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

XXIV

Song of the Chapter:
Opeth - Wreath

Cold shock had blasted Shadowsight like red-hot electricity. Ashfur's words didn't fully make sense yet. They were so quiet, so monotone, and yet powerful enough to rage through the blood tunnels, through the dying hell they'd journeyed through, and up through the skies to the shores of the lake. He stepped back, the world around him blurring. It was like the crimson-lit caves around him were gone, and he was floating in his thoughts.

"The Dark Forest will die too, soon. And so will you," Ashfur meowed as he towered over Rootspring. His friend crouched beneath him, trembling in pure terror. "I imagine it will be painful to decay like that. It'll be like decomposition, a corpse vanishing in a minute."

Shadowsight and Hollyleaf watched as Ashfur leaned in, almost compassionately towards the young tom, and his claws glinted in the gory glow. "You don't have to feel it. Maybe you can go a more quick way. It'll be better for you, won't it, kit?"

Then Shadowsight's fear flew from him, and his heart began beating. The tom began to dash, his paws thrumming powerfully against the earth as he zoomed up a slope, higher and higher for the roof, before he skidded at the top and stared down from a cave cliff. Ashfur had done so much. He'd manipulated him, he'd painted his dreams black with evil, and did the same to his life. Ashfur already deserved nothing but death after doing all that, now he'd killed his friend. Shadowsight was tired of being the scared victim. Ashfur deserved to burn, he deserved to die. His blood pressure grew with the passion filling him like a rising flame. It throbbed through his veins, and he felt like a blaze of fury with fur veiling it. Now he was ready to let that blaze out.

He finally tossed himself from the edge, and suddenly he was flying like a firedrop in the air. Ashfur turned, blue eyes wide as he dropped down to meet him. Within a second they struck. Rootspring's yellow pelt flashed past, and he guessed he was running away, but he couldn't fully see. The impact quickly tossed him into a dizzying, spinning tornado as he and Ashfur rolled through the cave. The ground hit him and left, and the world around him lurched until it was simply a red blur as he spun and fought with this ball of muscle and fur.

Then for a second, that same cliff flashed past. They were headed straight for it. Shadowsight threw himself away from the rolling grip, turning midair as his paws struck down on the ground with enough force to shatter his bones and he skidded back. There was a yowl, and a crash of smashing rock and bone, before his mind stopped spinning and finally gained the stillness of his body.

Ashfur was laying delicately in the scarlet light, eyes firmly closed and breaths ragged with pain slipping through his clenched teeth. Shadowsight stepped forward, staring down. His back had been bent like a strange puppet, and his breaths were quick and wheezing. He painfully moved his head from side to side, like he couldn't even move his neck. Ashfur had already been injured by the impact, killing him wouldn't be very hard. 

Shadowsight slid his claws from their sheathes as he stepped forward a bit to look him in the eye, and he raised his paw. Ashfur's eyes, once hazy and narrow, rose up in fear. He slowly rolled over so he was laying in his stomach, tears streaming down his face. "I'm sorry."

"Cry. Cry your eyes out, you deserve it," Shadowsight hissed. Ashfur no longer look at him, he just stared at the ground in shame. Deserved shame, really. "You really think I'm going to feel sorry for you, after all you've done? You got your second chance when you went to StarClan, and you threw it away. You refused to be redeemed, why should you get it now just because you don't like consequences?"

"I'm sorry!" Ashfur wailed, not even staring up at him. Shadowsight did not say another word. He struck down on his spine with his forepaws, pushing him to the ground as Ashfur let out a scream that sounded like a mix of a dog wailing and a kit crying. Then there was a satisfying crack, and he let go. It'd been easy, his spine was injured already.