Warrior Cats: Cascade

Chapter Three

Though the river wasn't far down, exactly, Doekit felt the affects of her fall as if time itself were counting down, using the steady drop in her stomach as numbers. Some pessimistic voice began to mutter in her head, saying how it hoped she wouldn't die for her efforts. That would most certainly bring the two cats closer.

But everything sped up when she hit the water, going way too fast for what should have been normal, maybe to catch up to the present, perhaps. Fully submerged, Doekit gasped for air, having not taken that into consideration. Water swiftly flooded into the open space, drowning her lungs in the cold fluid. Smooth stones scraped her back, not jagged but still rough, in a sense as she was swiftly dragged away by the stream.

Doekit was vaguely aware, in some far corner of her mind, that she should be trying to breach the surface and inhale much needed air, instead of coughing unproductively whilst slowly running out of oxygen. But, alas, shock had taken control of her movements, leaving her immobile for the time.

Sure enough, just as she had predicted, Doekit did not, in fact, die in a watery grave. Teeth met her scruff, sharp and careless in their owner's panic. She was roughly dragged up and out of the stream, dripping from head to tail and shivering uncontrollably. Eyes squeezed shut, she could only listen with little interest as cats swarmed around her like bees, whispering animatedly and rasping their tongues over her head. At one point, someone had decided it was a good idea to lick her fur backwards.

While this may have been drying her quicker than normal, it was extremely uncomfortable, and she couldn't help but squirm like there were bugs burrowing through her fur. Mewled protests slipped from her tongue, going unnoticed by what felt like dozens of cats all at once. Briefly, Doekit wondered if her attempted sabotage had worked, and noted that she should probably come up with less drastic means of getting her way in the future.

"Doekit, are you alright?"

"Doekit, swallow these."

"What in StarClan's name just happened?"

Doekit grumbled out something that was obviously unintelligible to the others, probably sounding more like gibberish than words. She was only vaguely aware of being dragged off before being swallowed by a warm, suffocating blackness as she slipped into unconsciousness.

-~-

Squished. That was the first thing that Doekit realized as she woke, her eyes crusted with sleep and her fur matted and clammy. On all sides, something - or someone - was covering her, pressing in on her. All she wanted to do was squirm away, but her muscles wouldn't work; it was if she was yelling at a pile of rocks - unresponsive and useless.

Doekit somehow managed to force her eyes open, pressing past a thick layer of grime and filth to blink up blearily at the walls of a den. But it wasn't her den... No, she didn't live in a cave. Maybe she had fallen asleep with Willowkit. No, Willowkit was supposed to be back at the nursery that afternoon, right?

So then why was she in the medicine den?

Suddenly, as if a clap of thunder had shook the very recesses of her mind, Doekit remembered what had happened. It was only blurry bits and pieces, but enough to get the whole story. River, Sandpaw, Rosepaw, falling, drowning, so, so cold...

Doekit quaked at the remembrance of her fall, still feeling icy claws gripping at her throat. She opened her eyes once more, blinking rapidly to clear the lingering bleariness.

From what she could tell, she was completely alone. Only the sharp scent of herbs permeated the air, as well as the lingering traces of other cats, indecipherable in their numbers. Doekit couldn't even raise her head to look around, and only the tip of her tail was willing to twitch in unrestrained irritation.