Chapter 6 – Overslept
Mudshadow woke up like she was coming out of a reverie; startled when something was calling her. She raised her head in the direction in the voice. It was Swiftheart, standing at the opening to the cave where they had arrived at awhile earlier. He facing to the tunnel, which made her uncertain if he was calling to her. Mudshadow's forepaws quickly dragged themselves up into a sitting position, which got Swiftheart's undivided attention.
"Mudshadow, I think we overslept."
The talked to, confused she-cat suddenly jumped up to all four paws and stumbled her way, quickly and disoriented, to the tunnel ahead. She tried to look for the mouth of tunnel, but it was too far away from her.
"Come with me, Swiftheart."
With the small tom-cat behind her, Mudshadow made her way slowly through the fire-lit tunnel, not watching her paws, and not giving notice when they got scorched, as painful as it was.
They soon reached the end of the tunnel of fire. The sun was barely visible in the still somewhat dark sky. The patrols of the other clans would be out marking their borders, and most importantly, Ravenpaw and Spottedwing would be up by now.
"It's just a little past dawn," Swiftheart mewed quietly in the tabby she-cat's brown ear, "At least one of them will be up, keeping watch."
Without a whisper of a word of neither agreement or disagreement, she charged her way into the forest, still dizzy from her earlier unconsciousness. Apparently, she went the wrong way.
"Mudshadow, what are you doing? That's MoonClan territory!"
Mudshadow stopped in her tracks with a puzzled look across her muzzle. Slowly taking his words in, she turned to look at the ground, then to the left, then right, and last of all behind her, where Swiftheart was waiting for her to react in a defensive position. She made sense of his words at that moment in time, but unfortunately, it was too late.
A feminine voice sounded in front of her.
"Well well, how strange. Look what we have here."