The Moonlapse [ABANDONED]

XIII

Red burned fierce in the sky, flooding heaven in crimson. The blazing scarlet that possessed the land was a fitting garment for the terror dwelling in this hellish landscape. Death encircled all like vultures, shrouding them beneath the shade of its black wings. Squirrelstar's eyes darted around in terror as she stared at the circle of shadows, her claws unsheathed in fear.

"These are shadows," Mapleshade explained. "If this was just a regular dream, then these things would be nothing but just that. A dream. But this nightmare is living, what happens in your mind right now is a part of the real world. And so, these cats are sentient."

"Guys!" Hollyleaf whispered. Her green eyes darted around the hellscape, sweeping over this crowd of monstrous creatures and settling on a gap, a gateway to safety. "I found an exit!"

"Well come on, then!" Squirrelstar hissed as the group began dashing, the crowd of shadows rushing after to envelop them and deliver a merciless death. Darkness began to overtake their shrinking entrance to freedom, causing them to quicken their pace and run ever faster. 

"Keep moving!" Shadowsight screeched as they finally dashed into their slight entrance. But Bristlefrost suddenly stopped, her claws creating vicious tears in the ground as she skidded and turned to stare at Mapleshade's army. 

"Bristlefrost! What are you doing?" Squirrelstar screeched as the horde began to saunter towards the lone she-cat, their jaws open and drooling for the succulent taste of her blood. With her tail lashing she charged forth, her eyes wild in a mad desire to kill. The shadows broke out in hisses as they collided, and Squirrelstar simply watched in terror.

Huddled with the rest, Rootpaw watched with wide eyes. His tail lashed back and forth in amazement, and his ears perked atop his head, before he charged into the mob with excitement.

"ROOTPAW! GET BACK HERE, YOU LITTLE BASTARD!" she hissed as she young tom simply snorted and laughed at her anger.

Within the crowd, Rootpaw charged forward to see Bristlefrost pushing away the mob of shadows with madness in her gaze.

"How do you do it?" he asked, burning in an excitement to fight like her. 

"I-" Her speech was cut off when a creature bounded towards her. She slashed quickly across its throat, causing blood to spurt out as it collapsed with the pile of corpses littered around her. "I can't really talk right now."

"Ha! Come and get me, shadow boys! Hahaha! Haha...ha...oh..." With his ears pinned back he backed away, staring at the horde. He arched his back and stared with a deathly glare, which only motivated the shadows further to charge towards him. Bristlefrost turned, frozen as darkness enveloped him, feeling the pain of losing another cat rise up and loom over her like a beast ready to tear into its prey. 

That sent her breaking away from the spell of paralysis that it had on her soul, and she threw herself forward into the crowd of cats that had enveloped him. She pushed away at the shadows, slashing through them in a storm of rage, screeching as she dug her canines into the feline's scruff and ripped through the meat until its head was torn away from its body and left laying among the splashes of blood.

A marvelous feeling of burning blazed within her as she stared at the shattered lives on the ground. The feeling of fresh blood upon her paws felt like the only thing that could cool down her fury, it encircled her like a storm of embers and blessed her with the feeling of being alive. Bristlefrost didn't think this rage could snuff out its fire until every wretched feline, if she could even call them that, was dead.

"Don't hurt him," Bristlefrost hissed at the army of skeletal, demonic beasts. She stood towered over Rootpaw, wolf-like talons into the ground, ready to rip through until all was burned within this earth's mantle. "Don't you ever hurt him."

The shadows' devilish passion was growing, it was overtaking them like a brutal transformation. When she looked down, Bristlefrost finally could see the brutality of the young tom's injuries. His right eye was replaced with a deep, red mark that ran with blood. Seeing him like this only made her hellish fury rise stronger. It burned through every vein in her body, bringing her dashing forward at the tornado of souls.

A hurricane of wild eyes and dark pelts swarmed around her, sending Bristlefrost clawing blindly through the shadows as her own flesh was ripped and split by claws greedy for her blood. Every quick swipe through each throat left her floating in the most Hellish Paradise, it played along as the passionate light for her flame of rage. Each scream was a wondrous song, with the thumps of dead shadows on the ground playing as the drums to the melodic howls of demise. Who knew the shattering of skulls held such magnificent music?

Vicious jaws suddenly clamped upon her foreleg, gripping tight and pulling until a sharp pain electrified her nerves and the crunch of bone briefly surfaced among her ocean of noise. What the hell!? The grip the shadow had on her foreleg was dangerously tight, no matter how much she pulled, how much she struck her claws through the cat gripping it, it did nothing to break her free. Claws were now gripping her flesh from behind. Bristlefrost turned, swiping across with her one free forepaw as the cat holding onto her pulled harder and harder until suddenly she felt something. Bristlefrost had no idea which sense it was connected to. Sound, sight, or feeling, but something shattered.

The molly gasped as red burst from the tear, splashing over her in a wave of crimson. A scream burst from Mapleshade, soaring like a hawk across the field to carry the news of her agony. The screech sent a flood of pleasure inside Bristlefrost. It eased the burning pain of her wounds and let her rest within its overwhelming thrill.

"We-" Mapleshade was gasping in pain. Each whimper of torture simply brought another kindled flame of joy. "We...argh! We have to...we have to go. For- gah! For now!"

She and her army were suddenly enwrapped in a cloak of raven-black smoke, stretching around them in a tornado of darkness. Finally, the winds cleared, and all except for the corpses that laid in the sea of blood were gone and the rest of the group began bounding towards them.

"Bristlefrost?" Hollyleaf spoke, mouth agape. She stared blankly within a trance, at the Hellish eclipse above and at the vast sea of scarlet littered with swimming corpses. "You killed them!"

Bristlefrost still felt overtaken in her monstrous lust for blood. The crimson gently kissed her paws, as cool and soft as lapping waves under the sunset. She broke out into laughter, her paws still trembling under the burning thrill. Squirrelstar rushed over to Rootpaw, snatching him up and holding the young tom by the scruff.

"You're berserk," Shadowsight hissed.

"Thank you," she replied. It was only when she realized her right forepaw stood on no ground did she realize the severity of her injuries. Her leg had been completely torn off and shredded, a scarlet stump that dripped with blood being the only thing left behind of the limb.

"Those wounds look...bad..." Shadowsight spoke, as a dark trance began to envelope her. The ground fell away beneath her paws as she swayed on tired bones, collapsing against Shadowsight's side. 

Concern began to form in the dark tom's eyes. "Can you walk?"

"Of course I can! I'm fine," she snarled as she collapsed upon the bloodsoaked ground with a splash. The trance pulled her down, swallowing her within its dark ocean. Bristlefrost fought, she battled furiously towards the surface to avoid falling down into the depths of demise, but the waters grew thicker and she became weaker.

Bristlefrost's mind sank away into the blackness.