Fresh Starts: On Phantom Wings

Chapter 4, How the Mighty Fall

(Warning: this chapter is where the story gets dark with heavy themes)

The storm around Mount Andromeda and the other storms in the Startouched Mountains raged as usual, music to Phantom's snowy ears. A hundred and thirty years had passed since he was given his domain, and stuff had happened. His father taught him how to read and understand the wind like ancestral spirits read the stars. He was accepted by mortals as the White Phantom, spirit of the storms around Andromeda and the rest of the Startouched mountains. He even had several offerings, his first being a set of silver bracers from a lynx who wanted safe passage through the storms. He even gave out blessings like giving a family of lynx-leopard hybrids wings, which inadvertently led to a tribe of winged cats that were called either sphinxes or griffin. Phantom couldn't exactly remember which one it was.

Phantom sat in front of the shrine with his sister waiting for their mother. Bhuta wanted to show them some paths on the mountains that she traveled once under the alias of a mortal with a traveling theater trope. It was also during that time she met Negaf who was also using a mortal alias at the time. He would have been their two if he wasn't influencing the current season.

Bhuta walked out of the shrine in her mortal form. She looked middle aged but also youthful and strong. Her grayish white fur was glossy and her cloak blew in the wind. She exuded wisdom and majesty.

"It's been awhile since we've done something as a family." Bhuta mewed upon seeing her cubs after a couple decades.

Both Koko and Phantom nodded as they changed into their mortal forms. Koko was a black snow leopard with greenish flower esque spots and her golden earrings. Phantom was a bluish white snow leopard with grey rings of fur above his paws charged with static electricity and grey cloud like spots.

The family walked across the mountain slopes which they had influenced in different ways, but this provided a different view of them. The dazzling snow, crystal water and falls, and the lush foliage unique to the mountains was on full display. The only word to describe it would be beautiful.

Phantom could feel that he and his family were being watched, but he chalked it up to other spirits. Not even the magic of mortals could match their influence over the world, so they had nothing to fear. That is the way of immortals.

They continued on their trip across the idyllic peaks, even passing some of the few groups of mortals who lived there. It was truly serene including the Storms which rolled in and out across the mountainsides. Phantom felt more looks in places away from others often accompanied with a foul breeze.

They reached an area far away from any cats and close to Maple Leap's southern border. There was a strange scent in the air, one Phantom never smelled before in his existence. The wind was stale and the ground felt off. Phantom looked down and saw the path was made of a strange black rock, it was extremely ancient and worn. It didn't seem right in any way, shape, or form.

Phantom looked around and saw other strange structures, though barely anything of them was left. Large scratches were imbedded in some of them along with other signs of creatures that Phantom had never seen. It was one of the first times he truly felt unnerved. His family were as equally unnerved.

"What is this place?" Phantom mewed in chilling awe.

"I don't know, I've never seen or sensed anything like this." Koko mewed in response. Everything felt wrong here and it was as clear as spring it came before anything they knew.

"It's a scar of something that shouldn't be remembered." Bhuta mewed answering her children. She seemed to have a weight on her shoulders and clearly didn't like being here.

Then an upright creature wearing a long brown scarf and strange clothing came up from behind some of the strange rubble. It held a long thing made of metal and wood and weirdly pointed it at Phantom. Then his life changed forever and would never be the same.

Phantom heard a sound like thunder and felt something he nevertheless felt before, pain. He cried out as blood seeped out of a hole in Phantom's chest. The lead buried in his flesh burned and Phantom fell to the ground.

The creature seemed to do something with his stick and made the sound again as Bhuta roared in furious rage. An avalanche cascaded down and devoured the creature as Koko tried to move, but a hole was blown into her left eye. Blood seeped out of the wound as the eyeball collapsed in its socket. Koko cried out in agony as her body shook in pain.

He heard sound's behind him as his mother turned around furiously about to change into her spirit form before she fell back with her right foreleg dripping in blood. He tried to get up and fight, but something hit him and everything went black.