The River is dead [RC Flood Topic]

The member 'Dakota' has done the following action : Dices roll

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#1 'Hunting Dice' : 10

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#2 'Hunting Dice' : 10

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#3 'Hunting Dice' : 8

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#4 'Hunting Dice' : 5

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#5 'Hunting Dice' : 1

Ravenflight panicked. What could she do? The water was rising rapidly, and while she knew how to swim, she didn't know what she could do to help the camp. Suddenly, a noise that sounded like a thousand acorn shells breaking simultaneously. The water rushed in suddenly, with no warning. Before she could move a claw, she was enveloped in a great, dark wall of water. She struggled to the surface, kicking hard with her powerful legs, and snagged her claws on a thick branch. Good, she thought, pulling herself onto it an flattening her body so she could grip the slippery bark as best she could.

Le membre 'Ruskavelle' a effectué l'action suivante : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 2

Hawkpaw watched as many other cats waded through the water, then jumped aboard floating logs or branches. Following their lead, the muddy apprentice boldly jumped into the water and paddled the best he could, even though it didn't quite turn out the way he expected. He yowled as he was tossed about the floodwaters, spitting out dirty brown water. Eventually he grasped onto a tree branch, hauling his water-logged body onto it. He saw that luckily he was flowing the same direction as his clanmates.

The member 'RamenDoodle' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 5

Minkpaw ran after his mother, helping her to bring the kits out of the nursery, warily keeping an eye on the ever-rising river. Through it all, a niggling itch that he and the others had somehow forgotten something crawled up his spine. Is there a cat we forgot...? In the midst of his thoughts, he barely realized he'd stopped moving, the kit in his jaws wriggling uncomfortably with pathetic mewls. He frowned, narrowing his eyes to slits as he stared intensely at the water swirling around his paws. A cat.... There was someone in the medicine cat den. The sudden realisation broke through his mind like a wave, and he whirled towards the den, which was fairly drowning in creeping water. Panic rising, he glanced around for a moment before quickly leaping up a tree and plonking the kit there, hoping it would be able to stay on long enough for someone else to grab it. Then he gave it no more thought as he dived into the medicine cat den.

The water there rose up to his belly, waves from his passage sloshing against the dimly lit walls as he moved deeper in. At the back, where the worst hurt patients had been kept, there was barely any light, and the water rose almost to his back. Desperately, knowing that there was no way anyone could have survived this, he dragged his paws through the water, hoping to connect with a pelt. It wasn't his paws that connected with anything, however, but his nose as he thrust it forwards. Sodden fur met his muzzle and he snatched at it, trying to drag it up out of the water while he moved backwards. He could barely smell anything through the smell of the river and wet fur in his nostrils, but there was something underlying it, something that he ignored desperately for now. It seemed to take far too long for the dimness around them to break into the cold light of the outside, and when he did he hauled the sodden lump of limp fur onto the relatively dry roots of the willow tree. Even as he prodded at it, trying to find some semblance of life, a breath, anything, he knew what he would find.

The eyes of the cat were closed beneath the spiderwebs covering its face, an almost peaceful expression on his face. Minkpaw stared for a moment, an odd tired numbness seeping through his limbs. You were dragging a corpse this whole time, fish-brain. After a moment, he shook himself, preparing to move back and help his mother with the other kits that were undoubtedly left. Where in StarClan did Mottledspark go? Maybe he'll turn up after he sees the river's flooded. He took a step-

Then froze as a horrible sound cracked the air. Turning, his ears flattening against the sudden fear prickling his pelt, he saw a massive wall of dirty water rushing down the river.

He barely had a chance to react as it raced towards him, only just enough time to brace himself. Then he was swept off his paws, tumbling head over tail in the wave as debris was flung past his head. I can barely get to the surface! How am I supposed to swim through this?! Desperately, he remembered everything Mottledspark and his mother had taught him. His mother-! Where is she?! Are they okay? His thoughts felt as chaotic as the raging waters, and he clenched his eyes closed, not that he was able to see, anyway.

Air was running out, he couldn't breath. Tumbling, washed before a raging parent that had abandoned them, he thought he saw Lionpaw for a moment as he snatched a quick breath of air before sinking under again. Memories tossed through his head.

Named you Strom, for the-

SHUT UP! Something snapped in him as the memory of that cold day surfaced, and in a burst of energy he clawed his way to the surface, lips peeling back from his teeth as he snarled at the current carrying him. I don't care what he named me, I don't care whether he was the one who made all this rot-brained flooding happen! He can go die in the flood like the rest of them! He was never there for the rest of us was he?!

Though he was no longer at the head of the wave, the surging current carried him along, sticks passing him by, some of them stabbing into his pelt and leaving scratches that only fueled the odd burning rage inside him. He barely felt his limbs tiring as he struggled against the current trying to suck him back under. Until something smashed into him, his cry choked off as the thing went above him. His flailing claws caught something, and he pulled himself onto it with a burst of desperate energy, collapsing as darkness flickered at the edges of his vision. A numb feeling spread through his pelt as his cheek rested against the strange material, and he closed his eyes as guilt rushed through him a wave similar to the one that had just destroyed his life. I'm sorry.... Thoughts fled, and he barely noticed the rain spattering his pelt as he fell unconscious.

The member 'Chickenwing' has done the following action : Dices roll

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'Hunting Dice' : 8

Wide eyes focused on Finchstream's face, vision blurred by the raindrops still falling steadily on them. Egretpaw made a move to pull her mother back towards them, but felt water rush towards her paws at the shifting of weight. She retracted, watching helplessly as her mother took one last dive, her silver coat quickly disappearing from sight. "Mom!" She let out a cry and huddled closer to her brothers, trembling like a leaf. 'Wake up! Wake up! This can't be real!' The tabby shook her head, though for a moment she felt a soft pressure. She looked up to the elder, Finchstream's friend, confused by what he was doing. Then, he left them too. She briefly buried her face in Magpiepaw's pelt before realizing that the mat was coming apart beneath their very paws. "Magpiepaw! Ospreykit!" Her back paws slipped out from under her and she gripped with over-extended claws at whatever was within reach. Her efforts, however, tore away a piece of their raft and she was set adrift. To float alone, without anyone else beside her for perhaps the first time in her life.

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His face and chest soaked with grimy, silt-filled water, Cloudstone found a bit of solace in the small she-cat’s side, dark eyes half closed as his brow creased. The last time… the last time there’d been a flood, he’d had no such comfort. His dripping wet tail twitched to wrap around her, but he resisted it with great effort. ‘Knowing you now makes me realize how much of the world I’d missed before.’ Black ears pinned back to block out the yowls of their Clanmates as they got caught in the current, being swept away to StarClan knew where. Or, perhaps, they were with their ancestors already. His heart clenched at the thought. Where were they tonight? Had the stars finally decided to abandon them after all these trials? That was what a younger him would think, but time had taught him well. StarClan were only dead cats, fallible, though their overarching sight was something no living cat could dream of. ‘Except… for him.’ Not even in his mind did he need to say the tom’s name. For a moment he prayed that what happened early Leaffall would never happen again in his children’s lives. That was wishful thinking, wasn’t it?

Their little moment of reprieve from reality broke just as their mat of reeds did the same, and a rock sank into the old tom’s stomach. His eyes met those of his beloved, studying her as she did him. There were a thousand things he wanted to say, things he’d thought about in those moons of solitude in the elder’s den, when even as he was freed from his duties, he felt choked by their restrictions all the same. He listened with great attention as she spoke to three of their children upon the ruined shelter. The emotion began to hit him, and he had to look away as his throat closed. Was this it? Was she thinking what he thought she was? He gazed at her with mournful eyes, but then, far too quickly, she was gone, leaving him with those painful last words. Finding himself unable to respond even internally, he moved before the three young cats, his heart breaking the slightest bit more that he could not give them the goodbye befitting of a father. He let out a shaky sigh.

With poise better fit for a ceremony rather than a final farewell, he set his chin on the heads of Magpiepaw, Egretpaw, and Ospreykit in turn, though all he wanted was to be able to curl himself around his terrified children. To give them a brief second of comfort. “You three,” he fixed them with a stare, but hidden inside those dark depths lay only warmth. And agony. ‘Promise me that when sunset comes on this day, you’ll find Cranepaw and Raggedpaw in all of this. That you’ll keep together and be safe, and protect each other as best you can. For your mother.” ‘And for me.’ With that, he gently slipped off, watching the shrinking raft be carried away by the tumultuous waters.

‘You’ve spoiled me, Finchstream.’ Inactivity had turned his muscles weak, and they hadn’t been strong to begin with. For a minute he floated along, trying to keep his head afloat, looking for some sort of debris to hold on to.’For seasons I never knew what I was missing, never tempted to break our code. I followed the rules and did what was expected of me.’ A roll in the current pulled him under and he drifted nigh-invisible beneath the surface, his tail could’ve been mistaken for a long-lived chunk of ice, with the rest of him blending into the dark waters. ‘I don’t know what happened. Maybe… maybe, perhaps. Perhaps because you didn’t see me how I saw myself. As a servant of RiverClan and that alone. You treated me as a Clanmate. Like a peer. Only then could I see that I'd had the heart of a minnow. With you, I had that of a lion. I didn’t have to hide behind a veil of professionalism. You ripped away who I thought I was in the gentlest way possible.’ Time moved slowly as he flipped and turned, forgetting which way was up as he sank. He was so tired. The last stimulus he could find before everything went dark was the increasing pressure of the water on his head. ‘I hope… I hope I made you happy in this brief time we had. Even if I put you in great danger in the process. I hope everything was worth it in the end. All I ever wanted was to see your face light up one last time. I hope you can forgive me for all the trouble I’ve caused.’ Cloudstone, the tom shaped in abandonment and isolation, was alone again, drifting across the bed of the floodwaters. But in his fading mind he knew that soon, he’d never have to feel those things again.

‘I hope you know… that nothing in my life ever compared to you. I'll always love you.’

Magpiepaw let out a terrified cry as he felt ice-cold water start to drag at his white paws, backing up instinctively only to realize that his tail-tip was wet as well; water was flooding over their sanctuary from all sides, and despite the blood that ran in their veins, he knew that they were helpless to fight against this pushing and pulling water.  Especially me...Mama took us to the shallow pools when we were kits to teach us to swim, but I was never very good...  The tom's breath caught in his throat, all his shaking legs had the strength left to do was press closer to his brother and sister, pressing his small face into Egretpaw's soggy fur.  No...I don't want to die!  I don't want to die, I don't want to die...

Please, someone, help us!

"Everything will be fine my loves...you'll be fine."

Finchstream's calm voice stifled his sobs, and he peeked one golden eye upward to glance at his beloved mother.  Even in this moment of chaos and ruin, he could sense something was...off.  The way his mother spoke and moved, the way she looked at Cloudstone, the elder...the way her paws shook whether she knew so or not.  A butterfly of deep unease fluttered in the observant tom's stomach, and when his petite silver tabby mother shifted upon the raft to embrace them, Magpiepaw chocked out a fearful sob, pressing himself against her chest as her soft pink nose touched his forehead, so gentle and yet, intense.  Her words registered in his mind as a blur framed by confusion, each syllable blending together in a way he barely understood but was still legible and questionable.  W-why does she think we won't see her for a while...how can she expect the sun to come back after all this...why is she hiding something from us, from me?!  He gasped in gulps of freezing, rainy air when Finchstream pulled away from them, smiling.  How could she possibly smile at a time like this, when the world was crashing down?  She always smiled though...he could never recall a time in his memories when Finchstream hadn't been smiling.  Even if it had been fake, half-way or clouded by tears...it was always there.  A light amid a world that scared him, that he didn't understand...she was the one thing he knew was stable.  Safe.  Unyielding.

So why was she crouching at the edge of the raft?

"No...No, NO! MAMA!!"  His claws erupting from their sheaths, Magpiepaw scrambled towards Finchstream, but he was too late.  It only took a heartbeat, a single blink, and she was gone, stolen by the wave that had taken the rest of their clan...she had leaped. Why did she leave them, why?!  Latching onto the edge she had just left, the small bi-color tom strained his tear-filled eyes, trying to see across the expanse of water, knowing that her head would pop up soon, swimming towards them with a smile, that smile...

But she never did.

"MAMA PLEASE, C-OME BACK!  COME BACK!  DON'T LEAVE US!"  His tearing cries were in vain, and he broke down into a fit of coughing as a lap of water splashed his muzzle as if berating him for trying to take back what it had stolen.  Droplets covered his shivering pelt as the young apprentice backed away, golden eyes wider than they had ever been.  She's gone...no, this isn't real!  This has to be a dream, all of it!  I'm going to wake up tomorrow, safe in my nest, all this fading away...right?  Shrinking down beside his siblings, he barely noticed Cloudstone approach them until the old tom's muzzle came to rest upon his head, eliciting a startled flinch.  Quickly though, as he met the black-pelted tom's gaze, he realized that he was saying goodbye as well.  No...why you too?!  He didn't even know the tom, but Finchstream had seemed to trust him, so he had as well.  Tears dripping from his sundrop eyes, Magpiepaw nodded, though it was more a stiff jerk of his neck, the cold and agony taking over his body by the second.  Find them...for mama...and stay together?  I-I don't know if I can do that...  As soon as he eyes wavered away though, the elder slipped from their quickly breaking home, and he felt his heart sink ever farther into his stomach.  Why...are you making me say goodbye?

He, Egretpaw and Ospreykit were alone, floating amid a mess of dirty water and debris...but not for long.  As soon as he had turned to press his forehead against his sister's chest, her own face buried in his pelt, he felt liquid touch his belly and, with a gasp, he jumped up and away from the new break, golden eyes laying to rest upon his siblings just as he felt the ground beneath his paws vanish entirely, and his small body was consumed by the cold, swirling vortex that had taken his mother.  Yet, his claws managed to cling to a small clumping of reeds that broke off with him, and his head surfaced once again, coughing up water as he watched what remained of his family drift away out of sight, leaving him totally, completely...

Alone.