The Moonlapse [ABANDONED]

XVI

Visions criss-crossed inside his mind. In the depths was a dark land, where starry dreams played in the gloom. They were drifting like scattered petals upon the air, forever floating, forever laughing, but never placed together. They were shards of consciousness cast into an abyss. Alderheart couldn't feel his body, his senses that came with the world were stolen from him. But his mind, warped and broken, was still there.

Footsteps rustled through the grass, lightly patting the soil. Alderheart's movement was slow and guarded. His steps were like the wind, they were a quiet breeze. They wandered on the night air and teased the leaves off the trees. Jayfeather stepped back in confusion. "...Alderheart?"

Alderheart's emotions were masked. His true feelings were buried, and he knew it, but he didn't care about it. He didn't want to leave the comforting feeling. He stared at Jayfeather, and slowly the tomcat's identity was erased.

Kill.

There was no blood in his veins. Just a monstrous desire to kill. His claws slid from their sheathes, and he was unable to stop the devil within from claiming his mind. Alderheart charged towards Jayfeather, feeling as if he'd become something wild, something that wasn't feline. He threw himself forward, attempting to beat the other tomcat down in a brutal battle. 

Jayfeather immediately sensed the fierce thump as his friend leaped up from the grass, and he veered to the side just before he landed beside him, causing flecks of dirt to fly up. He rose up as a crescendo of pawsteps spoke that Alderheart was growing closer. He felt an unnatural presence from the tom, a mist of malice drifted from him. Its wave wrapped around him like a heavy cloud. Something wasn't right.

Alderheart leaped again. He flew. He spread his wings and soared like a hawk, majestic, free. The red-furred tom's paws crashed against the ground, as fire burned within his soul. Jayfeather leaped away again. But he was desperate for the thrilling passion of slaughter, and so he jumped forward and grabbed him before he could run away, sinking his fangs into his flesh. Red plasma splashed out from the wound, and the storm of bloodlust that had claimed his soul told him to keep ripping him apart.

And so he did. He struck deep. Alderheart struck again and again, letting scarlet spray out with each slash. He refused to stop, he simply continued to butcher the tom as a frenzy of sweet crimson spilled away for the stars to see. Jayfeather tore himself away from the grip and turned to run, dashing through the field.

He had to run. Jayfeather didn't know what had happened to Alderheart, but he had been destroyed and reborn as something mad. The medicine cat struggled to keep himself running as he slowly fell apart from his wounds, but the thumping of paws behind him was the hissing command that made him keep going. His paws were suddenly hugged by a frigid feeling, and he was stricken by a cold wave. 

"Water!?" he hissed. His bones shivered, and his whole body was gripped in a cold feeling. So much blood had been drained from him, he could barely move. Teeth gripped his scruff and slowly dragged him into the lagoon. A cold feeling encompassed him, and with a harsh splash the attacker bounded to the shores.

Jayfeather fought to stop the surface from dragging him down into its darkness. But his blood was spilling out to colour the lake red, and his life was pouring out with it. He slowly sank. The warmth of the world above rose up to tease him, as it shimmered. It was a malicious angel. It disappeared slowly, to laugh at him for the loss of his life.

The medicine cat was deep beneath the water now. Bubbles slowly floated up beside him. They rose up to touch the beauty at the surface, and yet, he only fell down deeper. Where was his body? All his sense were being consumed by numbness, and his soul was lost in the blackness. He was sinking. He was being dragged into the abyss. He could no longer fight, he was absorbed by the warm embrace of the water. 

So, is this how it ends?

The last sparks of hope had snuffed. He was just an empty shell in the void now, with nobody to bring him out and no warmth to hold a candle to his soul. Jayfeather called out for StarClan, but there was no sea of stars to welcome him when he met the bottom of this abyss. His senses became one with the ocean around him, as his soul snuffed out, a flame in the water. There was only a single second of darkness left, before it too became nothing but a droplet that had been doused beneath the surface.

Nothing would greet him in the next world.

-

Alderheart gasped as he awoke from the nightmare that had been holding him hostage. His eyes darted around, and he was soaked in a vision of the pitch-black sky. Breath puffed in and out of his nostrils as he desperately searched around the forest. "Jayfeather!" he called. "What happened!?"

Alderheart stood. No response came to save him from the darkness. Then he realized something.

He was covered in splashes of blood. It dripped onto the floor, painting a picture of butchery. Even under the moon's silent embrace, it burned bright with scarlet. Alarms immediately set off within him, and he cried out louder. "Jayfeather!"

The lake had been turned crimson. At the other side of the shores, something floated. Something still and limp. That's...

A wave of shock fell over him. Alderheart felt his soul becoming doused beneath the flood, drowning in a tortured consciousness. It was all to true, too real. The body in the water did not move at all, and its silver pelt made the cat's identity obvious. Alderheart hid his claws beneath the earth, awaiting the revelation that all of this was a dream. But it never came. This was all apart of reality.

I killed him.

I killed Jayfeather.