Short Stories; Derk

Nights End

"Things won't be the same anymore, perhaps getting killed by a family member wasn't the best way to leave behind the world. At least I didn't freeze, hehe. I got to feel pain one last time before dying."
- Night'oak
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Trigger Warnings
- Blood / Gore
- Death
-Fighting / Violence
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Characters
Night'oak - A very pale black tabby tom with orange stripes and spots that run along his spine and tail. His tail is a darker black than his primary fur is and it ends before starting again as gray until the end of his tail. His underbelly, chest, inner ears and legs are light gray. He has orange lines under and over his eyes that spread to his chin and his ears on either side, he has pale orange-gold eyes. His socks are the same color as his main fur color. He has one darker ear than his main fur. He has two large scars across his chest, one across his left eye and one of his front left leg. Has a nick in his right ear and a large bit of his left ear torn out.
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Ranger / Running'rose - A black tom with lighter spots / patches that range over his back and face. He has intimidating purple eyes that seem to always sparkle with rage. His fluffy fur is always sleek and his claws are curved strangely. He has purple inner ears and a dark gray nose.
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Night'oak pushed himself forward in the deep snow, paws repeatedly sinking into the freezing substance below him. He huffed and shook his head, the visibility out here was horrible, well there was a blizzard occurring at the moment, why would there be good visibility. He breathed deeply and pushed further along. He had no idea where he was anymore, he was surely going to end up freezing to death out here, body waiting to be found by a patrol. He sighed and shook his head free of all the bad thoughts, he wanted to get back, NEEDED to get back. He had to make everything up to his son, things wouldn't be the same but he needed to make them better. He had done many bad things, horrible things really.

A deep inhale and a sharp exhale as he took another step in the wind and falling snow, eyes stinging slightly. He pulled his tail up and took another step with a crunch against the snow below. He shook his head because he thought that he saw the silhouette of a cat, he thought that he must have started to become delusional or something. He blinked and the silhouette was gone, yeah, he must have been imagining it after all, but that didn't stop his fur from rising more in slight fear, eyes scanning around to look but he didn't see anything else so he continued on. He must be close to some kind of shelter, unfortunately he didn't really know the territory enough to remember it during a storm like this, it would probably last at least a day or two.

After a while of crunching through the snow and keeping his hand tilted a little to try and avoid some of the snow darting down and blowing into his hues, Night'oak thought he had heard the hissing or possibly the growling of another cat somewhere around him but he couldn't tell over the noise of the raging blizzard, he perked his ears and listened closer, fur still on end from earlier when he had seemingly seen another cat. He hesitantly took another step forward, looking around cautiously as he moved, he felt a little scared now. He shivered in cold and possibly some fear was mingled in there as well. Hopefully he was just being paranoid as usual, that's what he was commonly, paranoid. His tail flicked like a cold snake waiting to strike and latch onto a piece of prey or anything that dared to get close. He could stand here for a while, at least until he froze to death out here in the frigid temperatures and horrible wind.

He had nearly closed his hues and passed out but he thought he saw another silhouette of a cat, the same one as before he had realized quickly. His hues widened a lot, heart beat accelerating until it battered against his chest, he started moving again and ran as fast as he could manage in the deepening snow towards the cat silhouette that he had seen twice now during the time he was out here, he couldn't tell what time of the day it was anyways. He nearly tripped and got stuck in the snow but he rebalanced himself quickly and continued onward, he had to find out what was behind the silhouette, if it was an actual cat or just his imagination pulling tricks on him like it had done a few times during his life.

By the time that he had made it where the silhouette of the cat was, it had disappeared again. Night'oak growled in frustration, claws digging into the snow below his freezing paws, he shivered in cold again, this time it stayed and kept happening, despite his decently thick fur. He hissed to himself and turned around, he yelped in surprise when he was tackled and slammed painfully to the ground, his vision blurred for a moment. He shook his head and looked up, a black tom with pretty intimidating purple hues, he knew who this was, Ranger, his cousin "Ranger what are you doing?!" He yelled, hopefully loud enough to be heard over the howling wind of the brewing storm. He didn't understand why his own family member would attack him during this bad of a time, maybe it was part of a plan or something. He just knew that he wouldn't be on the ground for a good reason, of course.

Night'oak managed to get his hind paws under Ranger and shoved him backward, struggling back up a little and huffing tiredly. "You wanted me to waste my energy" he breathed out, ears flattened against his skull, fur up as much as it could go. Ranger had already stood back up by now and charged at Night'oak, the shorter male. He sidestepped and head butted his cousin in the side, toppling them over. Night'oak was winded but he wouldn't give up without a fight, so what if he died in the process. He didn't have much to lose at this point, he ha drained about everything in his life, mainly relationships. If Ranger's plan was to wipe his family out then Night'oak would try to end the threat, just for his only son. He growled in slight rage, he had just wanted to find shelter but clearly he wouldn't now.

Night'oak was breathing heavily, fog billowing around his mouth that was releasing warmth into the bitter cold in front of him. His vision blurred a little and he thought he had blacked out for a moment, but he had been slammed to the ground once again, bashing his head against the root of a tree, how had he gotten to trees? He remembered being on a flat area weirdly enough. He hissed in pain as his cousin wedged their claws into the old scar on his front left leg, they knew how to cause serious pain to someone else with ease. They wriggled their curved claws into a strange and painful position inside of his leg before tugging them out to cause a lot of pain, Night'oak growled but kind of started laughing like a maniac, he got a strange pleasure from pain sometimes, he sounded twisted most of the time he was laughing about being in pain. He blinked and slashed his claws against Ranger's face, ripping a large mark across their face.

He felt the pressure of claws against his throat, before they hooked into his throat and tore a little, he coughed a bit as he felt warm blood running down his neck. He laughed a tiny bit before he felt a final tear, the claws left his neck and he saw the dark tom towering over him. Night'oak quietly pulled a paw to his throat as he started gagging on his own blood, he was going to choke to death on his own blood, how funny. He somehow managed to releases one more, twisted sounding laugh before he started to choke too much to speak or anything more. After one seemed like an agonizingly long time the pale tom had choked to death on his blood, the darker tom disappearing into the blizzard, there would be no trace of the male slaughtering the Rose'clan warrior once the storm had passed. It would only be Night'oak's corpse leaned against the side of a tree, bloodied and battered.

He wouldn't ever go back to camp, hopefully he had been good enough to go to Star'clan and see his own father once again, he just regretted that he wouldn't see his son anymore. His life had officially ended.

Fin.
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