The Sunlapse (A Light in the Mist AU/rewrite)

I

Song of the Chapter:
Sunn 0))) - It Took the Night to Believe 

Dim was the light, lifeless was the forest. It was twilight without warmth, a land furthest from love and beauty. Not a single piece of light was shed, no gifts from the young moon or the flock of stars. This was a land hidden from the spirits and their troop. A mist shrouded the gloom, enrobing the trees, naked silhouettes. However, despite the endless dusk and lonely gloominess, those who stood within were not silent. A cacophony of howls broke out. The dead lamentations of Ashfur's harlequins, eyes pale and bodies withered. Their cries rose out through the darkness, paining Rootspring's ears as he stood lost in the dark place, far from the vale of the innocent, which would soon be his abode.

He stood opposite to Snowtuft, who's pelt was clad in ebony by the dyes of the moonless forest. Ashfur's howling beasts encircled them, creating a halo of black disease and preventing the two from escaping. They stared at each other, and Rootspring's heart was beginning to pound in a storm of fear. 

"Come on!" Ashfur hissed, furry bringing darkness to his voice. "Stop musing and just fight already!" 

Cold winds swept over Rootspring, his legs shivering as he was swept in the strands of leaf-bare. With a boiling anger beginning to burst open in his chest, he turned around, driven by the fires exploding in his stomach and singing his throat. "I'm not fighting him!" He hissed, staring into Ashfur's dark blue gaze. "Snowtuft's my friend! I wouldn't hurt him, no matter what."

Ashfur blinked, and immediately his face darkened into a mixture of rage and amusement. "Do you want me to have to do this myself?" He growled. "Fine then!"

The howls turned into a cacophony of wretched cackling. The spirits stepped towards them, their gaze showing a pale lack of emotion or thought. The blackened, shrieking cackles grew louder and louder, until Rootspring felt as though his ears would spew blood if he listened to them any longer.

A wave of black doom swept over him, infecting him with a foul sickness that cradled in his chest, and terror overpowered him until he could no longer move from his intense trembling. He and Snowtuft pressed against each other, and the reality of his situation stepped closer and closer, filling him until he was about to scream out.

They began to run toward him, until one of them was standing right in front. It was not Stemleaf, but instead a hollow, mindless ghost of him, who simply wore the mask of who he once was. Without a word, he immediately began tearing into Rootspring's flesh, holding him down to the decaying floor and refusing to let him stand up. A fiery pain surged through him, boiling blood spilling out from his burning wounds and into the ground around him. 

Rootspring stared up at the beast ripping him apart, unsheathing his claws and preparing to rise up and fight. His body stung with sparking pain, but he wouldn't let that block off his ferociousness. He swiped at its face, only for another silhouette to glide from the mist, and a swarm of ravenous contours began to leap over and entrap him beneath.

In just a moment, Rootspring's eyes lost focus of the forest as the swarm overtook him and pain enveloped him. The dark world around him became blurry, and he was unable to see what was going on. All he knew was that he was being ripped apart, his skin splitting open and steaming waves of sticky blood rolling out and turning his pelt into a mess. He was held into the ground, unable to move or breathe, suffocated as he was tied to the rotten sea of black mud and choked until his muzzle was crushed and his lungs burst.

What were they doing to him? Rootspring couldn't even think or feel, all he could perceive was the stinging agony tormenting him. Around him, the loud cackling continued. It wasn't a lamentation, nor a lullaby, but merely a thunderous abyss. A song of merciless torture. 

A high-pitched cry of pain pierced the air, and he had no idea whether it was his or Snowtuft's. A state of tranquility was beginning to flood his mind, and he rested beneath the thick blanket of excruciating darkness, until suddenly the weight was lifted off of him. 

Perception slowly drifted back to him. The blazing torment had ceased, though Rootspring could still feel it as burning echoes. He opened his eyes, senses and thought returned to him, although it was clad with puzzling mist. He looked up, spotting another silhouette, though this one didn't attack him. It simply stood there, idle and still.

Intense beams of fire still ran through his head, the bloody recess of the attack was pounding at his skull. He tried to stop the feeling that burned away at his mind, realizing with a flood of mirth that Bristlefrost was standing over him.

"Come on!" She gasped. Rootspring forced himself to stand up, body still decrepit from the battle, falling against the tall molly's side. Snowtuft bounded after him, his body beaten from the gory flood. Somehow, in this forest dread, the heavenly light of her gaze still brought him a tainted solace.

He pressed himself against Bristlefrost, struggling through the bleak woods of gloom. Snowtuft seemed more resilient than he was, managing to walk with independence and strength. Rootspring couldn't believe the colours of solace that were now flooding through his heart. The wretched harlequins had vanished, leaving them to walk alone through this savage wilderness. Bristlefrost must've dragged him away from the ravenous troop, battling off the savage-eyed beasts without a flash of fear.

"Rootspring, I'm so happy to see you," she gasped, appearing tired and weakened by the fight. He didn't need to speak, he simply pressed his head against her side, overwhelmed with glorious joy. He could finally leave this sad abode, escaping the moonless maze of ancient shadows, where the sun and stars would never awake from death and the sky would always be enwrapped in a suffocating dusk.

Just then, a shrieking cackle broke the bleak silence, sending a foul black fear poisoning his mirth. He turned to see several of the contours, the vicious shadows of the dead which wandered the wilderness for the taste of blood. The creatures were flooding the sea of mist, staring at them with eyes stolen of colour and jaws poisoned with a bloody appetite, ravenous to deliver dark tranquility.

The joy vanished, and with renewed dread he realized that they hadn't yet reached the light.