Chapter 19: Connection
“Thank goodness you’re alright!”
“Same to you. What happened to us?”
Razorpaw couldn’t see anything. Not himself or Chaospaw, not MountainClan or JungleClan or even that strange beach he had visited in his dreams. He couldn’t feel anything either, like something was suppressing all of his senses apart from his hearing. He couldn’t identify the voices he was listening too, and seeing as he couldn’t do anything else he settled for simply listening in on the echoing voices deep in conversation.
“I don’t know. I don’t even know where we are…”
“That would take some explaining. It would take a while but I have an idea…”
The silver apprentice couldn’t make out anything else that was said. He strained his ears – although, he thought that he did, he wasn’t even aware of his own presence in this place – to listen, but eventually the two voices began to sound muffled and distant. He caught parts of words, but nothing near substantial enough to put together a sentence. After a few heartbeats more, when the words had been reduced to nothing but a distant buzz, a new voice struck him. But this time, it was a voice he knew only too well.
“Razorpaw! Razorpaw!”
Ch…Chaospaw?
It felt strange opening his eyes, and even stranger when the moonlight shone onto his face, making him recoil and shut his eyes tightly again. He rolled over slowly, finally able to feel his fur pressing against the stone, able to scent the drifting salty sea breeze, able to acknowledge that he actually existed.
“Are you okay?” Chaospaw was stood over the silver tom, red eyes gazing down at him with a mixture of worry and curiosity. Razorpaw craned his neck back to look at the other tom, opening one eye slightly to see.
“I…I think so…” He muttered, somewhat unsure himself. With a bit of effort and help from Chaospaw he was able to stand, and while his body quivered slightly he felt fine. He stretched out his legs and his tail, flexed his claws and twisted his neck. He didn’t feel anything off at all.
“You just blacked out” Chaospaw murmured quietly, “What happened?”
“I don’t know” Razorpaw stated truthfully, “Was I out for long?”
“Only a few minutes” Chaospaw shook his head, “But what happened to you? Does that happen often?”
The silver tom couldn’t remember blacking out before, so he shook his head. “No” He answered after a moment, “It’s never happened before.”
Chaospaw didn’t say anything else for a while, simply stared at the silver tom with questioning eyes. When Razorpaw began to feel a little uncomfortable under his friend’s gaze, he shuffles his paws and decided to change the subject. He really did feel fine, so there was nothing to worry about. Right?
“Shouldn’t we catch up to the medicine cats?” He suggested, padding in the direction they were heading even before Chaospaw had a chance to answer. The black tom’s gaze followed him as he went past, but he said nothing more and for the first time it was Razorpaw who was leading on the journey upland. He tried to ignore the fact he had absolutely no idea what had happened to him, so he put his blackout down to exhaustion and the mix of emotions inside him. In all honesty he didn’t believe it himself, but as Chaospaw had said before they could be on to something bigger. It was vital to them both that they kept up with the group ahead of them. That was the reason he gave for paying little attention to what had just happened. Even if he didn’t believe it himself, it was a valid enough reason for him to accept.
But another feeling was there, niggling at his mind like an ant in his fur. If it was indeed an omen, then StarClan were watching them as they trespassed on another clan’s territory. Maybe they were showing their disapproval of what the two toms were doing, or more worryingly, it was a warning for something to come.
“What happened to that other cat?” Razorpaw asked, suddenly remembering the cat they were watching before he fainted.
“I don’t know” Chaospaw replied from behind, “I lost sight of him when you passed out.”
Razorpaw nodded and carried on. He eventually let Chaospaw take the lead, feeling more comfortable following behind the other tom. But he couldn’t suppress the blackout from his mind. Actually, he was starting to jump to conclusions about why it had happened. And with each one he began to feel more and more afraid of what they would find at the MoonFalls.
“C-Chaospaw…” The silver tom stuttered, unable to shake the ominous feeling from his head.
“Yeah?”
“What if…What if the blackout was an omen?” He confessed, although still keeping a low voice, “What if we’re doing the wrong thing?”
He didn’t get a response for a moment, so he guessed the black tom was carefully thinking about his words.
“I honestly don’t know” Chaospaw admitted to Razorpaw’s surprise, “Your prophecy told us to search the highest sky, and there’s nowhere on the coast higher than the MoonFalls. However if you passing out was an omen, then I wouldn’t know where to go next.”
Razorpaw leapt a small crack in the ground, still hating the unevenness of MountainClan territory, “If it is an omen…” He mumbled, “What do you think will happen?”
“I can’t say. But we can’t go back now” Chaospaw meowed; now padding alongside the silver tom. He looked as if he was thinking hard about what they were doing. Razorpaw took a deep breath, trying to clear his head of the buzzing mess that had taken over his thoughts.
“There they are” Chaospaw announced quietly, slowing to a stop behind a large rock and cautiously peering around the side. Razorpaw followed, pressing his body to the ground and also taking a look around the rock. The other group of cats were congregated around a cave entrance, presumably leading up to the MoonFalls somewhere up the side of the mountain.
“Are you three going to come with us?” Shimmerpool was asking, stood at the entrance to a cave while still eyeing the three warriors suspiciously.
“No” The only tom in the group of warriors, Duskglow, answered with a dip of his head, “I’ll wait out here. Lilystream, Heatherheart” He flicked his tail to the two she-cats, “You can go back and check now.”
“Check?” Flowerheart repeated, “Check what?”
Duskglow narrowed his eyes slightly, “We picked up a few strange scents a while back. So we need to check them out.”
Razorpaw tensed up, holding his breath and feeling his blood run cold. Had they been found out?
“Why didn’t you do this before?” Flowerheart gasped, “It might be-“
Duskglow silenced her with a flick of his tail and a hard look, “It could be anything” He growled, nodding to the two she-cats. Lilystream and Heatherheart raced back the way they had come, disappearing into the shadows of the craggy ground.
“I’ll stay out here” Duskglow repeated his instructions, “You go and do what you need to” He sat himself down by the side of the cave entrance. Flowerheart narrowed her eyes slightly, still looking at him even though he was blatantly going to ignore anything she said now.
“Come on!” Shimmerpool urged, Ghostpaw and Russetpaw already padding ahead into the cave. Flowerheart sighed ruefully and followed, at last her calico pelt fading away into the pitch black cave, Duskglow keeping a vigilant watch from outside.
“They’re on to us!” Razorpaw hissed, throat dry and cold, “What do we do?”
“What can we do?” Chaospaw grumbled irritably, “We don’t have a choice. We have to stay here and hope that they don’t find us.”
“Can’t we hide?” Razorpaw forced back a shiver, through the cold and the fear he could feel like an itch under his pelt.
“We go back now and there’s a chance we’ll run into the she-cats” The black tom snapped, “We go forward and that tom will definitely see us. The safest thing to do right now is to stay right here.”
“B-But…” Razorpaw swallowed hard, scraping his claws against the cold hard ground. He hated this feeling, being in this situation but not being able to do a thing about it. “What can we do?”
“Nothing” Chaospaw kept his red-brown eyes fixed on the warrior outside of the cave, while keeping his ears pinned back for any sounds behind them. He sat down, calmly folding his tail over his paws and fluffing up his fur to keep warm.
“We wait.”
Iceclaw 
Silverstream 
Congratulate them 
