, and we had to do it,
for the sake of our family.
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Striker and I
were just returning from a long hunting round in the jungle. We had
caught a number of twisters and were excited about giving them to
mother. The humans were starving us out even more now, so food was
terribly scarce. We were overjoyed that we had managed to catch some.
Suddenly, I smelled a bunch of gnawers gathered together, just paces from us. I stopped Striker. "Listen!" I hissed.
A deep voice was speaking. "We are here to discuss the matter of having a Scent-Seer in our midst." It was saying. My eyes widened. They were talking about me!
A new voice began to speak. "What is there to discuss?"
"She can sniff into our minds! She can discover our deepest secrets, just by taking a whiff of us! Have you not noticed what has been going on lately, here, in the Labyrinth?" the deep voice spoke again. Uh Oh. They were mad at me. But it wasn't my fault!
"She knew I had attacked a human when he was passing by on a flier!" a completely different voice said. That must have been Firefang.
"She knew that I had had an argument with my mate!" another voice cried. That must have been Prickpaw.
"She knows that I love…um, never mind." A voice I recognized as Rasper's said, trailing off towards the end. I would have laughed if I hadn't felt so hurt and unloved.
"The point is, our lives will be ruined if she stays with us! Our secrets are private, our lives belong to us, not that retched pup!" the deep voice returned.
Cries of "She must go!" pierced the air. I began to feel a different emotion. The sadness was slipping away. It was being replaced with anger.
Hateful, powerful anger, that made me want to run in there and rip them all to shreds, even though I knew it wasn't possible. I simply sat down, prepared to listen to their whole conversation, then face them like the adult gnawer I very soon would be.
But then I heard a loud cry of "No!"", but not from in the cave in which the meeting was being held. My mother was running down the tunnel, faster than I had ever seen her go. Her cry echoed through the cavern, and I knew the other gnawers had heard it as well.
She made a sharp turn into the cave, not even noticing Striker and I standing there, dumbstruck. I wanted to run into the shelter of her paws, but I knew that would only prevent her from fighting for my cause. I listened more.
"I will NOT permit you to send my Twitchtip away!" my mother shouted. I heard the deep-voiced gnawer growl.
"You have no idea how much trouble she's caused, Preenpaw." He said.
"So? It is not her fault that she can smell these things!" my mother cried.
"I don't give a damn if it's her fault or not! The point is, she can do it and does, so she will have to go!" the other gnawer replied.
"Wait!" a different but familiar voice said. It was my father! I hadn't even realized he was there, and apparently, neither had my mother.
"Ripper?" she said softly. "Did you find Swiftstep and Silvertoes?"
I heard a loud but obviously fake sigh from my father. "No, I'm sorry, Preenpaw, but I didn't. They seem to have vanished." He said. My mother gave a sob.
But that was the last straw. I couldn't let my mother believe that he had actually tried to find them. It was time for her to learn the truth. I stomped into the cave.
"Well, of course he didn't find them; he wasn't even looking! He killed them!" I shouted, facing my father. There were cries from the crowd of gnawers who saw me, but I didn't pay attention to them. I had eyes only for my filthy, lying father.
"You little devil, so you can smell secrets!" he roared, his face inches away from mine. But he backed away when my mother gasped.
"I mean, I did not! Why would I kill my own pups?" he said, trying to sound innocent. But the damage was done.
"Yes he did! If you go look in our hideaway den, mother, their bodies are there! I saw them myself!" I screamed. I heard only a few cries from the gnawers in the crowd. So apparently my father had told more rats than just Reekwell.
"How—could—you?" My mother snarled, stepping up to father.
"They were an embarrassment to our family!" He growled back.
"Even if that were true, which it isn't, any number of families would've taken them!" snarled my mother, stepping closer to him, claws flexed.
"They had to die! You would never have let that happen!" he said.
"No—they—DIDN"T!" my mother roared. She pounced on top of him, slashing at every inch she could reach. I gasped, and so did the rest of the crowd.
"Mother, no!" I cried.
"Twitchtip—do not—let them—kill you!" she cried. I sobbed into my paws.
My mother had the advantage of surprise on her side when the fight began, but my father was much bigger and stronger. She severed his ear and clawed his left eye, but before long, he had opened up a large cur on her calf, which was bleeding freely.
The next moments seemed to happen in slow motion. My mother took a swipe at my father but missed, and he took the moment to gorge my mother's throat out. She fell to the ground slowly, a look of utmost anger on her face.
"NO!" I cried. But I knew she was gone even before I said it.
My father backed away and glared at me. "The pup has to go." He said.
"No, Twitchtip!" I heard a voice cry. Striker was running towards me. "Don't make her go, father! Don't." he said.
"Come, Striker." My father said, turning to march out of the cave. But Striker didn't move. "I said COME!" he said, and slashed his arm with his claw. It wasn't enough to really hurt him, but it was enough to make him follow. He looked sadly back at me.
I sadly watched the last living gnawer who cared about me leave. I was alone.