Chapter 9, feeling

Spiderpaw whirled down the stream. He crashed into the jutting rock and yelped, then plunged under the water.

Instantly Glacier popped up. Ravenpaw and the white kit whirled downstream. "Get on the rock!" Ravenpaw yowled to Glacier.

"I can't!" she yowled.

Ravenpaw grasped the kit's neck, ignoring her wails of "Spiderpaaaaw!" she grasped the slippery surface of the jutting rock and pulled up, her muscles screaming with effort. She climbed to the top, and set Glacier down.

Ravenpaw was a mass of mud. It clumped onto her fur. She turned to lick at it, but it was to thick.

"Spiderpaaaaw!" Glacier wailed.

Ravenpaw looked down in the water. Spiderpaw was nowhere to be seen.

"Spiderpaw!" she gasped.

"I let him go!" Glacier wailed, "Ohhhh!"

"Spiderpaw!" Ravenpaw wailed, crying along with the kit.

She sat there, wailing with shock. "He'll come back! He'll come back!" she had to believe it.

"Ravenpaw!" there was a sharp shout from behind her. Ravenpaw turned. It was Smokepaw.

He helped the two she-cats down from the rock. Glacier was still wailing. Ravenpaw tried to walk, but she had bashed her leg against something and it stung.

Smokepaw grabbed her, and Volepaw grabbed Glacier. They were dragged home.

Ravenpaw was lain down in a soft bed of moss. Splashpaw helped lick the mud off her pelt.

"Are you alright?" Splashpaw asked her.

Ravenpaw looked into her crystal blue eyes.

"Spiderpaw…" she moaned, and Glacier wailed.

OoOoO

Ravenpaw listened to the quite drip of rain. It became louder, hollower, pounding in her ears. Water gushed around her, throwing her up onto a rock.Glacier was drowning. "Let him go!" Ravenpaw shouted, and she saw, in every tiny motion, her teeth unclamp Glacier's jaws and release Spiderpaw into the black water.

OoOoO

Ravenpaw opened her eyes. The drip-drip was continuing, but the roaring water was gone. Sunlight streamed into the tiny den.

"You're awake," Splashpaw said.

"I have to go find Spiderpaw," Ravenpaw meowed.

"No, Ravenpaw-,"

Ravenpaw growled in her face. "Move!" she stood up.

She called and looked for Spiderpaw. He was nowhere to be seen.

"Ravenpaw." A small voice was behind her. Ravenpaw turned. It was Owlpaw.

"You!" she hissed, "You're the one who annoyed Spiderpaw, and made him fall into the river!"

"No," he told her. She forced herself to walk closer to him, until they were a tail-length apart, angry face to calm face.

"Glacier was being annoying," Owlpaw meowed, "So I got mad. It was Spiderpaw's own fault that he fell into the stream."

Ravenpaw lashed her tail. "That's what you think, isn't it?" she snarled, "You don't care that gone! In fast, you're glad! Now we can admire you instead of Spiderpaw! That's what going on in your idiotic brain! You are a bag of fox dung!"

Owlpaw didn't flinch. "Angry she-cats," he growled, "You don't have much."

This made Ravenpaw angrier. "Yes! Yes! You think you are full of power! But do you know what?" she paused, narrowing her eyes and slashing her claws near his face. "You're wrong! I could rip your pelt off! You are much to proud!"

He hissed. "Shut up!" he croaked, "Shut up and go away!" he started to cough.

He was sick! Ravenpaw looked curiously into his amber eyes.

"Go away!" he hissed, unsheathing his claws.

"Alright!" Ravenpaw snarled, backing away.

She padded back to the den.

"We're leaving."

OoOoO

"What?" Ravenpaw asked. Smokepaw was talking to Volepaw.

"We can't stay here. We have to find the savoir of the Clans."

"What about Spiderpaw?" Ravenpaw demanded.

Smokepaw and Volepaw exchanged nervous glances.

"He's not dead! We can't leave him here!"

"Ravenpaw," Smokepaw meowed uncomfortably, "Hope is good, and we should always hope. But sometimes you got to admit the truth, however much you don't want to. Spiderpaw would have come back by now. It's been three days…"

He stopped. Ravenpaw had crouched to the floor, wailing, a look of giving up in her eyes. "No," she rasped, "We've got to believe in our hearts that he is alive. He will come back. He will come back."

She said the last words twice, as if she had to believe it.

"Even if he is alive," Smokepaw meowed, "We have to move on. He will find us, with his nose. But I believe, in my heart, that he is dead."

"No…" wails spilled out of Ravenpaw's mouth.

"He will still be alive," Smokepaw whispered, "In our hearts."

Ravenpaw looked past him into the distance. She didn't say anything.

"Well," Volepaw meowed briskly, "let's get moving."

Glacier bounced into the den. "Hello!" she was as happy and cheery as ever.

"Are we going?" the kit asked.

"Yes," Smokepaw meowed, and as he passed Ravenpaw she saw that his eyes were shadowed with grief.

"Come on, Owlpaw," she mewed, calling back into the den. There was an angry tension between them as he stalked past.

"Sorry," Ravenpaw muttered. He looked back at her with wide green eyes but didn't say anything.

OoOoO

Ravenpaw trudged on with five cats behind her and one in her mouth. It was Glacier, and the kit was sound asleep. She was leading, with Smokepaw in the back.

With every step she took, she always heard the same thing ring in her ears. We can't leave Spiderpaw! Then the roaring of water, and slowly, her teeth unclamp Glacier's jaws and release Spiderpaw into the foaming water.

Her paws seemed to echo around the mountains. They were once again on a thin path that twirled around the mountain.

Louder her steps became, swirling around her head. Clash! Clash! Clash! She could see over and over again, Spiderpaw disappearing in the cruel waves. Spiderpaw disappearing. Spiderpaw disappearing. Spiderpaw disappearing.

Her steps became louder still, bouncing off her head, and now she could here Glacier's screams. Soft, then they yowled and shrieked inside her head.

"Ohhh," they moaned, "Ohhh…"

She lurched foreword and darkness faded around her.

Icky, boring, short chapter, I know. But hang with me! The savoir of the Clans is coming soon! 