Dawn came like a creature ashamed. The sun crept up past the horizon and shone dull and red over the Village upon the Sea's grave.

Sandclaw had not moved and Nightlily would have thought him dead from the shock if he had not been wheezing for breath.

If she closed her eyes and blocked out the sound of Sandclaw's gasps, all Nightlily heard was the endless whistle of the wind and the ever sighing touch of the sea as it rolled up on the land. They were the same sounds she had heard her entire life but they sounded hollow, empty, lost without the accompaniment of voices and the other noises of life.

The crunch of sand crumbling beneath paws was loud enough to cause Nightlily to reopen her eyes. She looked up away from the devastation to the crest of the green hills, where the stranger stood.

She was not screaming or howling now, she moved heavily as opposed to the day before when she had seemed disentangled from the restraints of the ground despite the sand sucking at her ankles. Now she walked as if the weight of the island itself rested on her shoulders.

She came to a stop next to Nightlily and Sandclaw, but she did not turn her eyes towards them but only stared dully down the beach.

"I am sorry."
The stranger's voice was soft and raspy and careful as if speaking hurt her.

Nightlily shivered when she spoke "You tried to warn us."
"You did not listen," the strange barely spoke above a whisper, "No one ever listens though, if that's any comfort."
How was that supposed to be comforting? To know that many others had perished as well because they too had not heeded the stranger.

"How did you know?" Nightlily asked and the stranger turned to look at her and Nightlily caught her breath.

The stranger's eyes had been wild the day before when she had been trying to warn the village of its impending fate, but now, closer, they were terrifying. Blue and gold spinning endlessly beneath a glassy surface, around and around the dark hollow of the pupil.

"I do not know how I know. All I know is that it started after my own home suffered a similar fate."

Nightlily did not want to hear how the stranger too had lost her own home, not standing on the wasted edge of the Village upon the Sea.

"We should leave here," the stranger said, turning away "there isn't any thing left."

Nightlily glanced between her and Sandclaw.

"Can you wake him?"
Nightlil nudged his shoulder and his breath hitched and he coughed. Then slowly, painfully, as if he had aged a thousand years in the span of a few hours Sandclaw climbed to his paws.

He blinked the grit and grime away from his eyes and stared at the white stranger.

"What are you doing here?" he snarled and Nightlily flinched, surprised at the anger in his voice.

"You cannot stay here," the stranger said calmly.

"This is my home."

"Not any more."

"How dare you," Sandclaw spat out "This is your fault!"

"Sandclaw!" Nightlily called his name in admonishment but he ignored her as he advanced on the stranger.

"I tried to warn you."

"My family is dead and my home is gone because of you!" Sandclaw was mere inches away from her face now, hissing and spitting and the stranger did not flinch away or grow angry or fearful.

"Sandclaw it wasn't her!" Nightlily pushed herself between his bared teeth and the unconcerned stranger "Why would she try warn us if she wanted to destroy us?"

Sandclaw stepped back, not out of seeing reason for his face was still twisted into a scowl but so he could glare down at Nightlily easier.

"Why are you defending her?"

"Why are you shouting at her? they are all gone," Nightlily's gaze travelled past Sandclaw to the beach and tears began to gather in her eyes "She can't bring them back Sandclaw."

Sandclaw did not answer as he stood breathing hard looking both enraged and defeated.

"Leave us alone," he growled finally his eyes downcast.

"I need your help."

Nightlily blinked in surprise and Sandclaw let out a loud derisive laugh.

"You do not understand," the stranger pressed, a note of urgency creeping into her voice "Thus far you two are the only ones who have ever survived one of the events I have predicted. I will need your help."
"Help to do what?" Nightlily asked but Sandclaw brushed her aside.

"If we are supposed to be dead then, you do not need our help to go wandering hither and thither across the land to warn other cats and villages."

"I am not just doing that. The premonitions come on me without warning when I come upon a place that is about to suffer. I do not understand what is happening. There is an ancient sage who lives on the other side of the island and I hope to gain answers from him."
"Answers about what?"
"Everything. Why I can sense these terrible things, why they are happening at all, why no one ever believes me," she was shaking and Nightlily thought she would break into tears "Why the island is dying."
"Dying," Sandclaw repeated. He sounded like he didn't believe it, but at the same time the stranger had warned them once and he had not heeded it.

The stranger nodded.

"I have been alone since my own village was destroyed by a storm. Lightning struck each and every home leaving nothing but char and ever since every village I have passed through has been wiped out. Until you and her. There must be a reason."
Sandclaw was silent.

Nightlily looked to her home then to the stranger, all of it painted in red and gray and filled with the sad sea sounds.

"I will go with you," the young cat said, just loud enough to break through the somber silence and for a second she felt a spark of warmth in her chest. It faded away quickly but she did not forget it.

"Nightlily, no," Sandclaw protested.

"There's nothing left here," Nightlily said flatly, her spirit sinking at her own words "I want to know why. I want to what is going on Sandclaw. I will go with or without you."
She added the last part much more forcefully than she thought she would and startled herself. But as it sunk in, she did not retract the words or the tone. She was grown and she was all but alone now. Either she would make the choice or Sandclaw would chose for her and what other choices were there but to go or to stay and mourn a home that would not be brought back by salty tears.

Sandclaw seemed to be as surprised by her conviction as she was because he stared at her in surprise for a good few seconds.

"Fine," he said after his shock wore away "Then I'll come, if only to keep you out of trouble."
The stranger bowed her head and a thin smile touched her face "The sage lives on the west side of the island."
Then she began to walk, turning her back on the Village on the Sea and after a single look at her home, Nightlily began to follow the stranger.

"Wildeyes."
"What?" Nightlily asked at the statement.

"My name. So you do not have to keep calling me stranger."

"I didn't call you that," not out loud, but Nightlily had thought of the white cat as just that.

Wildeyes just kept walking.

----

One step after another after another until the sound of her own paws in the grass began to grow loud and oppressive and Nightlily appreciated it for the sole reason that it was a distraction. It distracted from the smell of smoke that clung to her fur and the ringing in her ears.

The ache in her paws distracted her from the ache in her chest and the burning in her legs distracted her from the coldness inside.
The sound of her ragged breath distracted her from thinking about how she was travelling from one end of the island to the other, a distance she had never even considered before and it distracted her from thinking how even when they reached the sage there might not be an answer and how there was only the journey to the sage and no journey home.

"Wildeyes how long do you intend to travel?" Sandclaw broke their silence "We started at dawn and it's noon now and we haven't eaten, are you trying to walk us into the ground?"

Nightlily eyed Wildeyes gaunt frame, her fur was long and matted but her body thin, and Nightlily wondered if she even needed to eat.

"I intend to travel until we reach the sage," Wildeyes replied "But if you and Nightlily are hungry we can stop to hunt."

Nightlily recalled the stranger of the day before screaming and spitting and would have doubted that the quiet Wildeyes of the current day was even the same cat if it hadn't been for her eyes.

Wildeyes sat down and gave Sandclaw an expectant look. He sighed.
"Stay here," he grumbled to Nightlily "I'll be back soon."

Nightlily would've protested and gone with him, if she hadn't felt so tired, so drained and if she hadn't already curled up on the grass next to Widleyes.
Sandclaw disappeared and Nightlily stared at the unfamiliar contours of the hills. They had left the beaches and sounds of the sea behind but had yet to come upon the forest. It was strange, not to be able to smell the salt and the grass was uncomfortable to lie on. Whichever way Nightlily twisted there the green blades where to poke and jab. Finally she gave up and just accepted that there was no escape and closed her eyes. If she concentrated on not thinking about any thing at all she could pretend the previous day did not exist, had not existed and would never exist. That day had never and would never happen.

It worked right until Wildeyes started to speak and her broken voice shattered Nightlily's focus.

"Sandclaw is going to die if he goes any further."
"What!?" Nightlily sat bolt upright, Wildeyes voice was flat as ice, not calm but cold and her spinning eyes where burning brightly but focused on nothing.
"He is going to die," Wildeyes repeated "he is gone into the forest."
"Why didn't you warn him!?" Nightlily demanded, feeling panic begin to tighten its coils around her neck.

"I did not know there was danger for him there until he entered."
Wildeyes sounded so cold, so emotionless.

"We have to stop him! We have to save him!"
Wildeyes turned to look at her and blinked once.

Nightlily took in a deep breath, "If I get him out of the forest will he live?"
"I do not know."
Then there was a chance. Nightlily did not wait to ask if Wildeyes would come, just gathered her legs beneath her and went springing in the direction Sandclaw had headed. Her legs protested, they had only rested for a little while after walking for so long that day, but she ignored how much it hurt, she ignored how her heart beat so hard.

She ignored the thoughts that whispered if she lost Sandclaw then she would be alone, the last fragment of the Village upon the Sea would be lost to her and she would have no one.

She came to the top of a rise and found herself faced with the forest. She hesitated only for a second, her body rebelling, but she forced herself onwards in a now stumbling run fueled by terror and nothing else. It began more of a painful rushed walk as the thickness of the forest blocked her from even trying to run. The light of the open world was gone in seconds and Nightlily was lost after just a moment. But she had Sandclaw's trail.

Pressing onwards became more and more difficult and finally she had to stop to gasp for breath.

"Sandclaw!" She shouted as soon as she could drawn in enough air, but the tangled thickets and grasping branches seemed to catch his name the moment it left her mouth and tore it to shreds before it could travel any distance.

"Sandclaw!" she screamed it this time but it only traveled a bit further.

Was he already gone? Wildeyes and her warning seemed far off now and Nightlily wondered if she had been too late before she had even decided to move.

"Sandclaw!" he could not be dead.
"Sandclaw!" he was smart and strong and a good fighter. He could not be dead.

"Sandclaw!" she was sobbing it now, over and over, but it was no use. The island had swallowed him up.

"Nightlily I thought I told you to wait with Wildeyes."
She whirled around and plowed headfirst into him "I thought you were dead!"
"I've been gone for ten minutes," he said, confused as he looked down at the hysterical young cat.

"No, no, you have to leave, we have to leave the forest," Nightlily tried to force the right words out but her voice was heavy and thick in her throat.

"I haven't caught any thing yet."
"No, Wildeyes... Wildeyes said you would die."
That pulled him up short "She said what?"
"She said you would die if you went any further."

Sandclaw shook his head "Ridiculous."
"You have to come back," without thinking Nightlily sank her claws into his leg, terrified that he would decide to disregard Wildeyes warning.
"I am, I am," he tried to shake her off "You're scratching me Nightlily."

"Sorry," she pulled her claws away, ashamed.

He mumbled something that sounded like forgiveness then looked around in alarm.
"You do know how to get out of here, do not you?"
The look he gave her was one of utter panic.

"It's that way."
They both jumped as Wildeyes stepped out of the shadows.
"What is going on?" Sandclaw asked, his tail curling over Nightlily as he stepped in front of her "Why am I dying and why are you sending Nightlily off alone to save me?"

"I do not know why," Wildeyes voice had changed from cold and empty back to that of a normal cat's "And I am right here aren't I? I was only a little behind Nightlily the whole time."

"So I can't hunt and we what, walk the entire rest of the way on empty stomachs?"

"Of course not," Wildeyes tilted her head like a curious sparrow "you just can't hunt here and now. You can't lead here."

"What are you talking about now?"

Wildeyes turned and walked in the opposite direction she had said the edge of the forest was in, melting into the tangled dark arms of the shadows.

"We're not going to follow her," Sandclaw said as Nightlily turned watery eyes on him.

"You were going to die."

"Yes and I'd rather like to avoid that."

"If it was dangerous for you then how can you can you just let her go alone?"

"She obviously has an advantage, considering she can literally see the future. I think if she needed us she would have said so."

"But she did say so," Nightlily argued "She said it early today!"

"She said she thought she might need help, not that she knew for certain."

"But she can literally see the future!"

Backed into a corner by his own logic, Sandclaw surrendered "Alright."