Lost Hope: Book 5: Forest of Vipers

Chapter 4

Forestpaw wasn't sure if Viperfang had done this on purpose or simply forgot, but there was no guard at her den entrance when she woke up the next morning.

    She stared at the opening for a few moments before padding forward to peer outside. There was no cat in sight. Her belly turned with excitement as her eyes roved the surrounding area. She could escape now. Well, in a sense. She still didn't actually know how to get back to the real world. But exploring might give her some insight. On the other paw, if Viperfang caught her, who knows what she would do to her. Was it a risk she was willing to take?

    She stared some more, and then placed her paw outside the entrance. Nothing happened.

    Forestpaw took another step. Still nothing. Soon her whole body was outside, and she was quivering with nerves. But she was fine. Could Viperfang tell if she left? What if she came by and Forestpaw wasn't there? She wold probably just teleport her if she wanted to see her. Doubts still wormed their way into her mind.

    "I'm just going to explore a little," she told herself quietly. That seemed to shut up most of her fearful thoughts and she took a few more steps forward.

    The forest was dim around her and she couldn't make out much between the dark branches. And it seemed to go on forever at this point, Forestpaw wasn't sure if she could find her ways back to the den, where she should be. It's directly behind me, she told herself, just keep going straight and you'll be fine.

    At least that's what she hoped.

    Forestpaw continued to move forward, but she didn't see much beyond the dark trees and the faint glow of the red sky. It was really quite bone-chilling, and she was considering just bolting back the way she had come, but she stuck to the path, determined to find something. Please help me, StarClan. Although she wasn't sure StarClan could reach this far.

    Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she saw something glowing, something far in the distance to her right. Intrigued, she cautiously approached it, making careful note of her change in direction.

    The glowing thing turned out to be many glowing things. Cats, Forestpaw realized with horror. StarClan cats. Viperfang has somehow captured StarClan and put them in the Dark Forest.

    "What happened to you?" Forestpaw asked quietly, watching their swirling bodies move despairingly around in some tangled mess of a cage.

    "Forestpaw? Is that you?" one cat asked and Forestpaw recognized her immediately.

    "Meadowstar!" she exclaimed. "How did you get here?"

    "When Viperfang intruded on our last half moon meeting, she was able to engulf all of StarClan's hunting grounds and confine us to a space in the Dark Forest," she meowed with a sigh, shaking her head helplessly. "I don't know how to fix this all."

    "I'll fix it," Forestpaw said, although she also wondered how she was going to do just that.

    "How?" Meadowstar asked, wondering the same thing. "You're just as stuck here as we are."

    Forestpaw looked at her paws. "I have more freedom here than you do." She looked back up and met Meadowstar's gaze, so like her own. "If you tell me every thing you know about Viperfang, I might be able to figure something out."

    Meadowstar took a breath and dove into the story, "Viperfang was always a troubled kit. I was already a warrior when she was apprenticed to a cat named Ivythorn, someone who only contributed to her ambition for power. She was also very fond of a certain cat called Stonestar, Stonekit then, when they were kits. But when they were apprenticed, he started a friendship with Honeypaw, and Viperfang felt left out, pushed away, as though he could only have one friend and he chose Honeypaw over her.

    "She became restless and angry as an apprentice. And it only worsened when she became a warrior. She came back to camp one day with blood on her paws and no denial to the murder of her own father. One of my first acts as a new leader was sending her to her death. Although I now question if my actions were very justified and if I hadn't I might not be here now." She shook her head. "I'll never know.

    "Viperfang said you dropped her into a pit of snakes?" Forestpaw said quietly.

    "It's true," Meadowstar said slowly. "Although it was more my brother's idea than my own. But I still agreed to it, and thus, Viperfang was killed by her own namesake. Everyone else thought it was ironic justice for an evil warrior."

    Forestpaw wasn't sure how she felt about that. But she wasn't sure that Viperfang would have been less evil if they had just exiled her instead.

    "How did she gain control of StarClan?" Forestpaw mused.

    She hadn't expected Meadowstar to have an answer. "I think I know a way actually. Have you ever heard of the Star Pearl?"

    Forestpaw shook her head. "What's that?"

    "I'm to sure how it came to be exactly," Meadowstar said. "Stonestar received it as a gift from his mother before she passed, and she told him it had magical abilities, although we never guessed what they might be."

    "You think that Viperfang stole it?" Forestpaw asked. "But how could she take it when she's dead?"

    "I don't know," Meadowstar said. "But try to find it if she did steal it. If not, well, we'll have to come up with another way."

    And suddenly, the familiar sense of teleportation magic flowed through her body. Viperfang knows.