Burning Embers: A Story of Flames (Book 1)

Prologue

It was twilight. A peaceful, serene twilight. Nothing moved. It was silent for all but the soft sound of grasshoppers chirping.

Whitemask purred in appreciation of this beautiful day. During the Apocalypse, nothing was usually calm except for when it was a cat's vigil. But even then, you could feel the panicked aura of the cats surrounding the body.

Thoughts went through their head, along with grief, of course. Why did it have to be this cat? Will I be next? How will I die? Will more of my Clanmates die? StarClan help me!

As Medicine cat, Whitemask was supposed to be 'immune' from that line of thoughts. But the truth was, Whitemask was more scared then any of the cats in the Clan. And definitely more mystified.

To be honest, the Apocalypse's effects of making life in the Clan perilous wasn't the strangest thing happening.

To Whitemask's horror, it had introduced a new disease, dubbed Darkcough. It practically made cats zombies, and stripped them of everything but their body. Whitemask had to make a new ward for all of the cats, studying them and hopelessly trying to find a cure.

It was nearly impossible as far as Whitemask knew to even identify how the cats were getting the illness.

The cats of EmberClan had complete faith in him to cure it, but only so much could be done. The farthest Whitemask came was ensuring they had a quick, painless death. But that was nothing in the face of the Apocalypse.

As much as it pained Whitemask to say, he really didn't think EmberClan would make it through.

The other Clans, AshClan and FeatherClan intended to stay as far away as possible from the Apocalypse, and that meant really, really  far away. The Clans had isolated themselves from EmberClan, protecting themselves from the illness.

Rumour had it that AshClan and FeatherClan made an alliance so to keep themselves from dying out. And it was working.

EmberClan, however, remained independent, as they liked it. But Whitemask knew pride would be their undoing. EmberClan was getting weaker, the average of one to two cats who come back from every hopeless patrol to find prey dying from either the poisonous air or Darkcough.

Life was hard that they needed to take rations of fresh-kill, but most of that fresh-kill was poisonous. Tainted, the Clan said. So two more cats die as well from eating prey.

The Clan relied on the queens to have kits, but more and more kits were dying from lack of prey, water, fresh air, and from Darkcough.

Whitemask closed his eyes as to relieve himself from grief. His sister, Cherrysky, the Clan deputy, had died last moon. The worst part was that when she died she was expecting kits. That caused the whole Clan more grief than they could bear.

Whitemask was getting tired, and was just about to close his eyes when he heard a shriek.

He shot up, fought the weariness and bolted towards the sound of the shriek, the Warriors' den. He knew it couldn't of been a queen giving birth, so it meant the opposite. A dying shriek.

As soon as he entered the den, Poppykit, a sweet little kit that he thought of taking as an apprentice one day, ran to his feet and mewed urgently.

"It's mama, she's fallen over and can't get up!"

Poppykit's eyes were full of worry, and Whitemask felt sorry for the kit. She had experienced so much at such a young age.

Pushing past her, Whitemask saw a white tabby she-cat laying on the ground, limp.

Oh no! Lightleap has Darkcough! I should've seen the sign sooner!

Lightleap was unconscious, a sign that she had the formidable disease Darkcough. He ran over to her in panic, and pressed his ear to her chest. A soft, hardly recognisable heartbeat, but a heartbeat nonetheless.