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

XII

Song of the Chapter:
Maudlin of the Well - The Birth Plains of Astral Projection

Shadowsight had heard the news. 

Even more cats were disappearing. Bramblestar and Squirrelflight were once again missing, a silhouette of Ashfur's return, and of dark doom for the Clans. And Bristlefrost was still absent. Groups had gone searching for the missing cats and hadn't yet returned. With this new knowledge infecting him, Shadowsight wanted to help in some way.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Puddleshine meowed. They sat at the bottom by the comforting walls, by glass painted by stars. A veil of radiant, almost celestial light among the midnight air, which lit the shadowed rocks in an ethereal, azure glow, made it look beautiful for being a block of ice with his friend's corpse inside. "You're an injured medicine cat going alone. The Moonpool might not even work with the ice."

"I'm going to the Dark Forest in hopes of saving my friend, not going off to murder Ashfur!" Shadowsight hissed, though that perverted jerk with his deceiving words and venomous mind did deserve to feel death at last. Shadowsight prayed that his darkness mixed with his connection with Ashfur could help him contact the place now. 

He rested his head, and focused on all his darkest thoughts, all the blackened voices of despair which could speak in his mind. You're worthless. Rootspring died because of you. You're the reason Ashfur was able to take over the Clans. Your whole Clan hates you for a reason. If you'd tried to do something, your friend could still be alive.

He laid, eyes shut, and let himself drown in the abyss of his mind. The stars above, in the inky black of night, stared down at him as he seeped away from his own skin and fell away from his world. Soon the freezing, yet ethereal air of night gave away to vile mist. Shadowsight opened his eyes and stood up.

The yawning dusk above was barred by the black boughs of the  gnarled, twisted trees. The gloom of this dreadful forest folded itself around Shadowsight, as the dark mist around suffocated him. The atmosphere was gloomy, bitter, unwelcoming, devoid of the stars' light. But despite the dreary woods around him, he felt a surge of triumph so powerful his chest nearly burst as he rose from the poisonous sea of black mud and thorns. He'd done it! He'd entered the Place of no Stars with the frozen moonpool!

He wandered on through the labyrinth, trying his best to avoid any trace of the accursed spirits. Through the silhouettes of the trees, he could see a lake, its waters a waveless black tar. He turned, running away as soon as he saw it. Shadowsight  trekked away from that wretched lake, walking further into the ebony trees and continuing his hopeless quest for Rootspring, or at least for a cat who hadn't been possessed by Ashfur's tainted curse. 

His legs bent, his whole body feeling as though it was ready to give away from the exhaustion. But he couldn't sit down, he couldn't rest so matter how badly he wanted to. The landscape was so strange. It was like walking out into the forest on a dark night, except he was alone in a twisted, colourless reality. It was cursed, achromatic, and yet, serene. Just then, he was immediately jolted from his thoughts when faint footsteps hit his ears, and from the mist and melancholy shade, a scrawny cream tom stepped out.

"Shadowsight?" Rootspring's eyes widened. Shadowsight knew for certain that his chest was about to burst, but not in a painful, bloody way at all. It burst with mirth. Despite the bleakness around them, his heart was flourishing with the humming light of hope. 

"Yes," he meowed, bending forward to bury his face in Rootspring's soft pelt.. "It's me! And you're alive!"

"How'd you get here?" Rootspring's voice was quiet. "I don't even know how long I've been here for. It feels like it's been over a thousand years. So I woke up in StarClan, but everything was all desolate. Then I got flashed to the Dark Forest, and for I-don't-even-know-how-long I was just being randomly flashed between StarClan and the Dark Forest. Sometimes, if I think hard enough I can control it."

"I dreamed my way in," Shadowsight explained. "It's been a few days since you died."

His friend frowned. "It feels like it's been moons" his voice still sounded strangely subdued, almost artificial in it's nature.

"Must've been." Then, Shadowsight remembered what the could do here. He'd told Puddleshine he wouldn't fight Ashfur, but just the thought of the pervert alone made rage surge beneath his pelt, so violent and furious he could barely even think. He was tired of being scared of the horrible tom. He wanted to defeat him. For once in his life, he wanted to lie.  "Come on, let's find Ashfur."

"You sure?" Rootspring's voice souned even more subdued. "I tried to challenge Ashfur and he killed me. And you're a medicine cat, it could hurt y-"

"No," Shadowsight hissed, talons slid from their sheaths and eyes alight in wild wrath. He couldn't stop it, it came flooding out of him without him doing anything. "I'm fighting. I want to be the one who puts an end to this stupid pile of shit's miserable existence."

 "Shadowsight!" Rootspring gasped, but the infection of his fury so debilitating he couldn't stop himself.

 "That tail-licker can eat dirt. When I see him, I'm ripping out his brain and shoving it down his throat so that he can understand what an idiot he is," Shadowsight spat. Usually, he been so gentle and mild. Maybe it was just the Dark Forest getting to him, but he knew he had to fight Ashfur, he had to be the attacker after all that strife.

Rootspring finally sighed. "Fine," his voice was like a defeated whimper. "Let's go."

He got up, and Rootspring and Shadowsight, side by side, headed towards the lake. There was a journey ahead, and he had to simply crush the fearful thoughts of what it held.