Sad Hopepaw. Art by me.

This chapter contains dark themes such as death, injury, and hysteria. Reader discretion is advised. 

The air was thick with dust and snow as Hopepaw regained consciousness. It was dim, although not completely pitch-black as she blinked, coughing violently. Her head spun and her eyes as she attempted to asses her injuries and situation. Immediately, it was clear that there was a huge problem. Two, big ones actually. The very rock that had saved her from being completely crushed or suffocated by the wave of snow had shifted, trapping her bushy tail under its massive weight. That same rock had created an air pocket that cradled Hopepaw, keeping her safe, but also imprisoning her.

How long was I out...? Oh stars, Screechpaw! I have to find him. What if he didn't make it to safety? He'll be suffocating! Panic nearly choked her as she strained against the rock that pinned her to the ground. I have to get to him! Her mind screamed, but the pain screamed louder. The bones in her tail felt like they'd been turned to powder, and the pure agony made her vision swim and go black around the edges. Tears leaked down her face, making tracks in her muddied fur. 

She twisted violently, using her paws to push the massive stone up from her pulverized limb. And just barely, she felt it shift. "Yes..." Hopepaw muttered through gritted teeth, giving one hard yank on her tail. She felt the pressure release, and she was free. 

She let a whimper escape her, as she laid eyes on her tail. It was absolutely ruined, flattened and practically reverberating in pain. Despite the utter hellfire raging in her appendage, she began to dig out of her frosty prison. A prison that could have easily become her tomb. 

Her claws struck out at the stone and snow trapping her, and her paw pads stung from repeatedly being scraped. Light filtered palely through the last layer of snow, and she dug more furiously until her face was bathed in golden rays. Gasping hungrily at the fresh air, she looked around in horror at the destruction the avalanche had wrought. The sweet pines were gone, and the mountain seemed to have been torn apart. But she didn't stare at it too long. All that mattered was finding Screechpaw.

"Screechpaw!" She called, hoping he may have dug himself out. "Screechpaw, are you there?" Where do I even start? Glancing around wildly, her eyes darted from rock to rock, snowbank to snowbank, hoping to see him standing to the side with relief in his golden eyes. 

Then, her eyes caught a black-and-white form, higher on the mountain, near where the avalanche had started. She could make out green eyes, and an unusual pattern on the cat's fur... Is that Emeraldpaw? "Help! Emeraldpaw, get a patrol! Please, hurry. It's Screechpaw, he's..." She trailed off. "He- We need help!" She saw Emeraldpaw give a slight nod, and disappear from view, When she looked around again, she found what she'd been hoping for, and yet, at the same time, dreading.

A paw sticking out of the snow. 

It was just three toes, but they were his, alright. She raced over, prayers to all that was holy echoing around her head. Please be okay. Please be in an air pocket. Please don't be gone. Please, please, don't let me be too late. She dug frantically, snow spraying into the air behind her. She felt two claws snap in rapid succession, and her lungs ached from the dust, the snow, and the movement. 

Hope was the only thing keeping her from totally breaking down and giving up. Hope that somehow, her beloved brother was alive in some incredible twist of fate, But the hope she'd been clinging to like a mother to their only kit, sheltering her from reality, came crashing down as her paw touched a cold, leaden shoulder. There was no airspace around it, and she knew that no cat could breathe through solid, hard-packed snow.

She tentatively dug around it, coming to a shoulder, a neck, a head. All covered in cream tabby fur, matted with snow.  

His eyes were closed.

His neck, slender as a baby bird's, was bent at an angle that she knew to be utterly, heart-wrenchingly impossible.

He wasn't breathing.

She stared at the body that had once belonged to Screechpaw. She couldn't believe, couldn't comprehend, didn't want to understand that he was gone. Hopepaw, with tears spilling down her face like a waterfall, lifted him from the crushing coffin of snow and laid him before her paws. She didn't want to make the final call on whether he was gone or not. She placed a shaking forepaw against his chest and felt no familiar heartbeat. The gentle thudding she'd heard for the first six moons of her life sleeping beside him, since the moment she'd opened her eyes for the first time, was silent. 

"Screechpaw?" She whispered, voice breaking as she spoke. "You're safe now. Y-you're free. Wake up, please..." But she knew he wasn't going to wake up. His limbs were splayed, his neck twisted, and his tiny body was covered in snow. 

Her brother, her friend, and the cat she promised to keep safe forever were dead.

Hopepaw couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Blood roared in her ears, and the world spun, colours and shapes blurring into a sickening swirl of movement. She collapsed to the ground, head rested on his lifeless flank. She could hear a wail, and vaguely realized it was her jaws spilling the sound. "No, no, no, no, no!" She rasped, voice rising in hysteria. I promised I'd protect him. I promised he'd be safe with me forever. I promised... I- I failed. Broken sobs echoed over the avalanche site like the call of a morning dove. 

"Why?! Why did you take him?!" She screamed at the cloudless sky. "He didn't deserve this! He was innocent, he was pure... IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME-" Hopepaw's voice was raw, and she was forced to stop screaming. The throbbing agony in her tail was nothing compared to the pain in her heart, and she felt as if her world, her life, had ended. I didn't even get to say goodbye...

The shock and pain and emotions were all too much. She could feel the world spinning around her. Nothing made sense, and when she commanded her limbs to move, they didn't. Hopepaw, with difficulty, wrapped her forepaws around his body, tears pooling in his downy fur. She felt his fur cooling, his muscles growing stiff. With one final gasping sob, she let the soft, comforting darkness whisk her away. 

                                                                             ~❆~

"Are they both dead?"

"Look! Hopepaw's breathing!"

"But Screechpaw's not...."

Voices floated through the air around Hopepaw, as she hazily began to wake up. For a moment, she didn't realize where she was. Why her tail hurt so badly. Why every muscle ached, why it was so cold, and why the scent of death hung in the air. But then, reality struck her like a peregrine falcon striking a gopher. Screechpaw's dead. My tail's shattered. The avalanche ruined everything. 

She opened one bloodshot, blurry eye to see Gentlebreeze staring down at her. Pure devastation filled her gaze, and tears shone in her honey-golden eyes. "Hopepaw... Oh stars, what happened?" Her voice crackled and Hopepaw looked away from her, and down at Screechpaw. He was curled stiffly on the ground, and the light of a pink sunset made his fur glow with a rose-coloured aura. "An avalanche," She croaked. "Screechpaw... He-he's dead." 

She buried her muzzle in Gentlebreeze's long, fluffy fur, dry sobs wracking her body. Although she certainly wanted to cry, wanted nothing more than to cry, she had no tears left in her body. Cats milled around them in panic, Frostedmoss, Bluepaw, Tumblesoar and Adderstar among them. Frostedmoss crouched over his apprentice's body, quaking with grief. "Screechpaw, you can't be gone. You were so close to your name. You were so close..." 

She numbly felt cats supporting her as they started to walk. All she felt was a bleak emptiness, and as soon as she was brought to a nest in the Medicine den, she curled into it and didn't stir. I'll never move again. It isn't worth it. Not without him. Not alone. Not when I was the one who insisted we go out to pick herbs and put him in harm's way. It's my fault he's dead.

 Every time she closed her eyes, she saw his face, his body, the look in his eyes just before the avalanche struck. She couldn't believe he was gone. With cats murmuring all around her, and Frostedmoss gently splinting her tail, she slipped into a nightmare-filled, troubled sleep. 

Fun Fact: The avalanche was caused by warm weather that melted the snow higher on the mountains.

Bonus Fact, to ease everybody's minds: Screechpaw died quickly and with little pain, and now lives happily in The Land of Shining Stars.