Name of Challenge: Sunny
Forum: SoulClan
Word Requirement: Anything
Word Count: 373
Written by: Sage
Viperstrike collapsed into a little ball on the burning hot stone of the camp clearing. The sun beat down, scorching her brown fur until it practically glowed golden. The Great Drought had been going on for a moon, and cats were dying every day.
The frail she-cat coughed, sending lashes of pain down her parched throat. The coughs wracked her shaking body, robbing her of all breath. Her purple tongue lolled from her mouth, touching the stone with a light sizzle. Her paws twitched rapidly, out of control, and her eyes were big brown eyes slowly blinked.
Viperstrike was dying.
Her tear-filled eyes landed on something shimmering silver a couple of tail lengths away. She squinted, to make sure the sun wasn't shining of the stone. It was real! Real! Water.
Viperstrike inched forward, panting in joy, focusing on nothing but the cool, clear liquid inches from her face.
Viperstrike, Viperstrike, Viperstrike. She glanced up and saw the blurry faces of her clanmates, watching her every move. Was it her imagination, or was the world tilting, dropping her closer and closer to that yawning black hole?
She's in a trance, trance, trance. Viperstrike brushed the words away, ignoring the painful seizures taking her body. The water, I have to get to the water. Wait, where is the water? As suddenly as it had come, the life-sustaining liquid was gone. Can she hear us, hear us, hear us? The distant voices rattled in her mind. Who is saying that? Is it the frogs? No, frogs don't talk, they hop! Hop, hop, hop! Viperstrike thought dizzily.
The world was tilting for sure now, tilting towards that cold, dark hole. But cold is better than hot. Hot is bad. Hot is painful. Hot is sad. Hot is bad, bad, bad.
Now Viperstrike was falling, falling towards the yawning void. The closer she got to the hole, the colder she felt. The gnawing thirst began to disappear. The unbearable, scalding sunbeams beating against her fur faded away. She was feeling… better.
Suddenly her bones turned to ice. The hot sun was replaced with a freezing chill that was somehow hotter than anything in the world. Her body convulsed for the final time.
It's too cold.