The Sky is Falling Plot

An aggravated sigh passed the lips of a young raven-haired girl. Her hood was pulled down over her eyes to no avail- the torrential rain was relentless, pounding against her back and the sidewalk beneath her with no established rhythm. She was soaked to the bone and shivering- the rain was almost beginning to become sleet. Lightning raked the coal-grey skies and the thunder in her ears was deafening- christ, that won't help my already beyond shitty hearing, she thought, eyeing the angrily dark rumbling storm clouds far above her head. Things just don't stop getting weirder, she noted as the previously rhythmless beating of raindrops seemed to become a familiar song; but she ignored it. I'm just hearing things, she decided, and continued walking at a quicker pace.

She had just gotten off of the bus about a minute ago and she felt as if she was wetter than the goddamned ocean. It had been the last day of school before the winter break of her freshman year. And frankly, said freshman year had been going rather horribly. A few days prior, literally all of her closest friends (being the ones that were in all of her core classes) had been declared dead, except for one, who was missing. And she called bullshit constantly, but that obviously doesn't bring them back to life. Basically, life for the past week or so had been downright bloody terrible. The whole dead friends thing just added to the fact that her dad had been recently diagnosed with cancer. And her brother committed suicide earlier that year. Oh, and don't forget! She grew up without a mother. Go figure.

She was roused from her thoughts by her feet mechanically hitting the stairs out of habit of the front porch of her house. Giving another aggravated sigh, she fumbled around with her backpack before pulling out her key ring and inserting it into the door- only to find it already unlocked. That's strange, she noted, continuing on her way inside. She tossed her backpack onto the kitchen table (which they didn't actually use for eating, if you were wondering) and took a seat on the couch in their living room. Grabbing the remote from the corner table, she flipped on the TV and turned it on the BBC. Doctor Who was on- some episode from the third season. She'd never been a big fan of Martha anyway. She turned the TV off, preparing to go upstairs and get on the computer, when she realized how eerily quiet the house was. Normally there was at least the sound of her dog running around, or her cat meowing aggressively from her bedroom to come give it some attention- but neither of those sounds were present. Nor the sound of her father shuffling around upstairs. Oh right, he was at chemo.

The unfamiliar feeling of being watched suddenly hit her like a brick, as if there were someone right behind her. She turned around uncertainly, only to be met with the barrel of a gun right between her eyes.

Stormheart's head shot up as she watched from next to the den, shock covering her tabby face. Reed-...Reedstar?! Her mind screamed silently into her thoughts, a jumble of confusion, surprise, relief, and suspicion spinning all at once. He was alive! But...What was going on? She flinched slightly as she watched them scream at each other and fight, feeling the urge to do something, but her paws wouldn't move. What was this feeling of doubt? As if she really shouldn't do something? Perhaps this was...Maybe Mapleclaw was lying this whole time. She listened closely to Mapleclaw's mad words, and realized right then it must be true: Mapleclaw was a traitor. The silver she-cat growled, lowering her tail and ears. Mapleclaw apparently killed Reedstar, based on what they said. She had done it out of greed! She was a traitor! Who let her in here? >:U

Hailwhisper sat quietly in the den, eyes wide and body shivering from fear. She could hear it all going down from in here, but was too scared to go see exactly what was happening. Reedstar...He was alive?! But that meant all that...Mapleclaw, she had betrayed them...The white she-cat didn't know how to react to all of this. But right now she was terrified, petrified, wanting things to go back to the peace Riverclan once had, before the flood, before the deaths, before the traitors, before everything...Things like this seemed to have become normal now, hadn't it?

A lump of snow shifted next to the apprentice's den, shivering and shaking. After a moment, a small, dense patch of snow with soot-like flecks rose up. Two shutters opened and a pair of bright, sad green eyes flashed. A monster seemed to grow out of the snow.. but it was just a grumpy, cold Ashpaw waking up. He had fallen asleep outside the den, and it had just happened to snow on him. 'Ugh.. I have to work on that. I nearly gave myself whitecough!', He would have said this out loud, but he wasn't about to complain about something as silly as the cold. Brushing off the dusty white powder, he let his gaze wander. Other cats were beginning to wake as well, and not a word was spoken.
Tilting his head on curiosity at Minnowpaw, he began to make something out of the snow as well. Lumping lots of snow together until it was the size of a half-grown kit, he took two leaves and placed them on top, three pebbles to put on like an upside-down equilateral triangle near the center, and many tiny sticks stuck outside of the bottom stone. Stepping back to take a look at his handiwork, he gave a little smile, the first since kithood. His little crude snow creation looked like a small kit sitting just outside the apprentice's den. It was cute too; if a blob of frozen water with debris sticking out could be considered cute. Heck, it was a blob mostly, but Ashpaw was proud of it, and it had made him smile too.

Beewhisker flicked his ears as water droplets rained down.  "You'll never catch a fish like that,"  he mewed,  stepping closer to the apprentice.  Heronpaw seemed to shrink at his mentor's words, feeling he wouldn't ever get it right.  "You've got to watch for the exact time, then slide into the water,"  Beewhisker continued, watching the river until a dark shape was in range.  Within a few heartbeats, the warrior had pulled it from the water and taken its life without so much as a splash.  Heronpaw's ears flicked up, amazed at Beewhisker's skill.  "Let me try again!" he mewed, and after his mentor gave a nod, he positioned himself for another go.  A few light splashes later, the apprentice had a drenched mentor and a single tiny fish for his effort.  "Well, it's a start,"  Beewhisker mewed, twitching his whiskers to shake away the droplets, "Let's take this back to camp.  We'll work on it more tomorrow."  But as they collected their prey, all Beewhisker could think was He's hopeless.

It was at this same time that, across the gorge, a small RiverClan apprentice was adventuring. Bubblepaw had ventured out of RiverClan alone, nobody wanted to come with her. After seeing where she was, she decided to go back. As she turned, the ground beneath her feet gave way and she slipped, plummeting down towards the water. She managed to grab a root on her way down, stopping her fall. She had around a 6-7 tail-lengths from the edge where she fell off and a StarClan-knows-how-far plummet to the raging river below. "I don't want to go!" she shouted.