SparkClan Shifts

Chapter 2: Lost or Dead

Thriftpaw sighed. She was one a patrol with her litter-mates and their mentors as well as her own. For now, everything was super boring. They were hunting on a beach with a few Twolegs around, but the prey was too easy to catch and the green-leaf sun was giving her a migraine. "You shouldn't want the prey to be hard to catch!" had exclaimed Sweetpaw when she had told him this. Thriftpaw had shrugged. She liked a challenge.

A delicious smell reached her mouth. She swung around. "Lightningpaw?" she called out. "Sweetpaw?"

Lightningpaw raced up to her sister. "Sweetpaw's practicing hunting with Brickfur right now," she mewed. Her nose wrinkled. "What's that smell?" she questioned. "It's so good..."

Thriftpaw shrugged. "I was going to ask you if you wanted to explore it with me."

Lightningpaw looked uncertain. "Are you sure?"

"We might find where it's coming from!"

Lightnignpaw nodded. "All right. I think it's coming from... that way."

She gestured with her muzzle to a metal den. "The thing making that smell might me inside!" reflected Thriftpaw.

The two cats raced across the beach to the metal dens, the sand dragging down their feet.

When they were each inside a metal den, Thriftpaw's muzzle wrinkled in disgust. The smell was coming from a strange mush. Thriftpaw leapt outside the den but her head banged against metal painfully as the doors swung shut. A Twoleg came up to her and carried her up. Thriftpaw looked around to see where Lightningpaw was. Her sister was being carried by the same Twoleg, wrinkled up in a ball of fear. "It's going to be all right!" yowled Thriftpaw to her sister. Lightningpaw looked up to her, her amber eyes still full of fear.

"We're going to get you out of there!" It was Sweetpaw. He looked more determined that Thriftpaw had ever seen him. Warmleaf, Fudge and Brickfur. Sweetpaw lunged at the Twoleg's feet, calming his jaws around them. Warmleaf leaped and aimed a swipe at the Twoleg's belly, his gaze full of rage for his kits.

The Twoleg looked like it was in pain, but it was too late. Sweetpaw and Lightningpaw had already been put into a huge monster. "I'm sorry," whimpered Sweetpaw as she and her sister were enveloped into the darkness of the monster's stomach.

Sweetpaw was enveloped by grief as he watched the monster drive away. Sweetpaw felt as if he were outside of time as he returned to camp. Curlstripe was a little angry at Warmleaf for letting it happen. Even the weather seemed to be morning the loss of his sisters, as the leaf-fall cold was settling into every cat's bones.

When the vigil came, Sweetpaw talked about Thriftpaw. "She fell into a river when she was four moons old." His voice cracked. "She always knew how to lighten the mood, and she always made Lightningpaw and I happier. And-" Thriftpaw couldn't handle it anymore. He burst into tears and ran off to the apprentice's den. He felt the Clan's eyes burning on his pelt, but for once, he didn't care. He could hear pawstep's behind him. Warmleaf or Curlstripe, he thought. He tried running more quickly to reach the apprentice's den so he didn't have to speak to his parents. He wanted to speak to Thriftpaw in StarClan. Luckily, he was tired, so when he arrived at the apprentice's den, now empty except for him, he quickly fell asleep. However, as he drifted off to sleep, he only had nightmares about Warmleaf and Curlstripe also being taken away be Twolegs. But he had none with Thriftpaw in them.