Jaypaw thundered through a forest thick with darkness. His paws thudded over the leaf-strewn ground, throwing up scraps in his wake. He dodged bracken and brambles made of long, slashing claws that stretched out to reach him. Giant jaws of shadow appeared from nowhere, snapping at his paws and shoulders to impede his travel.

He skidded to a horrified stop as a huge form manifested from the darkness, a black shape made of twisting shadows. A cat-like face, three times the regular size, stared down at Jaypaw, eyes opening to reveal an endless white gaze brighter than the freshest snow. A growl like thunder sliced into his ears, bouncing around his head with relentless force.

"Suffer," the shadow growled, "as I have!"

It dived toward him, giant jaws gaping wide as if to swallow him whole. Spinning on his paws, Jaypaw had never run faster, blundering blindly through undergrowth that clawed and caught in his skin, trying to grab him and pull him to the shadowy cat hunting him like a terrified mouse. Clumps of fur were left behind each time he tore himself free, but he could hear the creature getting closer and closer, its monstrous paws shaking the ground at each great bound it took.

With a horrible yowl, its jaws covered his vision, and he was left in darkness.

But only a brief moment passed before Jaypaw was opening his eyes to a bright, dazzling sun burning his vision. As the pain died and the brightness dulled, he found himself lying on his side in the EchoClan clearing, staring out at the edge of camp, dropping straight down to the moorland far below. He couldn't see the territory, just the distant horizon over the Old Twolegplace, a morning sun slowly rising to a warm day.

He couldn't see his Clanmates, but he could smell them, their scents swirling strong in his throat. One stood out, stronger than others because of how desperate he was to smell it again--Snowfern. His mother's scent had always been warm and slightly sharp, almost like sap. He missed her so much it made his chest burn with pain.

"My poor kit," Snowfern's mew was soft, and he felt her tail brush his shoulder. He tried to look up at her, but he couldn't move, not in the slightest--he didn't even blink, despite how long he stared at the horizon; he just stared, frozen, listening to the mingling voices around him.

"He was too young," Eagleclaw meowed. "But his death was StarClan's will."

Death? Jaypaw thought, a cold chill slowly seeping into his fur. But I'm not dead! He tried to speak, to show them he was alive, but like every other part of his body, his mouth stayed still. He put every bit of focus on his tail, hoping to just give it the slightest flick, but he felt no movement, and no cat reacted. Please, just look at my eyes! See I'm alive!

"Perhaps it was for the best," Foxpounce, his mentor, meowed. Jaypaw's heart faltered at the words, stinging in his chest and repeating in his head. "He wasn't all that strong--I never saw anything too important during his training."

"Foxpounce," Boulderclaw began slowly, giving a pause before he continued. Jaypaw felt a flash of relief, knowing that Boulderclaw--his father, the cat who was always ready to calm him, encourage him--would stand up for him. "I'm afraid you may be right."

No! Jaypaw's stomach clenched, his heart sinking deep into his chest as the pain became too much to bear. Snowfern's tail brushed down his side but it did little to calm the burning in his heart.

"I'm ready," the she-cat said softly.

"Would you like help?" Acornstar asked.

"No," Snowfern answered. "Boulderclaw and I will do it alone."

"Good." He heard Foxpounce stand and shake his pelt. "I'm going to go rest--I finally have some free time to myself! Have fun getting your claws dirty."

And that's when Jaypaw realized what was happening. He tried everything he could, from twitching a paw to flicking his ear, even trying to get his nose to curl. But everything failed, and he cried helplessly in his mind as Snowfern dragged him onto Boulderclaw's back, draping him like a squirrel over his father's shoulders. His limp tail dragged over the ground as Boulderclaw made his way down the rocky pathway, Snowfern brushing against his side.

When Boulderclaw took the last step down to the moorland, Jaypaw felt his body sliding. He tried to stop it instinctively, trying to reach out with his paws, but still, he was paralyzed. Snowfern steadied him by grabbing his shoulder with his teeth. It hurt, but he couldn't even cry out. When he was steady, she let go and continued on by her mate's side.

They said nothing the entire walk, and Jaypaw hated it. He wanted them to say something, anything, because the silence was deafening.

Then they stopped, and Snowfern grabbed Jaypaw's scruff and dragged him off Boulderclaw. His haunches thumped to the ground and pain spiraled through his body but his silent cry stuck in his throat.

"Where should we do it?" Snowfern asked, arriving in Jaypaw's vision. She looked around the countless mounds, most covered in grass, a few too recent to be hidden.

"Wherever," Boulderclaw answered.

Please, Jaypaw tried to say, please just look at me. See I'm still here! He knew what was happening, and he needed it to stop.

But then his parents moved forward, left him behind. They found a spot between two mounds and began to dig. Despite so many attempts before, Jaypaw continued to try every way possible to move, focusing every bit of his determination on each part of his body. 

He couldn't even twitch his whiskers.

Please, his thoughts were weak, exhausted after struggling to show he was still alive. Please...

"I begged, too."

He appeared from nothing, a shimmering silver form with the moorland stretching out behind his transparent figure. His fur was messy, smeared red with fresh blood; he was missing one ear, an older wound only recently healed; his blue eyes were sharp with misery.

Silverstrike, Jaypaw thought simply.

The tom took a step forward, the overwhelming scent of dog and blood filling Jaypaw's muzzle. "Death calls to us all," he said simply. "It's your turn, now."

Boulderclaw's scent swirled around him, his teeth dug into Jaypaw's scruff. He tugged his son's limp body across the grass and let him tumble into the deep hole they had dug. Jaypaw landed in a heap, pain flooding from where his shoulder hit the ground first. His head stung and he wanted to whimper but he once again found the silent sound filling his throat, refusing to burst through his muzzle.

From where he landed, Jaypaw could still see the sky, see his parents staring down at him. "At least we have the others," Snowfern meowed. "They were always stronger--even Ravenpaw."

Boulderclaw gave a confirming nod. "He would've never made it to a warrior."

And that's when they began to bury him. Soil filled the hole, bit by bit, covering his fur. It curled around his muzzle, slowly getting higher and higher until it began to smother him. It filled his mouth and spilled down his throat, pressing heavily on his body and beginning to crush him under the weight. Slowly, pawful of soil after pawful of soil, Jaypaw was buried alive.

The apprentice woke with a gasp, shivering at the cold night air that bit at his pelt. Dead bracken shifted under him as he moved, struggling to get his breathing under control. He felt the soft fur of Stonecoat by his spine and turned to look at his brother, using the sight of him curled up with Shadefur to reassure himself.

It was just a dream, he told himself firmly, turning to brush his tongue over his gray and white fur, showing himself that though it was messy, it was mostly clean. It was just a dream, like the last three-- three nights he had gone to sleep only to find himself being buried alive in some sort of way. He knew why the dream continued to come, the reason was with him every waking moment, curled up in the corner of the bramble bush they were using as a den:

Acornstar.

They had been halfway through digging her grave when the she-cat woke, gasping, from death, the wounds on her neck and belly--her most devastating wounds--somehow almost completely healed. Frostfall told them she truly thought Acornstar had died forever, with how long she had been still. Stonecoat and Shadefur had been angry with Acornstar, though that was merely a way to get away from the fear that they had almost buried a cat alive. But no matter how she was questioned, even three days later Acornstar wouldn't say anything.

Well, no, she did say something, one sentence right after she woke--"they have abandoned us"--but it was easier for Jaypaw to convince himself she said nothing, instead, because his faith in StarClan was the only thing that told him Ravenpaw was safe and alive. 

He realized Rain wasn't in the den but quickly spotted the tom's shadowed gray tabby coat sat outside the bush--protecting them as always. Shadefur and Stonecoat had taken the last three nights, refusing to trust Rain to watch them while they slept, but yesterday after the three went out hunting, they returned with the decision to let Rain guard from sunset to moonhigh.

Though, Jaypaw could feel in the air that it was well past moonhigh, the air too light but not quite touched orange by the sun. Slowly, he stood from his nest, stretching out his weakened limbs before gently stepping over Frostfall's white form, curled in a tight ball and whimpering softly. He made sure to hold his tail high, feeling it brush against the top of the bush.

He crawled his way out of the prickly shrub and took a few steps to reach Rain's side. The tom had turned briefly to look at him, but now his blue eyes turned back to the forest. "I heard you crying in your sleep," Rain meowed softly after the apprentice sat in the cold snow, drawing his thick tail around his paws to keep warm. "Another nightmare?"

"Yeah." He hadn't mentioned his dreams to his Clanmates, but they must've heard him crying out each night. He recalled all the times Shadefur and Stonecoat had brushed past him in the recent days, giving him brief licks or touches with their noses as if reminding him they were there.

"It's Acornstar, right? About what happened?"

Jaypaw swallowed, his throat becoming dry. "We almost buried her. When she alive."

Rain's tail flicked out to brush against his flank. "I know. It's an indescribable feeling, but you must remember that she woke long before we were finished. We cannot change the past, only our future."

Jaypaw stared at his paws for a while, unwilling to speak more about his dreams--he found they were easier to manage when he left them in his nest. He recalled back to that day, watching the blood flow from Acornstar's neck and belly, soaking the snow and spreading its red reach farther and farther.

"Sleekleg," Jaypaw murmured softly. "He was your father?"

He felt the defeat in Rain's body, saw the way his shoulders sunk low. "He was. I discovered the identity of my mother a few seasons after I became a warrior, and that of my father just a few moons before you met me--when he was chosen as the mate of Violetfrost. I couldn't stand the thought, so we ran. These cats we--MothClan--had captured spoke of the Clans, and we went for quite a while, following the Thunderpath but finding nothing. We found out she was expecting kits, and I had a nightmare of her and the kits dying during birth. So I left her, promised to return, and raced back to MothClan, hoping I could convince a medicine cat to come with me. But I was found, captured. By the time I escaped, Violetfrost was gone. You... know the rest."

Jaypaw could scarcely even imagine what Rain had gone through, living in MothClan, seeing all that violence, and being able to do nothing. "Why... Why didn't you leave earlier?"

Rain looked away. "It's not as easy to escape as you think. Cats have left before, but many of them are hunted down and found. They... It's not something I like to think about. When Violetfrost and I left, we didn't head for the Clans right away. We fled to the Twolegplace, found as many ways as we could to throw off our pursuers--almost ran into them a few times. It took a long time for us to become brave enough to actually start our journey to the Clans. Maybe if we had started a few days earlier, we would've found EchoClan, and Violetfrost would still be alive."

The tom's sad eyes turned down to Jaypaw, twisting with aching memories. "But she's gone, and I can't change that. All I can do now is get back to EchoClan and see my daughter, tell her stories of her mother so that she's never forgotten."

Jaypaw just gave a simple nod because he didn't have any words to say. He felt the icy winds deep in his bones, and at that moment he would give anything to be back in EchoClan with Ravenpaw by his side. Rain, as if sensing the apprentice's troubled thoughts, ran his tail along Jaypaw's spine.

For a while after, they sat in silence. Jaypaw found himself glad to have the cold forest around him, keeping him huddled in place, watching as soft snowflakes began to fall from the dark, star-scattered sky. Are you there, StarClan? Jaypaw wondered. Can you see me from these stars? Can you see Ravenpaw?

There was no answer, and Jaypaw wondered if he would ever see someone from StarClan--he knew Ravenpaw had before, so he didn't hesitate with his faith that StarClan was there; but he couldn't help but wondered if they cared, if any cat who had passed cared enough to watch him now.

The wind began to pick up, surprisingly warm for a moment before becoming freezing again, causing him to shiver. The snowfall started to get heavier, thicker flakes sticking to Jaypaw's fur and sinking into his skin, icy cold and wet. He shivered, watching clouds of breath curl around his muzzle.

"Go back under the bush," Rain said softly. "Get warm."

"I don't want to sleep," Jaypaw murmured.

"Don't fear your dreams," Rain soothed, his mew softer than kit-fluff. "The darkest parts of your mind are desperate to break through, but you must focus on the light. In your dreams, ignore the bad, the words that are said, the actions that are caused--focus on memories, of moments that are pure and make you feel lighter than air."

"So... think of the good?" Jaypaw asked softly.

Rain's fluffy tail was warm around his flank. "Yes, Jaypaw, think of the good."

The apprentice hesitated for few more moments, but Rain continued to urge until he retreated back into the den and curled up by his brothers again. Stonecoat shifted at his cold touch but didn't wake, much to Jaypaw's relief. He curled himself into the dead bracken he was using for a nest, tucking his nose under his cold paws. 

Think of the good, Jaypaw reminded himself. Think of the good of being buried alive.

But, to his relief, the next thing he knew, he was waking to a chilly dawn. It had snowed heavily last night, piling on the bush and weighing it down. Icy water dripped from the melting pileup, sending freezing spikes through Jaypaw's body each time once touched down on his coat and slipped through to his skin.

Shadefur and Stonecoat had left the den, their empty spaces filled with a cold breeze. Jaypaw struggled to his paws, feeling stiff and fragile, and shook his coat, trying to flood warmth through his body. Frostfall and Acornstar were both still sleeping, curled up as tightly as they could in their respective nests. He carefully stepped over them and left the cold den for an even colder forest.

Snow was falling quite heavy, instantly flecking his white pelt with fluffy flakes. Stonecoat sat not far off, hunched over with his fur fluffed to keep himself warm, tail curled tightly over his paws. His back was layered with white powder. Jaypaw shook himself again and padded over to his brother, pressing into his side to share the tiny bit of warmth he got from sleep. Stonecoat was as cold as the snow covering the ground and accepted the heat gratefully.

"Where's Shadefur and Rain?" Jaypaw asked.

Stonecoat's tail tip twitched. "Out hunting," his voice was slightly raspy, sending out a cloud of cold into the air. "They've been gone since before dawn, so they should be back soon."

Jaypaw nodded and moved closer. He felt safe to decide that he hated leaf-bare. It was too cold, too dead, and he had lost so much since the snow fell. He remembered leaf-fall being pretty cold, too, though not quite as cold as the air around him currently; but only the faintest memory remained of the warmth of greenleaf, back when he was only three moons old. 

"What's your favorite season?" Jaypaw asked his brother softly.

Stonecoat took a moment to answer. "Newleaf," he decided. "Watching the frost melt, seeing new growth come in--it's incredibly beautiful. Everything is so young and green, and after three moons of leaf-bare, the prey tastes so fresh, and the water isn't so cold it freezes your stomach. It shows life keeps going on."

"It sounds really beautiful," Jaypaw commented quietly, picturing the forest as Stonecoat described.

His brother's nose touched his forehead. "You were born in newleaf, you know. Near the end of it."

Jaypaw gave a small nod. "Snowfern said it took a whole day."

"It did," Stonecoat confirmed. "Shadefur, Boulderclaw, and I didn't leave camp the whole time. Right when you were born you let out this big cry, and Boulderclaw said he knew you'd be a great warrior one day."

Jaypaw thought he would've been glad to hear that, but a question took his mind and everything else faded away. "What about Ravenpaw? What did you all think when he was born?"

Stonecoat was silent for a long time, almost too long. Then he said softly, "I thought he looked really small. But I knew he was strong." He let the words hang in the air for a moment, then gave a quiet snort and added, "Shadefur swore up and down Ravenpaw would be a medicine cat one day--said he could just tell. Guess he was right."

Jaypaw felt he didn't need to answer and instead just sat in silence with his brother, eyeing the snowy forest for signs of threats, looking up once and a while to watch the sun slide up the sky.

He saw Rain and Shadefur coming from far off, their gray pelts shadows against the empty white forest. Shadefur held a squirrel and thrush in his jaws, while Rain was dragging a large, black-feathered bird, its neck trapped in his jaws. 

Jaypaw's heart settled in his throat as he watched the two get closer and closer. Stonecoat got up and shook himself free of snow, padding over to meet them. He touched Shadefur's muzzle with his nose then grabbed the legs of Rain's bird, helping him drag it across the snow.

They let it drop in front of Jaypaw. Its small, beady eye glared up at him. The apprentice swallowed drily, unable to take his eyes from it.

It took a moment but understanding eventually came to Rain's gaze. "It's a rook," he said softly. "Not a raven."

"Oh." Jaypaw's throat still felt dry, and pressure pushed even harder on his chest. The beady eye was still watching him, blank but never-ending in its questions. Why did you leave him? it seemed to be asking.

A soft pelt brushed along his fur as Shadefur pressed against him. Stonecoat appeared on his other side. "We'll go back," Shadefur promised, tail curling around Jaypaw. "Once Frostfall and Acornstar are home, we'll find Ravenpaw and bring him home safe."

"But what if it's too late?" His mind flickered to the worst, of Ravenpaw getting free and trying to find them in the forest only to meet a patrol of MothClan warriors. Trying to force the image away instead sent Ravenpaw into Jaypaw's dream from earlier, the small, gentle apprentice running for his life from giant, shadowy cats only to be swallowed by the darkness.

"Jaypaw," Rain meowed softly. The apprentice slowly raised his eyes to meet Rain's. They were steady and determined. "You're forgetting something very important."

Jaypaw couldn't help the curiosity that built in his stomach.

"He may be young," Rain finally said, "but he's like no cat I've ever met. He's determined to be kind even when no other cat would be. Not to mention he's smart, smart enough to survive. Trust me on this, Jaypaw--MothClan is as likely to kill Ravenpaw as this rook is."

I hope you all enjoyed the first chapter back! Thank you for reading.