Ferac dug into his rare steak.
He was sat around a table with five other cats. The only sounds in the room were claws and teeth scraping the plates as the cats ate their dinner.
That is until a cat spoke up. "Did you hear that noise from the tower's?"
It was followed by a moment of silence.
"Gods know what goes on up there." Another cat added on.
"Stop talking about it." The cat sitting alone at the edge said.
Another pregnant pause.
"We should fire the turret at the-"
"Just quiet already! I don't want to hear about them! I don't care if it's dissing them or complimenting them I don't want to know!"
The silence was deafening.
"Ferac go take out the trash. I can see you finished your supper."
"Felsh it's your turn." Ferac responded.
"I already took it out last week. I'm not tasting the bag again."
Ferac sighed before standing up. He grabbed the bag from the kitchen with his teeth and took it outside.
He didn't know why he listened to them. They weren't family, not even his guardians. It was probably the hive apartments connection affecting his thoughts.
As Ferac dragged the bag down flights of stairs he thought of what had been brought up in the conversations his roommates had.
The towers they mentioned were the Clan towers. There were five towers in total. He lived in a hive apartment close to the main four towers. The fifth was farther away for some reason.
The bright yellow tower kept attacking the apartment for some reason. The other suspected savage beliefs about burial grounds and such. Ferac knew better.
The apartment was build on a mountain that a tribe once called home. The tribe wasn't there when they were about to build it so it's not known what happened to them. The foolish Thunderclan thought the tribe was hidden under the hive apartment which spanned the entire mountain.
Ferac dumped the bag on the curb. Instead of walking inside he continued until he reached his marked destination. Mainly an alley halfway between the towers and the Apartment.
Five cats stalked into the alleyway after him making it obvious for him to sent them. He kept walking down the alley until he reached a dead end. He didn't turn around to head back as a he felt a claw around his throat.
"Feel my claw?" The cat whispered into his ear.
"Feel my fury?" He hissed back. The cat lifted his claw away.
"It's good to see you Furyclaw." Furyclaw turned around to see the cat more clearly. The other four were securing the alley.
"One of my roommates is getting suspicious of my weekly excursions, let's make this quick."
"Anything to report."
"Thunderclan launched another raid on the western wing of the apartment. They haven't found a single tribe cat so I don't see why they bother."
"Is that all?"
"I suspect that windclan may have planted a spy among the northern wing. She doesn't connect as well as the rest of us so they didn't think of recruiting members among the populace inside yet. That leaves riverclan as a possibility for spies as thunderclan thinks all of us are pure evil."
"Of course. Glory to the Shadow over the clans."
"Glory to my faith that we will rise over the others."
"Farewell Furyclaw." The cat left.
Furyclaw waited there for ten minutes before finally leaving. Shadowclan will rise.
Fredrick felt the blade go through his neck.
He was teaching the cats, both warrior and human, too smelt. One had been successful, he unfortunately… was a Pretender. That cat had stabbed Fredrick right through the neck with the same blade he forged.
"Ha! Foolish Follower!" The cat mocked, "Even Zealots are no match for deceivers!" He took the blade out and let Fredrick fall to the floor.
"Look at your leader now! He was too weak to lead if he couldn't see me for who I was!" He shouted to the crowd of learners in the Thunderclan camp. They were gathered there because it was ideal for it's stone walls. The cat's however… were not paying attention to him… but to something behind him.
Looking at Fredricks dead body, the Pretender presumed. He laughed at their faces until he felt himself get pushed into the Thunderclan camp from behind. He hit the ground hard, enough to kill a weaker cat such as an elder or apprentice. He looked up at where he was pushed from. Fredrick stood in his former place.
"Wha- but how!?"
"You stabbed me in the wrong place… didn't hit a vein or even my spine. You only gave me another hole to breath through." He slid down into the camp, "I'll bleed out eventually, won't fill my lungs, but I'll still have time to kill you!"
The Pretender got up. He still had the blade, he bit down on it despite it having no handle. He took a chance before, he cut his lips just stabbing the Zealot.
Fredrick had a plan. He had no desire to use that blade, but the big vat of boiling iron liquid. As the Pretender rushed him he dodged and grabbed his neck. Pulling the trashing tom to the vat he ignored the shocked and awed faces of all cats watching.
In a few seconds there was no cat to bury. Fredrick watched as the final bubble rose to the surface of the iron. He then collapsed.
He never rose. Much to the dismay of the many cats inspired by him and the efforts of the medicine cats. This was not the end of his story though.
Fredrick rose. He expected the soft earth of the medicine cat den or a moss nest. He learned to enjoy them despite it's savage concept.
No he rose to a star textured world. Nothing felt real except for himself, the ground itself felt as though it was moving and the tree's only made him feel exposed with their transparency. He realised the ground was made of clouds. He saw many cats. They had star covered pelts and were as transparent as the tree's. He felt as though all of them were watching him.
One of them stepped through some brush that he didn't see.
"You are not like the other's. You are solid like Jayfeather and those of the forest."
"The blind cat? He visited this world too? Tell me how to get back."
"It's not so simple. You're dead. He only falls asleep and visits. He can wake up, you can't."
Fredrick realised that he was indeed dead. He expected to go to one of his god's afterlives but it seemed he had business here instead.
"Tell me about this forest."
He expected an unreasonable reason to send those cats to a solid forest instead of the beautiful transparent world. He was thankful for the opaqueness of these woods for he could sneak. He wasn't sure if smell existed in this world and didn't take the chance. He was disappointed that wind didn't exist in this part of the world but made up for it in rolling around in dirt. Not that dirt. It worked well enough.
He called upon his afterlife gift for the times he was stuck in worlds like this and gained the infamous spike disease. It was painful but powerful.
Deafclaw… didn't know what he was seeing. There was a cat running around the main area of the dark forest shooting what looked to be his own bones into other cats. He could tell they were bones because he was shot with one, they were very… spikey.
The cat just jumped down from the tree's onto a cat he thought was named Antpelt, killing the poor cat with the bone spikes coming out of his feet. Honestly it looked as if the cat was in searing agony as he shot spikes at every cat. Sure he was killing everybody fast but Deafclaw wouldn't want it if he would go through the pain he could feel coming off the cat.
He did have a slight idea of what the cat was feeling as he did have a pokey bone in his side. As believable as it seems it's hard to kill cats from both the dark forest and starclan. Of course that didn't count towards the spike that went through Deafclaws head.
He was deaf to the pleas of mercy from his victims for their life… now he was deaf to the life of his own. After and before.
As Fredrick suspected. His purpose was to wipe out the problem in the world he was just in. As soon as the last dark forest cat died, he was in a world recognizable to him. A world his god made.
Authors note:
This chapter has been in works for some time. The next chapter of a Hotline Monster has begun but I felt inclined to finish this before I wrote anymore of that one.
I didn't exactly want anything extremely changing in this past part of the chapter. The main focus was the future view, showing you that the clans persevere even with all these changes.