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.
He knew she was on the doors of death. He couldn't save her without the cure. She was another cat gone to StarClan.
Slowly, her heartbeat started to have more time in the intervals, eventually stopping as a whole.
Whitemask raised his head, heavy with grief.
Turning around, he announced, "I'm sorry. She's gone to StarClan."
The whole Clan wailed in grief, cat's sobbing and burying their faces in their paws. They would truly miss Lightleap, but Poppykit would miss her most of all.
"No! No!" Poppykit exclaimed. "Please, please help her!"
The Clan was silent, staring mournfully at Lightleap's body. Whitemask closed his eyes in grief.
"NO! MAMA!" Poppykit ran to Lightleap's side and sobbed. She lay next to her mother and soon, she fell asleep, crying.
Whitemask gritted his teeth and turned to his Clanmates.
"We must have a vigil for Lightleap and honour her memory.
Very soon, after nudging Poppykit away back to the nursery, the Clan began the vigil, solemn with grief.
After what seemed like moons, the Clan seemed to stir. What?, Whitemask thought. The vigil isn't over yet.
But then, Whitemask realised that there was a cat in the clearing, shouting.
"A fire! A forest fire! From the poisonous gases! We must evacuate! Now!"
The Clan panicked. Cats ran from camp, in a frenzy.
What about the Darkcough cats? Will they just be left? And the kits!
A shot of panic ran through Whitemask as he ran towards the nursery.
"Poppykit! Cloverkit! Sparrowkit!" He meowed while searching the nursery.
Then finally he saw Poppykit hunched over a dark shape.
"Poppykit! There you are! Where is Cloverkit and Sparrowkit?"
Poppykit just sobbed.
Whitemask realised what the shade was right then. "Sparrowkit! He's-he's dead!"
Poppykit just nodded. "I don't know where Cloverkit is! They're gone! All gone!"
Whitemask picked up Sparrowkit's body and nudged Poppykit. "We have to hope Cloverkit is still alive! Come on, Poppykit, follow me!"
Poppykit nodded reluctantly and followed.
When they were exiting the camp, Whitemask realised they wouldn't be able to outrun the flames at their current pace.
Amid Whitemask's panic, a silver, sleek cat slipped through the bushes. It was Silverwhisker, his Clanmate.
"Give Poppykit to me and- oh! Sparrowkit! Where is Cloverkit?"
Whitemask just gazed at her and a look of understanding passed through them.
"Okay, but be quick!" Silverwhisker grabbed Poppykit and put her on her back, and held Sparrowkit's body by the scruff, then darted away.
Turning around with a shiver, Whitemask glanced back at the camp. I have to find Cloverkit, now!
With panic in his eyes, Whitemask ran into the now flaming camp. He could notice that his lungs were stuffing up because of the smoke, and Whitemask wouldn't survive long at that rate.
He ran around camp, searching around and screeching, "Cloverkit? Cloverkit!"
He searched for what seemed like moons but Whitemask saw no sign of the little fluffy she-cat.
Whitemask sat on the ground in defeat, feeling as the smoke crept up his lungs and blocked the much needed oxygen so to ease his intense panic.
With a little hope, he went over to the Medicine Cat Den, the one place he hadn't checked so to not be reminded of the fact they left the sick, weak Darkcough cats suffering in the den. It was a horrible feeling to Whitemask, who had been a kind and thoughtful Medicine Cat.
Whitemask stuck his head inside the den and saw the limp bodies of the cats, and little Cloverkit next to them, trying to nudge them awake.
As he started to enter the den, Cloverkit turned around with a hiss but then relented.
"Oh, it's you...Please help me get these cats awake! Please, Whitemask! Before it's too late!" Cloverkit looked like she would burst out in tears, when I realised that the cat she was nudging was her older sister, Brightfall.
"I-I'm sorry, Cloverkit," Whitemask started, a note of uncertainty in his voice. "I'm really, very sorry. But they're gone."
Cloverkit let out a wail of grief, then buried her head in her sister's fur.
"Come on, Cloverkit," Whitemask meowed, trying to stay calm, although it's hard to do that when their is a raging fire a few metres away from you. "We have to go!"
"No!" Cloverkit sobbed, not turning to look at Whitemask. "I'm not leaving her! Ever!"
"But what about the Cl-," Whitemask started speaking but was cut off by a pain at the tip of his tail, a burn. "I'm sorry Cloverkit, but we have to go, now!"
Before Cloverkit could protest, Whitemask grabbed her by the scruff. She wailed and shrieked in defiance, but Whitemask was already walking through the den.
"NO!" Cloverkit wriggled around and scratched Whitemask's neck, managing to get free. She then bolted away towards the flames, hoping to escape the camp via the brambles. But she couldn't. There was a reason it was there for protection from enemy cats.
He tried to keep up with her as fast as possible, though Whitemask couldn't see very well through the smoke.
When Cloverkit reached the brambles Whitemask expected Cloverkit to realise there was no way out, but she found a slight gap in the brambles, cut through it, and exited camp, with a sad expression on her face, and Whitemask knew she wanted to be alone to grieve for her sister then come back and retrieve the body. But she couldn't. It was too dangerous to come back at all because the fire had scorched the camp and made it too smokey, as well as making the camp unstable.
He ran after her, but before Whitemask could find the hole in the brambles, he froze. The pain had come back again, except it was much, much worse. His tail was on fire.
Whitemask let out a shriek and collapsed. Pain and smoke was clouding his vision. He wouldn't survive much longer.
As his last thoughts, I wish that I could've saved Cloverkit. The Clan and-oh! Poppykit. I hope she's okay. I hope...we make it through this dreaded Apocalypse and there will be better times for the Clan. Otherwise...we're all doomed. Stay safe, EmberClan.
He let out a gasp of pain, then slowly, but seemingly quickly, the pain faded away. Then darkness.
Hi guys! So the Prologue was a long chapter (a normal chapter will be 500 to 1000 words, this one was 1686 words. So...ya). I just wanted to really in depth introduce EmberClan and the Apocalypse. I hope you guys have questions! (Like, what happened to Cloverkit? What happened to Poppykit? What happened to Silverwhisker? What happened to Whitemask? P.S Guys, he died. To those people wondering, how did you not know that? No offence though) So I'll make another chapter very soon! Stay tuned!