PROLOGUE

A quiet, superficial peace gathered deep in the forest. In a sparseness in the trees, a gathering of cats lay calmly, stretching out, sitting, and lying throughout the clearing. The birds chirped quietly in the trees. Small rodents scurried about the forest floor. The sun illuminated on the cats, adding brightness to their day. Little did they know, darkness lay in the very walls of their camp, consuming the very cats that abided there. A battle was coming, one that would take many lives.

A white, orange, and dark brown speckled she-cat paced anxiously in her den.

"Is this an omen?" she whispered to herself, staring at a carcass sprawled out in the middle of her den. Flies and maggots spewed out of the rodent's body. She was disgusted, and afraid, and she felt like she was going mad. As a medicine cat, she had experienced omens before, but nothing to this extent. She couldn't believe it. Death was coming to her Clan. She ran out of the den, leaving behind the carcass, and ran straight for the huge log in which her leader resided. She flew right in, panting.

"Fawnspots, what is wrong?" Shadestar spoke, unable to be seen through the shadows. His voice was apathetic, and he seemed to have been taking a nap.

"There's been… an… omen… in my den," she panted between words. Shadestar opened his eyes and the yellow beams pierced through the darkness.

"Show me," he hissed, then stood. Fawnspots cringed at his leader's harshness, then withdrew herself from the den. She ran to her den and around the rotting mouse carcass, and allowed for her leader to see what she believed to be an omen of mass destruction.

Shadestar stared at the carcass before he looked back up at Fawnspots.

"This isn't an omen, you flea-brain!" he spat.

"But, Shadestar, it has-" Fawnspots began before her leader's yowling washed out her quiet, frail voice.

"Mouse-dung! You call yourself a medicine cat! This is obviously an action of an annoying little apprentice trying to cause trouble. I don't want any more of this nonsense!" He exited the den, and Fawnspots stared at the carcass, her heart shattering itself.

"It has to be," she cried into the vacant medicine den. "It has to be."

She sat there silent for a while, her body feeling heavy with sadness, shock, and disappointment. Then, she stood and with one claw, picked up the dead mouse and took it outside of camp. She dug a hole and put the mouse inside. She covered it up with the dirt and began to walk back to camp.

An uneasiness settled in her stomach when she was only a few paw steps away. She turned around. The carcass had resurfaced from the dirt.

Uneasy, and scared for her life, Fawnspots sprinted back to camp, and straight into her den. She crawled into her nest and buried her face into the moss. The smell from the carcass lingered in her den. She dug her claws into the dirt and purred lowly into the moss, trying to calm herself down. After what seemed like an eternity of her delusions, Fawnspots stood and turned to the medicine wall where all her herbs were stored in holes in the dirt. She clawed out a juniper berry and choked it down.

"To calm me down," she assured herself in the habit she did when healing any other cat. She'd always explain why she was giving the herbs she felt necessary. She stuck her nose into the chamomile hole and breathed in.

"To soothe my mind." She then nuzzled out a whole dandelion and ate it.

"To numb the pain," her voice was cracking and desolate in the wide open den. She then picked out some leaves from another hole.

"Thyme… to calm me down… calm me down." She swallowed the herbs. She then lined her nest with lavender, and swallowed some poppy seeds.

She curled into a ball in her nest, her tail tickling her nose. "Poppy.. for sleep.." she mumbled as she drifted off into a drugged slumber, her nose full of lavender. Her mind full of nothing, and blank, blocking out haunting memories.

Shadestar was back in his den, awake, standing in the darkness his eyes staring forward into nothing, in obvious denial of everything and anything. His sleek black tail flicked back and forth.