~ stuck in the tunnels ~ holly x cinder au

~ Chapter 1 ~

Hollyleaf sprang awake from the nightmare trying to catch each breath. Her gasps slowed as she focused on her breathing but realised all she could still see was darkness. Along with the dreaded dampness and the cold of the air around her. It made her heart feel heavy. All that echoed was her heavy breathing. The darkness pressing in on her seemed like a metaphor for the shadow she felt lurking over her future, heavy with uncertainty.

'Am I...' She glanced around and her breath caught in her throat, voice barely a whisper.

'No. I'm not dead.' Hollyleaf had let out a huge sigh but it did little to ease the growing dread inside her.

She was still in the tunnels, that was for sure. Though relief settled in her mind, what didn't settle is that horrifying corpse chasing after her. Wanting her dead. The relentless image of the corpse, its accusing gaze fixed on her, was a chilling reminder of the choices she had made.

'He's... dead now,' she thought to herself with that dreaded realization, again. 

'You killed him,' that voice of her younger self cried to her, a voice from the past echoing into her uncertain future.

She shook herself. Now's the time to focus on what's present, not the past. Despite her best efforts to distract herself from the zombie corpse that lived in her head, it still lived rent free. 

The blood couldn't be washed clean from her paws either. She felt like a serial killer. Like the wrong way to be was rubbing off on her. The thought of that made despair soak inside and outside of Hollyleaf, like a.. cold stream. Her heart started to race and she felt blood pulsing everywhere in her body and she couldn't control it.

The bloodstains on her paws, like indelible marks of her past, had refused to fade. She felt like a character from one of the dark tales she had heard as an apprentice, a creature lurking in the shadows. It was as if the wrong ways she had chosen were tainting her, threatening to define her.

'Why am I even here?! I killed a cat, for StarClan's sake! I'm the one who deserves their life took away from them! I'm not even part of the prophecy, so my siblings leave me out. My parents are Leafpool and Crowfeather! A medicine cat in love and what's worse, a different clan cat! My whole existence is against the warrior code! All the effort and everything I've worked hard for..' she had to take some deep breaths to maintain herself. 

'Everything I worked so hard for and all the effort I put in was for nothing! I've now turned my back on everything I've preached for years, everything I've dedicated my time to. Gone.'

Rage soared through her pelt like the forest fire. 'My Clan meant everything to me! But it's just I don't mean anything to my Clan. Burn the stars, for all I care.' She buried her head into her paws and felt a presence of a cat come closer.

She glanced up and saw stars of a familiar cat she'd known for a while.

Fallen Leaves.