Shadows (Zombie Warrior Cats)

Chapter One

Ripplecurrent's POV

With the sound of little groans and grunts echoing throughout the nursery, I couldn't try to sleep any longer. I lifted my head off of my paws to check out what was going on. I just woke up, could you be any louder? I wanted to snap at Lionkit and Pebblekit when I found out they were the ones tumbling around and making all the noise.

Blossomfrost's litter had been part of the issue before, but I understood they didn't know any better. But these two sure do! I wanted to yell.

Sighing, I decided to be nice and keep my mouth shut.

I sat up and began cleaning my ruffled up fur. It's thick waves were stuck up and knotted in several places, annoying me even more.

It had been three moons since Shadowflower had come back, shaking with surprise, from her journey for catmint. The catmint, by the way, didn't do anything for my mate or the poor, weak soul of Fireflywing... Meaning her scary trip was, literally, all for nothing. Fireflywing's death wasn't entirely missed by any cat, really, other than her very effected sister. Mistnose was now - more - distant and cold than before.

It had been three whole moons of nothing but seemingly endless snow storms and empty bellies. The constant groan of my Clanmates made my heart twist with shame and sadness because I knew, in the end, my kits and I would always get the first, and sometimes even the only, prey. I acted careless though so no one would reassure me that "it was okay". I knew very well it was less than okay. I had done just fine without reassurance thus far, so why would I need their pitiful glances now?

Just as I got the last knot out, I noticed Hollowkit wasn't with his step-siblings. "Pebblekit, Lionkit," I got their attention, their tiny heads glancing over at me. "Why isn't Hollowkit playing with you? He is your brother, after all!" They shrugged, uninterested, and turned away.

Rolling my eyes, I left the nursery. Dreampaw, like most mornings, was showing Hollowkit how to hunt and fight. How didn't I know? I purred to myself. The little black tom was a bit off balanced and a tad too loud, but he was doing well after three moons of "training". It brought them closer together, and I could practically already see their future together.

Sparkdust hurried out of the camp as Tigerstripe and Foxtuft came in. All three carried their own personal thick, sharpened stick to protect themselves and our territory. So far the sticks - ordered by Silverstar - had been helpful, the three had reported.

The sun was just making it's way up the dim sky. Small, white clouds blew across the grey sky, bringing wind into the clearing and ruffling up my fur the wrong way. A growl crept up my throat. I just did-

"Ripplecurrent, how was your sleep?" Stormcloud rasped, padding from the medicine den. He was lanky and patches of his thick, grey fur were missing from his pelt. I pitied him, wanting to help him all I could but the catmint was the only effective thing. Even that didn't seem to be doing much more then make him smell nice.

I touched noses with him. "It was great," I meowed. "Do you feel any better?"

He seemed to hesitate whether to be straight forward or to say what I wanted to hear. "Um, I'm not sure. I feel a bit more of myself... But it's hard to say, really." Stormcloud nuzzled me. Of course he wouldn't tell me straight up that nothing had changed. I lashed my tail and narrowed my eyes.