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

XXIX

Song of the Chapter:
Opeth - Forest of October

White light blazed from the young moon, glimmering upon the fractal patterns of the icy lake. The shade of this star-pierced night turned the darkened trees, even the gigantic oak towering above him, black. The snow was a bleak hue of sapphire, and though the ravens and owls were silent beneath the deathly chill that laid upon the waters, the cats of the island were not quiet.

Crowds bickered and laughed under the distant full moon, apprentices hissed at each other over trivial things, and the younger cats smiled and cackled as they rolled and played in the snow. All was dark, all was cold and black in this gloomy night, but there was a feeling of warmth and protection on the island that just couldn't be explained. Shadowsight, though, did not feel so warm.

It had been days since it'd happened but he just felt so hollow and empty. It'd stricken him so much, and he still felt so painful and stunned from the blow. Shadowsight couldn't stop hearing the screeches, how agonized and terrified they had sounded. He couldn't stop thinking about it, no matter how much he wanted to stop. No matter how much he wanted to push it away and leave it in ignorance, it plagued his mind and refused to leave. He just couldn't forget it and be happy.

"Graystripe, how's it been going as an acting leader?" Mistystar asked as the five stood on the mighty branches of the bare oak. The dull gray freckling her muzzle, and seemingly her whole pelt, seemed to ripple as she spoke.

"Uh...fine," Graystripe replied, though his voice was quiet and weak, like a sorrowful whisper. 

Shadowsight stared at the ocean-toned frost his paws were sunken into. The words of the leaders drifted past him, never touching his mind. He drifted as his thoughts sunk into a wide ocean of emotion, the night-dyed islands around him becoming nothing. The smell of smoke returned again, tainting the air. It caught his attention, and he realized that the island had froze into a deadly silence, and a faint golden light was glimmering near him.

When he turned, Shadowsight noticed a golden flame wavering and glowing with fierce light. It melted away at the snow, sending orange light dyeing any cat close to it. Confusion swirled in his mind as he stared at the flame in disorientation. "What even is this? Where did the fire come from?" Ivypool meowed. 

"Someone should go find a rock and...stamp it out, I guess," Lionblaze meowed. He bounded over to a rock and slowly shoved it towards the fire, grunting, only for the flame to explode into a burst of light as it roared and crackled for the sky. Lionblaze hissed as the fire burst out in fury, orange auroras blazing in the dark. Shadowsight gasped. Shock stabbed into his heart as the sparks flew through the melting snow and caught onto the moonlit grass. Golden flames burst from the blades, causing the glow to smolder through the grass and trees. 

A spark of gold flew though the air, it lifted itself winglessly towards a huge tree. Terror shot through his lungs, making him want to yell out, as it met the bark and a bolt of light exploded from the tree. Within a moment it was raging in a storm of flames, and the furious blaze of scarlet continued spreading, filling the island and lake with a suffocating wave of panic. Cats screeched as the radiant glow burned his eyes and a cacophony of terror pounded against his skull.

A thousand stars exploded upon them. The flames tore trees apart with arms of lustrous red, reaching towards the sky and threatening to swallow the moon and the constellations above whole. Shadowsight felt dizzy. Waves of heat swept over him, burning away at his skin and making him choke, and pure fear raced up his spine.

"Shadowsight!" A faint voice pierced through the cacophony, as though this was all just a fur-raising nightmare and the voice was urging him to wake up. 

"Shadowsight!" It called again, louder this time. He turned to see Squirrelflight bounding towards them, pure panic was clear in her green eyes. Now it really did feel like a whirling dream. Hadn't Squirrelflight been missing?

Mothwing bounded in after her, and so did Spotfur. In Spotfur's jaws was a curious sight. A flower of ocean's hue, like shimmering sapphire for those searching for riches. Shadowsight stared at it, at the shimmering stars and galaxy-glimmering colours of each petal, and he never thought a flower like this could exist. "What kind of flower is this?"

"Our third connection to StarClan," Squirrelflight meowed. Those words sent Shadowsight's mind into a whirlpool of suspicion and confused panic. StarClan was gone. This flower would've lost its light like the Moonpool had, right? At that black revelation, he snatched the flower from her grip and spun around as Squirrelflight let out a screech. Shadowsight bounded away, twisting around blinding flames and blazing trees, and weaving through the island. They'd been fooled, and this flower had to be burned.

"What are you doing!?" Spotfur hissed through the drumming of his paws as he pounced over rocks and streaks of fire. He skidded as the three stared at him. Ashfur had fooled him, he couldn't let him do it to more cats. 

"StarClan is gone! Ashfur was just trying to trick you!" he spat against the roaring fire. A great silence gripped the four, having came from nowhere. 

"Our quest was for nothing?" Squirrelflight meowed, before she let out a hiss and her claws dug into the earth. "Wherever Ashfur is, I'm going to find him. He needs to die."

A few fox-lengths away, he caught Tree pressing his muzzle into the grass, before lifting his head with a look of pure terror. "I feel a great anger, a presence of great evil is here."

When Shadowsight turned, he noticed a shadow forming in the grass, cyan eyes glimmering. His shadow was so foul, so deathly, it enveloped the whole world and whispered a promise of demise. It stared with the malignant gaze of a familiar beast. Ashfur.

Needleclaw rushed past him, pouncing onto Ashfur as her claws glimmered maliciously in the light of the fire. "You killed my brother!" she hissed, only for another silhouette to dart over and leap into her side, throwing her off.

Immediately, a crowd appeared. Their eyes were dead, tarblack and showing no emotion. They raced towards them, screeching and cackling monstrously. The mind-controlled spirits were here, too. They bounded for the crowd, and the hellish cacophony grew even louder as  screeches burst through the island.

Graystripe was taken down by a group of mindless ghosts, left in a splattered mess of crimson in the grass as the life disappeared from him. Immediately after, a copy of him rose from his body, eyes ebony black, and he joined the other spirits.

Berrynose rammed into Mistystar, snapping viciously at her throat as his jaws closed in on her neck. Mistystar let out a terrifying gurgle as she screamed in terror and collapsed, rose-toned slime bursting from a gash in her neck before she vanished, and an ebony-gazing copy of her rose from her corpse too.

Cats were taken down by his army, dragged to either an agonizing death from fire, a painful death by drowning, or a brutal death by attack as Ashfur simply stared joyfully from a branch on the great oak. The warriors on the island, though, were quick to fight back. They took down mindless cats, and violent tussles to the death took over. The cacophony, of the fire and the death and the violence, pounded against Shadowsight's skull and turned his blood into rapid water, but there was one thing he knew. The battle had begun.