Chapter Text
March 15th, 2016, 6:10am
Molewhisker trudged through the last expanse of ThunderClan territory leading to the border gate. The sky was barely beginning to lighten, the accompanying pink and orange having yet to stretch over the treetops, and a light mist floated delicately around the camp, kissing the hairs on Molewhisker’s arms and neck with cool lips. The warrior sipped on a now lukewarm cup of coffee, swallowing the bitter liquid with a frown—he wasn’t all too pleased to be attending guard duty this morning; usually he didn’t mind it, even sometimes enjoying it, but it wasn’t even supposed to be his shift this time, as he had been asked last minute to cover for Snowbush, who had called in sick with whitecough.
Tch. He still could’ve done it. Whitecough’s not even that bad. Just pop some Tylenol and bring a blanket or whatever… Not like anything ever happens on duty, anyway…
But who was he to turn down the offer when it had come straight from the mouth of Bramblestar? Sure he liked to rib the old man every now and then, but he still respected the hell out of him, kinda seeing him as a grandfather of sorts, and he couldn’t deny the sense of pride he’d felt when being asked to take over, proud that his leader had wanted him out of everyone to be on post, because he knew he could trust him, so Molewhisker would do what was asked of him.
Besides, it wasn’t like it was hard work, either. Guard duty was always easy.
Molewhisker finally approached the tall, black gate that barred entrance to the Clan from the outside world. He dug in his pocket and pulled out his set of keys, finding the correct one and sticking it into the padded lock with a twist. The lock clicked open, and Molewhisker pushed the gate aside, stepping through and shutting it again with a hefty shove, locking it back up. Then he turned his feet towards the little guard station building, sitting idly in the twilight in wait for its favorite host.
Molewhisker sighed, and started walking over to it.
He went to the back of the building where the door was located, and pulled out his keys again. Then he entered, going to the desk at the front. He set down his mug, and quickly dropped into the chair, leaning into the cushioning with another resigned sigh.
His eyes halfway open, he lazily stared out the observatory glass, perusing the area without much thought. The sun was starting to make its presence a bit more noticeable now, the sky slowly bleeding from a midnight blue into rosy orange, and it caused the mist to sparkle in the growing light.
It was actually a rather beautiful sight. Relaxing, even.
Molewhisker let out a long yawn, stretching the cold and stiffness out of his limbs. As he did so, he saw something peculiar in the corner of his eye on the floor, and drawing his full attention he recognized the object as a screw—it must have come lose from the desk. He picked it up and bent to below the small table, scanning under for an exposed hole in the wood.
He didn’t find anything, so he gave up and retracted his head, straightening back into the chair and placing the screw on the desk.
But when his eyes returned to the glass, it wasn’t just the mist that greeted him there.
“AHHH!” Molewhisker flung himself backwards in a hard startle, the chair almost tipping over with the force.
At the window, there stood a person (or at least, he thought it was supposed to be a person), but there was obviously something wrong with them: their skin was sickly green and decaying at some parts, exposing bloody tissue and bone, their eyes were milky and their mouth hung wide open, showing off rotted teeth, and their hair was gone aside from a few single strands that blew brittlely in the breeze.
Molewhisker was still in a state of shock, clinging to the chair as he caught his breath. What in the Dark Forest was wrong with this guy? Looked liked he had some sort of nasty disease.
He almost looks like a… No way.
That’s when it clicked. The tension in Molewhisker’s body began to unwound, and he straightened in the chair with a relieved (yet slightly nervous) chuckle.
“Alright, Cherry. You got me.” He looked back at the “zombie”—his sister, Cherryfall. “That was actually pretty convincing. Where’d you get that costume? Make it yourself?”
But Cherryfall didn’t answer him with words: just a groan.
Molewhisker furrowed his brows. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Give it up already, would ya? I know that’s you, sis.”
But again, there were no words—she just stared at him.
And then she slapped a hand on the glass.
A hand covered in blood.
Really lifelike blood.
Molewhisker would never have admitted it to her out loud, but she was actually really freaking him out.
“Haha. Very funny.” He tried to deflect the fear twisting his stomach, but he couldn’t hide the tremble in his voice. “Nice fake blood. What is it—strawberry jam?”
Then suddenly there was a bang to his left. Molewhisker let out another scream, whipping his head to the side. There was another zombie-like person now, and they had hit the glass with their own crimson hand.
Molewhisker’s heart was pounding, and he was trying to keep himself from hyperventilating. He looked back at his sister (though he wasn’t very sure about that anymore) with eyes blown wide. “Who- Who is that now? Dad?” Cherryfall didn’t answer him of course, and he returned his eyes to who he was choosing to believe was his father, Berrynose.
Berrynose slid his hand down the glass with an ear-bleeding squeal as he stared through the window blankly, leaving a thick smear of blood to stain the crystal.
Molewhisker took a gulp, feeling his hairs stand on end. “Okay, this isn’t funny anymore.” He said frantically to his unresponsive family, who just continued to groan and stare. “Seriously, I’m at work. This is, like, the worst time to be bothering me. Couldn’t this have waited till later?” He jumped at another bang on the window, and his heart almost stopped when he saw that a third zombie had now arrived, but he didn’t have time to dwell on that development.
Another bang. A fourth zombie.
Another. Five.
Bang. Six.
Nine.
Twelve.
Twenty.
He watched them almost magically appear from the mist one by one.
Molewhisker was shaking, his heart thundering against his rib cage so hard he legit thought it was going to explode out of him. There were so many. How were there so many?
“Wha-What, you got the whole Clan involved, too?” He managed to ask through his uncontrollable shivering. This wasn’t real. It was just a joke. It was just the Clan messing with him—that’s why there’s so many. They weren’t real zombies.
But they looked so real. Sounded so real: the way they groaned and stumbled and their moldy skin peeled away in real time to squishy, fleshy bits that oozed out fresh blood—a costume couldn’t do all that.
Besides, if this really were the Clan, they would’ve stopped by now. They could see how scared he was (he wasn’t trying to hide it anymore). They never would’ve continued to prank him if they knew how actually terrified he was, and he was making that emotion very obvious right now.
But instead, these zombies did continue to approach; hit the glass over, and over, and over until the sound had officially driven him mad.
“STOP IT! PLEASE STOP!” Molewhisker screamed, putting his hands over his ears and curling himself in the chair, tears he rarely ever shed pouring down his face like a waterfall. “IT’S NOT FUNNY ANYMORE!” A louder bang made him pause, and the tears came out faster and thicker. “WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME?! LEAVE ME ALONE!”
Another bang… and then a crack. Molewhisker’s whole body froze, and he slowly glanced to the left, his heart leaping into his throat when he saw the thin cracks spiderwebbing across the glass.
He sucked a shallow gasp, but his attention was rocketed forward as he heard another bang-crack. And another. And another. Two sides of the window were starting to splinter apart, and in a mere few minutes they would shatter completely…
And they would get him.
Molewhisker shot his gaze around the room in an overwhelming panic, desperately searching for a means of escape; he could hear the zombies at the door, hitting and rattling the knob, and his breathing hitched spastically at the thought that he might be trapped in here, but then his eyes landed on the side of the glass facing the gate—the zombies couldn’t get to it, so that way was all clear.
Molewhisker slammed his fists into the window, cracking it immediately, but as he pummeled it he realized it wasn’t breaking fast enough, the zombies now having fully penetrated the glass he knew as he could hear its complete shattering, and he whipped around to witness the horrific sight of zombified arms stretching through the jagged holes in the window, reaching towards him.
Molewhisker pressed his back against the window, trying to stay as far from the zombies as possible, gagging on their rotten stench. His eyes did another frantic sweep of the room, and they came to the chair, then up to the ceiling.
Now feeling a rush of determination, he ran for the chair, climbing onto it and standing up, careful not to fall. When he was steady enough, he looked at the ceiling, put his hands on the drywall, and started punching.
It wasn’t long before he had smashed through the plaster, but he drew a hand back down when he hit the much stronger roof. He heard a zombie below that sounded too close for comfort, and he began feeling around for a weak spot in the vault. He found one that echoed more hollow than the rest, and mustering all his strength, greatly encouraged by the zombies’ approach, he punched madly at his barrier between life and death.
Possessed with adrenaline, Molewhisker burst through the roof, scrambling to free himself of the fractured tiles to stand atop it.
He dared pause to catch his breath, but the howls of the undead reignited his drive. He looked to the steel fence looming above him—it was a halfway climb to the top, and then he would be undoubtedly safe, protected by the gate those freaks would be unable to get past.
His teeth grit in perseverance, Molewhisker grabbed the bars, and began to scale the fence. Within minutes he had reached the top, and he tossed his legs over the final bar, throwing himself over it and dropping to the ground, striking it with a roll.
He remained on the ground for a brief moment, collecting himself, the arm he had used to brace his impact throbbing like hell, but it didn’t feel broken, thankfully.
The reality of what he had just done finally caught up to him, and ignoring the pain, he scurried to his feet, leaping in overwhelming victory.
“Haha! I made it!!! Eat shit, you-!” As he celebrated, he turned back to the gate with the intention to rub in his successful escape to the zombies’ faces, but when he did his heart plummeted into his stomach: the massive horde was at the gate, forced against it with their arms sticking out through the bars, fingers bending in desperate attempt to grab and horrible groans echoing around the perimeter.
But that’s not the thing that made him go pale—he watched as the zombies, rabid in their mindlessness, just kept pushing and pushing against one another, fighting for a place at the front, and because there were so many of them…
They began to climb.
The zombies further back that were trying to force themselves through the crowd moved the ones ahead on top of the ones ahead of them, and so on until there was an amassed heap of the undead mashed together at the foot of the gate, and this allowed the other zombies to start climbing, crawling up over their fallen, growing the pile as more and more befell the same fate, and starting the cycle back up again, leading to a sight somehow even more terrifying than what Molewhisker had just escaped from:
They rained into the Clan.
First there was one, then two, then suddenly they were pouring in the twenties, overflowing the base of the gate and scrambling to their feet, walking towards him. Towards everyone.
Molewhisker unleashed a horrified scream, then bolted down the outskirts of the territory leading back to the camp. He dared a glance over his shoulder, and regretted it immediately: they were chasing.
He ran faster.
Finally, after a ten minute run, heaving and wheezing for air, Molewhisker began to see the first house rising into view, the rays of the climbing sun glinting off the rooftop to glow like a beacon from StarClan.
Molewhisker hurried to the house, hearing the groans and pounding of feet behind him, swatting through branches as he erupted out of the forest, and rushed to the door.
He slammed into it, instantly launching hysterical raps to the wood, crying out for help.
“HELP! HELP ME! HURRY!” But no one came to the door.
Panic flooded through Molewhisker’s body, filling every vein and organ with raging fires of alarm. He pounded the door again, beating in his fists until they bled, but still there was no answer.
He tried directly punching the door, but subconsciously knew that wasn’t going to work out like it had the roof—ThunderClan houses were made from the timber of oak trees; much stronger than the thin shingles overlaying the guard station.
In a desperate last effort, he threw his hands on the door with a deep thud. “Please, let me in!” He thunked his forehead against the hatch, but then he caught sight of the window. He jumped over and punched at the glass, and this time he was successful at breaking through, his fist slicing to the other side as fragments flayed his skin, but Molewhisker couldn’t be bothered to feel pain in that moment: he was almost there.
Taking the glass with both hands, he started pulling it apart, shards flying and blood spurting everywhere, but he was now able to put his head through the hole, and he began maneuvering into the house—his safe haven. He was going to make it. Just a little farther.
Almost there.
And then he felt it—the clamp of jaws; the piercing of teeth digging into his leg. Molewhisker turned his head back, and his body went cold as he saw the zombie attached to his ankle, gnawing on his flesh.
Paralyzed in realization, his eyes slowly shifted upward to be confronted with the horde surrounding him, and inching closer. His chest seized in a gasp of horror, and he reached back into the house, trying to pull his way inside again, but he was stopped as decaying hands grabbed his shoulders and torso, and he was hauled backwards with a scream.
Molewhisker fought and struggled against the creatures, managing to break free of their hold.
He hit the porch floor hard, then scrambled to sit upright, pushing until his back was slumped to the door, and stared up at the zombies looming over on all sides.
He was cornered—trapped. There was nowhere he could go now, and as the walking, rotting corpses lumbered towards him, their unhinged jaws dripping with drool and sunken eyes dark with hunger, he let out one final, terrified shriek as they lunged.
STATS
Molewhisker: Unknown