Rain poured down in unrelenting sheets, overfilling the river and making it spill over the sides of the bank and spread over the desolate stretch of rock. The rain pooled in cracks and dips in the ground and beat down the few scraggy plants that had managed to survive in the cracks in the rock. The plants were then uprooted and washed away by the overflowing current, pulling them out to the open waters of the swollen lake.

There were no cats in sight. They were all long gone, already taken by the water. The rain and the river and the lake- they were all indistinguishable now. There was no such thing as land. It was all water. It was all flood.

High above the torrent, on the Shale Hill that Miststar had stood on during Clan meetings, the last remnants of the leader's den were swept away by the rain. The only trace of life, or hint that it had ever existed here at all, was Waterpaw. She remained, overlooking the chaos from her perch high above it all, unable to do or say anything but merely there, taking in her world.

Lightning struck the space just behind Waterpaw, making her fur stand on end and illuminating her from behind. In that moment she could see herself as though she were another cat looking up at herself, and she saw how mighty she appeared. Then thunder rumbled in the distance and the Shale Hill began to tremble. The thin, fragile rocks shivered and cracked. The rain beat down on them and slowly shipped away at them, eroding Waterpaw's pawholds until she was suddenly at the same level as the rest of the vast world. The rising water lapped at her paws and she still stood, frozen in place as she sank toward her fate.

When Waterpaw woke up, the first thing she felt was terror. The flood had risen even higher; now she was up to her neck in water! She writhed in her nest, letting out an agonized wail, before realizing that she could breathe. Waterpaw took a few deep breaths and looked around, realizing that it had just been a dream and that she was in her nest in the apprentices' den in the RiverClan camp, and that there was no flood at all. There was, however, a leak in her den and it was raining.

Shellpaw lifted her head. "Waterpaw, are you okay?!" she mewed with concern, padding over to Waterpaw. "Oh, it's wet!" she squealed when she stepped in the water that had pooled around Waterpaw's nest.

"There's a hole in the roof of the den," Mallowpaw informed her. The white she-cat pointed with her tail to a spot at the top of their den where a few pebbles were out of place, creating a gap that let rain through. "All the snow on top of the den created a lot of pressure, and the pebbles right in the middle fell through. Waterpaw's lucky they didn't fall on her."

Oakpaw nodded, gesturing to a few stray pebbles that were scattered at his paws in a puddle of slush. "They're small, but they could've killed you if they'd fallen right on your head," he meowed. "And since your nest is at a lower elevation than the rest of the den, the rainwater pooled around you while you were sleeping."

Waterpaw blinked at the tiny rocks. "Those could've killed me?" she asked incredulously. "These pebbles are no bigger than a mouse!"

"That sure would have been an embarrassing way to die," Shellpaw snorted. "'RIP Waterpaw: killed by some pebbles'."

"Or some rainwater," Oakpaw put in. "If it had pooled around your head much deeper, you could have drowned in your sleep."

Waterpaw tensed up at the mention of drowning. Her troubling dream crept back into her thoughts. It was just a dream, right? It couldn't have been a vision. If it was, what would it possibly mean- that there was going to be a huge flood and everybody was going to die? That didn't sound like a very good vision.

"We really need to fix that hole," Mallowpaw meowed, her light blue eyes narrowed. "It's posing a real danger to our safety. I'll go report the problem to Miststar and see if he'll let me do it myself. If not, I'm sure there's some warrior who has the time…"

She padded out of the den, Oakpaw and Shellpaw following after her. Waterpaw remained in the apprentices' den a while longer, watching as the rain dripped down and filled up the little dip in the ground where she kept her nest. As the rain continued to fill the dip, the nest began to float on it, and dissolved into a few floating sticks and reeds. The water eventually spilled over the sides of the dip in the ground and began to spread across the den.

That hole really did need to be patched up before the apprentices' den was completely flooded. Waterpaw shuddered at the thought of sleeping at the highest elevation she could find, not noticing in her sleep as the water reached up to take her away…

She shook her head, banishing her dark thoughts. That would never happen; if the den was too flooded to sleep in, Miststar would relocate them until the problem was solved. It wasn't a flood; it was just a leaking roof. There was nothing to worry about.

It was raining pretty hard outside, though, so Waterpaw opted to stay in her den despite her being a bit hungry. Luckily, Shellpaw darted back out of the rain a minute later, dropping a fish at her paws. "We can share it," she mewed.

Waterpaw nodded, jumping back as Shellpaw shook out her white pelt with barely visible cream-coloured tabby stripes. Water sprayed her anyway, but she was already wet from the leak, so it didn't really matter. They sat down and shared tongues while they ate; Shellpaw reported that Mallowpaw and Oakpaw had been given permission to patch up the leak and were fetching some branches to cover up the hole right that moment.

"So, I had a dream," Waterpaw mumbled as Shellpaw licked the last morsels of fish from her lips. "It was raining really hard, like it is right now, but I think in my dream it had been raining for a whole lot longer."

"Why's that?" Shellpaw yawned, rolling over and flopping down in her nest. "Sorry," she added quickly, "you woke me up with your screeching and I'm still a bit sleepy. Go on, though."

"Well, everything was covered in water." Waterpaw hesitated; should she really tell her dream to her friend? What if it really had been a vision? No, she decided; it had just been because her subconscious had known it was raining. "The river was flooding and covering everything. The lake reached all the way up into camp. Before long the lake and the river were one and the same! All the plants got ripped away, and there were no cats at all and the water level kept rising. By the end of my dream, even Shale Hill was crumbling."

"No cats at all?!" Shellpaw gasped. "Where were they?"

Waterpaw stared down at her paws, trying to shut out the intrusive memories of the dream. "I guess they'd all drowned," she muttered. "I was the only cat left, and for some reason I was standing on Shale Hill. But like I said, it was crumbling, plus the water level was rising. The water started lapping at my paws, and-"

"And then what?' Shellpaw demanded, staring at her intently.

"…And then I woke up," Waterpaw finished. "It was a fish-brained dream, I know, but you know how dream are…"

Shellpaw rose out of her nest, not breaking eye contact with Waterpaw. It was making her feel a bit uncomfortable. "What if it was a vision?" the white tabby whispered. "Maybe a flood really is coming. We've gotta go tell Mossnose, or Miststar, or somebody!"

Waterpaw shook her head. "It was just a dumb dream," she insisted. "It doesn't mean anything. Look, your siblings should be fixing the den any minute now. The rain is going to let up. It will all be fine in a bit; you'll see."

She just wished she could believe what she was saying.

"Whoa, look at it coming down!" Applepaw ran up to the entrance of the den, then changed her mind and circled back to where Berrypaw and Grasspaw were sitting. "Is it even allowed to be that wet?!"

"It's the weather, Applepaw," Grasspaw sighed. "It can do whatever it wants whenever it wants."

Berrypaw stared outside, transfixed by the rain. "Is the snow gonna come back?" she asked fearfully.

"Hopefully not 'till next leaf-bare," Grasspaw said flatly. He didn't have time for Berrypaw's innocent stupidity. "Newleaf is here. Get used to it."

"But I like the snow," Berrypaw mewed quietly, her tail drooping and her voice quivering slightly. Grasspaw tensed up; he seriously hoped his sister wasn't going to throw a tantrum because the seasons were changing, but he wouldn't be too surprised if she did.

"The snow's gonna be here again next year," Applepaw said gently, giving Berrypaw a few reassuring licks. "But until then, we can enjoy the nice weather! And there will be more prey, too; the lake will thaw; it won't be as cold out... see, Berrypaw? Leaf-bare is a horrible season, anyway."

Grasspaw nodded, breathing a sigh of relief when Berrypaw seemed to relax. Applepaw was a low rowdier than he was, but she could be surprisingly patient with her sister. She was the only cat she was like that with, though. Whenever Grasspaw was upset about something- which was admittedly often- Applepaw would just hurl insults at him, making him feel even worse. He'd come to learn not to let nay cat know when he was in a bad mood, because he knew Applepaw would tease him if he did.

The three littermates stared out at the rain in silence, and more than ever Grasspaw wished that Seedpelt and Barkstripe were still apprentices. Every cat was cooped up in their dens because of the weather, with the exception of a hunting patrol that had been sent out a while back and still hadn't returned. It had been raining for the whole day with no letup whatsoever, and Grasspaw was beginning to seriously hate his life. Being stuck with Applepaw and Berrypaw was never fun. He'd been stuck with them almost constantly for the first six moons of his like, and in the few weeks he'd been an apprentice for they'd all spent a lot more time together than he'd hoped.

If only there were some other apprentices in WindClan. If only Waterpaw was a WindClan cat, he caught himself thinking. But Waterpaw was no concern of his. He'd only talked to her twice, although if he was invited to the upcoming Gathering he just might get another chance to see her. There was no guarantee he'd be going, though, so Grasspaw tried not to get his hopes up. He had learned long ago not to let them get too high, or else it'd hurt when his hopes were let down.

Finally, after Applepaw launched into a long tirade about how toms made horrible mates, Grasspaw couldn't stand to be stuck in the stupid apprentices' den any longer. He stood up and moved toward the entrance.

"I'm going out," he announced. "I just… need to go on a walk."

"That's fine," Applepaw meowed. "Just don't shake out your pelt when you come back in. I don't wanna get wet."

"Yeah, don't shake your pelt out," Berrypaw echoed. "We don't wanna get wet."

"Okay, okay, I get the picture," Grasspaw grumbled. Why were these cats so set on making his life as difficult as possible? He craned his head around to give his sisters a meaningful glare. "And don't follow me. I mean it! I want to be alone for a bit."

"Sure, whatever you say," Applepaw muttered. She turned to Berrypaw. "So, like I was saying, Runningfoot, like, never went to visit Lilyflower the whole time she was stuck in the medicine den! Podtail used to bring her flowers and stuff and pretend they were from Runningfoot. Ugh, it's a shame Podtail is a medicine cat, because he's like, the one tom I'd actually consider as a mate. Not that it matters, because he's way older than me, but still…"

Her chatters faded as Grasspaw stepped into the rain and walked out of earshot. The sensation of the rain beating down on his pelt felt oddly relaxing. He stood in the open clearing, closing his eyes and letting the falling water clean his pelt and wash away his cares.

Sandstar was curled up in his den, just like every other cat, so no cat stopped Grasspaw as he slowly padded across the WindClan camp. At the bracken tunnel that marked the boundary of the camp, Barkstripe was standing guard. The young brown tabby crouched under the bracken miserably, barely glancing up as Grasspaw walked past.

Just when he thought she wasn't even going to stop him, she lifted her head. "Where are you going?" she inquired, her tail twitching irritably; the rain had put every cat in a bad mood.

"I'm just going out for a walk," Grasspaw mewed. "I need a break from being cooped up in the den."

Barkstripe grunted in acknowledgement and gave him a slight nod to signal that he could go. Grasspaw padded through the tunnel, glad for the brief shelter before passing through the other side and being caught in the open fields once more.

He walked through puddles that barely went over his paws and puddles that went nearly halfway up his legs. He kicked his way through a few remaining piles of half-melted snow. Grasspaw didn't have to think about where he was going. His paws seemed to take over and guide him there. He barely even felt or heard or saw or smelled anything that surrounded him. It was all a haze and everything was rain and openness. The rainwater streamed down the hills and pooled at the bottoms, clear enough for Grasspaw to see his reflection as he picked his way around them. When it was soaking wet, his fur almost looked like it was a normal colour.

The choppy waters of the lake lapped hungrily at the shore, higher than Grasspaw had ever seen them before. Further out, chunks of ice still bobbed, slowly breaking up and dissolving. Sitting with his long grayish-brown tail tucked neatly around his paws was Podtail. The medicine cat stared vacantly out at the turbulent waters, unblinking and not seeming to notice Grasspaw as he approached.

Grasspaw didn't know why he'd come to the lake. Something had drawn him there, and he could tell that Podtail was there for the same reason. Nonetheless he mewed, "What brings you here?" just in case the medicine cat had some more concrete reason to be sitting at the water's edge.

Podtail didn't respond at first. A chilly breeze ruffled Grasspaw's fur, and the sky darkened, clouds swirling overhead in a dark vortex. Podtail's fur bristled, standing on end as though he'd been struck by lightning. His murky green eyes began to emit a faint glow, and when he finally opened his mouth his voice came out as a low rumble like the thunder overhead.

"From rain the saviour shall rise, and into waves the other shall fall." The voice seemed to come from a thousand cats at once, and the sound combined with the ominous words made Grasspaw's fur stand on end. "Listen not to the voice in the wind, for it speaks not the truth you seek."

"What truth is that?" Grasspaw wondered. "…Wait, are you talking to me, or-?"

The glow left Podtail's eyes and his fur flattened out. The gray cloud vortex disappeared, and the wind died down, but the rain continued to fall. Grasspaw didn't understand what had just happened, but he was almost certain that it was something mystical. Had Podtail just received a vision?!

"I can't believe it's still raining," Waterpaw spat. "This is stupid! How much more water can the sky possibly hold?"

"Well, the sky is pretty big, so it can hold a lot more water than what's come down right now," Mallowpaw meowed smartly. "I know it's a pain, but at least rain is better than a drought."

Waterpaw muttered a reply that involved gratuitous use of the words "dung" and "fish-brain". She didn't care about any of Mallowpaw's science facts. She wanted to go hunting! She glared up at the sky, hoping this wasn't supposed to be some kind of punishment. She hadn't done anything wrong for a long time now, other than talk to Grasspaw at that Gathering, but that had been almost a moon ago! So then why was StarClan sending all this rain?

Mallowpaw glanced up to the apprentices' den, where Shellpaw had taken over for her after she'd fallen off and hurt her leg. Oakpaw had managed to cover the hole with some criss-crossed twigs, but they'd fallen through after a few minutes on being pelted nonstop with rain. Mallowpaw had been trying to roll a stone up the top of the den when she'd slipped and fell. The fall was only about a fox-length, which wouldn't have been too bad except that the stone had fallen with her and landed on her right hind leg, fracturing the bone. Mossnose had bound it in a poultice and set it in a splint, and while Mallowpaw was clearly in a lot of pain, Waterpaw was impressed by her lack of complaint. If Waterpaw had fractured her leg, she knew she wouldn't be able to suck it up so well.

Shellpaw picked her way down the pebble-built structure and skipped over to the shrubs that Waterpaw and Mallowpaw were taking shelter under. "We've managed to get a good-sized rock in place," she reported. "Now we just have to wait and see if it'll hold."

"Did you do anything about the flooding?" Mallowpaw inquired.

"Not yet, but I'm going to get a whole bunch of moss and soak up as much of the water as possible," Shellpaw meowed. "Do you want to help gather the moss, Waterpaw?"

Waterpaw readily agreed. "It'd be a nice change from sitting here being useless," she muttered.

She told their plan to Graysmoke, who was standing guard, and he let them head off to look for moss. Waterpaw stripped as much moss as she could find off the bottoms and sides of rocks, while Shellpaw gathered it from trees. Once they had as much as Shellpaw could carry, she headed back to camp to lay it out on the bottom of the apprentices' den while Waterpaw gathered more. While she waited for her friend to come back, Waterpaw hummed to herself, becoming absentminded and finding herself heading down toward Horseplace. She put down her moss to say hello to the horses; one of them came over to her and looked at her for a while before lumbering away.

Waterpaw carried on, not realizing she was heading down toward the lake until the sound of its crashing waves filled her eardrums. "Oh, I'm at the lake," she announced out loud to no cat in particular.

"You sure are," came a familiar voice from behind her. Waterpaw jumped; she hadn't expected a response, much less one from this cat. "So, what are you doing down here on a rainy day like today?"

"Grasspaw!" Waterpaw blinked at the WindClan apprentice, who tilted his head slightly as she tried to process why and how they had managed to run into each other again. "Wh-what a surprise. Um, I was just collecting moss. What brings you here?"

Before answering, Grasspaw stopped to shake out his paws- as if it was going to do any good. The rain wasn't letting up any time soon. To be honest, Waterpaw had just gotten used to it. Being dry felt like a distant memory after hours on end of being soaking wet.

"What brings you here?" Waterpaw repeated, still slightly stunned to have run into Grasspaw again- and at the lake, no less.

"Me? Oh, um, actually, I don't really know why I came down here," Grasspaw admitted. He jerked his muzzle to further down the beach, where the rough waves crashed higher than they normally ever got. "But I saw Podtail- he's our medicine cat, but you probably knew that already- and he acted really weird, He said something weird, too. I think-" Grasspaw's voice dropped, and he looked around warily before leaning over and whispering to Waterpaw, "I think it may have been a prophecy."

A prophecy… Waterpaw knew she shouldn't poke around in the business of other Clans, but she was supposed to have a prophecy about her. Maybe this was it! She leaned over to Grasspaw and whispered, "How did it go?"

"What, do you expect me to remember it off the top of my head?" Grasspaw's brow creased in concentration. "It had something to do with a saviour in the rain and some cat falling into the waves. There was also a something about a… voice in the wind? I think he said not to listen to it."

"Why not?" Waterpaw asked, no longer bothering to whisper. There was clearly no cat listening to them.

"I don't know!" Grasspaw cried in frustration, working his claws into the ground. "I guess the voice is lying or something. But if even Podtail isn't sure what it means, how am I supposed to figure any of it out?"

"Hmm," Waterpaw muttered. This was all very strange, but her mind began working and something occurred to her. "You don't know why you came down here, right? But your medicine cat just happened to be here when he got the? Well," she continued when Grasspaw leaned forward, clearly intrigued, "what if it was meant for you?"

"Huh?" Grasspaw mewed, blinking rapidly. He seemed to consider it for a second before shaking his head and wrinkling his nose. "No way! StarClan wouldn't have anything that cool in store for me. I'm just an ordinary cat! Plus, my life sucks too much for them to ever pick me."

"Well, maybe it's about me, then," Waterpaw suggested. "I am supposed to have some kind of special destiny, after all. I mean, I don't think a RiverClan cat like me would be very likely to fall into any waves, but maybe that part is about somebody else."

Waterpaw hoped Grasspaw didn't hope she was trying to brag about her swimming capabilities. She just really was that good at it. So maybe some parts were about her, and other parts were about Grasspaw. But why would StarClan choose to include a normal cat like him along with a special cat like her? That thought made Waterpaw suddenly feel a lot more ordinary than she cared to feel.

"So, you said you were gathering moss?" Grasspaw meowed, padding over to a small clump of trees. Waterpaw followed him over, and they crouched together under the barely budding branches of a birch tree. "Why were you doing that? I mean, it clearly wasn't so you guys'd have something to drink, so…"

"The apprentices' den had a hole and all the rain was coming through and flooding it," Waterpaw explained. "Shellpaw and I went out to gather moss so we could-" She broke off. Shellpaw! Was her friend looking for her?! "I'm sorry," she mewed to Grasspaw. "I've got to go."

How could Waterpaw have forgotten?! Not only had her task entirely slipped her mind; she'd left all the moss she'd already collected back at the Horseplace! Now it was probably all wet- or a horse could have eaten it! Did horses eat moss? Waterpaw had no idea.

Either way, she had to go back for her moss so that Shellpaw wouldn't get worried about her. "It's been nice talking to you again," she told Grasspaw. "I hope that whole prophecy thing gets figured out soon. I need to know how I'm supposed to save everybody." She cringed even as she said that; did she sound conceited? She hoped not, but it was true that she was supposed to be a special cat. There was no point in pretending she was normal like Grasspaw.

Fortunately, though, Grasspaw didn't seem fazed by her accidental rudeness. "It was nice talking to you, too," he told her. "I hope I can see you at the next Gathering."

"Oh, that's right; there's a Gathering in a few days," Waterpaw remembered. The thought of being able to meet up with Grasspaw and have a proper conversation again brightened her up even as the sky remained cloudy and the rain continued to pour down on them. "Well, I hope to see you then!"

"Hope to see you then," Grasspaw echoed, waving his tail. He got up and turned to go back to his camp, and Waterpaw headed back into her own territory. She hadn't realized that she'd crossed the WindClan border; her pelt warmed at the realization that Grasspaw hadn't pointed it out to her. Maybe he'd been so glad to see her that he hadn't noticed either!

The moss was still there right where Waterpaw had left it. She picked it up and went on searching for more, hoping no cat would find out about her little detour.