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

XXVIII

Song of the Chapter:
Opeth - Hours of Wealth

Bristlefrost felt so solitary in the gloom. Dusk choked the mountains, stranding her in a melancholy shade. The loneliness was suffocating as she drifted silently in an ocean of solitude, lost and alone in the endless mist. It would've been warmer to believe that all those cats had betrayed her, but they hadn't. Bristlefrost had betrayed them. The love of her family, of her friends, of everyone who had brought her warmth and mirth in her life, they were gone. And she was left lifeless. When she stared into the puddle at her paws, the image rippling in the waves did not look like a reflection. Just as image. It looked like how she'd imagine herself as an elder, a cat who'd seen wars and pain in their life. She looked scarily old for a cat her age. Her body was marked in so many scars, she barely even recognised herself. Her face was meant to look youthful, not a tired drape ripped apart from battle scars with its left eye gouged out.

She didn't even know where to go. At first, she wanted to run back and see her family again, maybe for the last time with what Ashfur was doing. But she couldn't. With the infection blackening her thoughts, she was bound to kill them too. She could never meet a soul again, she couldn't return. The only way she could protect anyone was to stay here, in this misty, cold hollow, for the rest of her life. She couldn't even have any kind of company here, she was made to be alone.

The pain was torturous. Flipclaw had just wanted to help her and she'd killed him, she'd murdered him. Bristlefrost was a predator, a monster, it all hurt too much to think about. It was so agonizing to even think of it. And Rootspring had done everything for her too, but she hadn't even tried to save him. She'd just watched as he gasped for air beneath the ice, choking and drowning, unable to even scream because his mouth had been frozen open from the cold. She'd done it all. Bristlefrost didn't want to live, but she didn't want to die either. She just wanted to be happy.

Ivypool, Fernsong, Thiftear, Flipclaw, Rootspring...I'm so sorry. I'll never see any of you again. But I have to do this, I can't go on in the Clans or else more cats will die at my claws. I have to be alone forever. The warmth of their pelts, their scents, the sounds of their voices, every single cat she'd ever known was simply a memory now. She shivered beneath the freezing winds of the evening chill, but it was nothing she wasn't used to. Her heart had always been frozen.

They aren't my family anymore. Ivypool isn't my mother, Fernsong isn't my father. Rootspring was never my mate. Thiftear and Flipclaw aren't my siblings.

Bristlefrost laid down and allowed herself to sink into the ground. She was just so tired. The grief was too much. It felt as if her heart and lungs were being crushed under the weight of her ribs, and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't handle it anymore, it was just too much. There was so much. Just...

She broke.

Her mind broke in the darkness. Her emotions tired her body out, and it was choking her, suffocating her. She shut her eyes and let herself fall into this sleep. A deathly feeling blurred her senses, and she could feel herself drowning. She could feel the cold, the lack of air, there were moments left. 

Bristlefrost's soul was dead. She didn't belong in this body anymore, and so she allowed it to take over.

- 

Mapleshade rolled onto her side, pushing herself up. It was so disorientating to be in a body that wasn't hers, to walk on paws that didn't even look like her ones. But at the very least, its shape was similar. Usually when she'd done this, she could somehow feel Bristlefrost's spirit hidden away beneath the tide of her one, her soul wrestling to take control of this body again. But this time, she felt nothing. Bristlefrost had been too weak, she was the only spirit in control now.

Mapleshade turned and bolted down the slope, in the direction of the Clans. Running in another cat's body was just unbearably confusing, but that didn't matter. She had to come soon. It made her feel triumphant, really. The Clans would die, but she wouldn't be blamed. She'd simply give Bristlefrost her body back and watch as she was tortured for what Mapleshade had done. 

Soon, she'd have everything she'd wanted.