The Moonlapse [ABANDONED]

IX

The void was a vast expanse. It was a darkness that encased every soul who dared to wander in, rendering them senseless in a prison of pitch black. The place seemed eternal as Rootkit wandered by Shadowsight's side. The longer they walked here, the more time warped. Each passing second was distorted into an eternity by the deafening silence, until Shadowsight's surprised yowl rung in the air. "Hey! What's that?"

Rootkit peeked out in confusion, then he realized that there really was something here. In the distance was a pool, its crystalline glow capturing a thousand galaxies for its light. The pond blared out like a myriad of breaking stars, burning away his eyes. Rootkit had to look away.

"It's the Moonpool!" Shadowsight meowed, bounding towards the light. In the black of the abyss it looked like a hole to another dimension, shimmering fiercely as its vortex spun. Rootkit's thoughts disintegrated, choked in a fog of confusion. Why would the Moonpool be here?

"Come on," Shadowsight meowed as he stepped towards the still shores. Rootkit watched as a splash broke out, wetting him in glimmering droplets as the dark tabby went under. He stepped forward, staring into the dead light of the Moonpool. Rootkit pushed himself in, dunking his head under.

He gasped as a flurry of bubbles spun around him, the surface rising above as he dropped down through the sea of stars. When he looked down Shadowsight was flailing, pushing forward through the cerulean depths as Rootkit was pulled down into another abyss. Then everything broke around him. Another surface shattered as he splashed through and he found himself flying, soaring through nothingness until his soaked body collapsed on sandy shores and he was awakened into another world. 

Rootkit's eyes cracked open to search the place he now stood. After so long of being trapped within the nothingness, the sight of the moor was captivating. The vast expanse of dusk opened up in the sky as the sun settled beneath the tiring lullaby that twilight brought, painting the sky in a gradient of blue and orange. It shaded the moors, the viridian strands of grass beginning to grow soggy in the night dew. Trees crowded at the edges, their leaves falling from the branches to leave littered clumps of fiery brunette. 

Triumph soared through his heart, sending light surging through his veins. He'd done it! He'd escaped. Rootkit felt his insides turn with the excitement, heart thumping against his ribcage. "I'll lead you home," Shadowsight meowed as the two began to set forth into the trees. 

When Rootkit stepped forward into the SkyClan entrance, he was shocked by the sombre atmosphere. The cats were enrobed in silence, and when he entered their eyes only filled with pain. What's wrong? he thought, his excitement fading away into a chilling anxiety. Why aren't they happy I'm back? Do they not like me?

Hawkstar stepped forward, a darkness in his sunless eyes. He let out a sigh. "Rootkit," she began. "Your mother is dead."

His stomach dropped. Everything went silent, as through all the sights and sounds of the forest were dead, overwhelmed by a quiet buzz. Then an overwhelming feeling of paralysis gripped him, confusion swirling like ferocious winds in his head. What did he mean? Why would Needleclaw be dead? He searched around, waiting for a cat to tell him that this was all a joke. But they were all simply silent. Their eyes were still, their mouths shut. 

With his mind gripped in a blindness to everything he was feeling, he turned to look up at Hawkstar. "You're lying," he growled. If Needleclaw was really dead, wouldn't her corpse be somewhere here? The dark words sounded like just that, words. Not a real story of reality's sorrows. 

"I'm afraid it's all true," Tree spoke, his voice strained by a choking grief. Rootkit felt like he was about to collapse to the ground, trembles running through his entire body. He felt his soul pulse in the shock, and his nostrils flared as eyes began to bubble with tears. Why was he crying? He knew this wasn't true. SkyClan must be playing tricks on him.

"It's not true!" he hissed, trying to keep the shattered pieces of his soul from drifting apart. Pain stabbed into his pounding heart like a dagger as Tree lead him through the grass. He could barely move. His paws were paralyzed by the trembles and his skin was seized by an erratic coldness, feelings sucked away from his soul. His grandfather lead him to a deep mark in the earth, a hollow trench that would suck him back into its void if he fell in. Beside it was a mountain of crumbled dirt. 

Rootkit stared down. In the dirt of the grave was Needleclaw, shadowed in darkness. Her eyes were narrowed and her throat was wrapped in a choking ring of flowers, of crying violets and blood-dunked roses. It was her. But the corpse didn't entirely match her, did it? Something must have been wrong.

"You're all wrong," he wept through the flood of tears, unable to lift his eyes of the sight of his mother laying broken in the dirt. Maybe this was all a dream? It had to be. There were so many reasons why this just couldn't be true.

"Denial is often the first reaction to grief," Kitescratch meowed, his voice nearly silent from despair. "You can't comprehend that your mother is dead, so you try to make up reasons to believe she's not."

"She's not..." Rootkit choked. His voice drifted away from him, lungs flooded in the muddy sea of pain. He couldn't stop staring at her corpse, his world blurred and drowned out by the agony that tore his heart apart, striking it viciously again and again. "She's not dead," he repeated. He tried to open his jaws to scream out his grief into the hopeless skies, but no yells could fly from his burning lungs. "She's not dead. She's not dead. She..."

-

Bristlefrost gasped at the place where she had awoken. The darkness killed everything she saw. The rotten leaves that laid in the mud were dead, the thin, black trees were dead. Nothing here was alive. A shroud of mist enwrapped her, suffocating in a sealed coffin of fog, like this forest of gloom was beckoning her to join. 

"Hello, Bristlefrost," Mapleshade's croaking voice called her to turn around. The she-cat stepped from the endless sea of mist, her pelt puffing out in its hue of blood red and tar black. Her amber eyes were sharp with amusement, with mockery. It simply urged Bristlefrost to unsheathe her claws and pierce the soil, leaving them unearthed for the cursed night to watch down upon. 

"I've killed you before," she hissed. Mapleshade almost looked smaller then her as Bristlefrost lashed her tail back and forth. "What makes you think I can't do it again?"

"Go ahead," Mapleshade replied in a pathetic attempt to look intimidating. She opened her jaws and broke apart into a barking cackle, her grin stretched wide and her fangs amber and rotten. The she-cat truly did look as if she'd been killed again, she looked as if she had been ripped apart and left to wander as a walking, rotting carcass. "Try and kill me."

Bristlefrost crouched. An intense passion for murder burnt in her blood, and she began to leap forth in rage, flying fiercely through the air before crashing down on Mapleshade. The she-cat fell beneath her grip, dropping down on the dead earth. A thirst for her blood burned within, the death of Mapleshade was just before her hungry jaws.

"Fool," Bristlefrost hissed in a furious tone. "You killed so many cats, did you think I'd just fall to your tricks?" Her claws dug deep into Mapleshade's chest, veins strained with a cold fury. Blood seeped out, staining her gray fur. Good, she thought, eager to drain the life from this wretched she-cat.

Then a sudden pain struck Bristlefrost in the chest. She gasped in shock, her mind swirling in confusion. Mapleshade hadn't even clawed her, and yet when she looked down, crimson was dripping from an open wound in her heart.

Another cackle broke out from Mapleshade as she slid away from beneath her grasp. "You can't kill me," she laughed, her amber eyes burning with mockery. "We're connected."

A feeling of disappointment rained in Bristlefrost's soul. She'd been so ready to rip through her, her claws had been trembling with the thrill. "So if I kill you, I'll die."

"And if I kill you, I'll die as well," Mapleshade meowed. 

Bristlefrost was left in a furious state. Fire filled her, bringing her ablaze in her wrath. All she wanted was the taste of this wretched cat's blood, and yet she could not even do that. 

She watched as Mapleshade turned away in amusement, wandering off into the mist again until she finally disappeared. The surge of emotions her rage brought suddenly sent her snapping from this dark world and she awoke, back in the shade of the cavern and cradled in the warmth of her nest. 

Will I ever be free?