Silent Shadows: Book Two - The River of Secrets

XVII

"What's the deal with Silentdawn? She's been acting so tired today."

"You remember where she came from, don't you? Can't help but feel uneasy about it."

Leave me alone. How sick she'd been this morning had her feeling bad enough, she didn't need these strange rogues whispering about her, and for to hear them when she was simply walking by. And what was I planning on doing? Right, the medic.

In exhaustion and pain, she dragged herself toward the cavern where the medic should usually be. She prayed that he'd be in there already, sorting herbs, and she wouldn't have to wait or go through the hassle of trying to find him. As she finally dragged herself to the cavern entrance, she was relieved to notice that he was already there within the cave, sorting herbs.

"Ah, Dawn," the tom meowed. The more they'd called her that, the more she'd hated the nickname. "What's wrong?"

"I, uh, I threw up this morning," Silentdawn replied. "I've been feeling sorta sick in the mornings. And my stomach hurts now."

The tom already had a speculative expression, as if he already had ideas. Silentdawn was suddenly stricken with an idea herself, one they probably shared. Goodness, please, not that. Not now.

The tom twitched forward, gingerly sniffing her. Silentdawn found the action strange. What's he doing, smelling around?

The tom seemed nearly disgusted by her stench, yet he continued sniffing until his ears perked in surprise. He pulled back, eyes wide, and Silentdawn felt her worry build up into frustration inside her. "Well? What is it?" she asked. 

The medic seemed nearly sheepish. "Well, this is big, but not necessarily a bad thing," he said. 

Silentdawn immediately dreaded the answer, putting her experiences together and now knowing full well what it was.

The molly sat outside the medic's cavern, now.

She found herself thinking about Stormray's request for this evening, once again. Wondering how she was going to go on if things were going to be as she thought they would be. She prayed that, if she really was just overthinking, that Stormray had known what they were doing. Even if she was wrong, she found herself unsure how she was supposed to tell them this sort of news.

She stared at the sun, as it slowly sank down toward the horizon. It was late afternoon, now. She pinned her ears against her head in anger when she recognized that, really, the situation was her fault. 

Don't leave me, Stormray. Please. I can't raise a kit on my own.

-

Iskra wondered sometimes. What was she?

She could feel a sense creeping upon her. This wasn't her real name, or her real home. Her old identity was ripped away, her old life ripped away, everything about her was shattered. And yet she always felt something, like a creeping shadow of dread which wished to devour her ego. A shadow spanning acres, yet she always seemed to outrun it.

She found herself wandering down a forest path, holding in her jaws a plump squirrel. The stone steps were leading them back towards the campsite. 

"Ray, that is your name? Isn't it? Can...you tell me what happened? Why am I like this?"

The black cat hadn't even spoken refusal, simply turned away without a word and left her.

She felt conflicted about the parts of reality she could no longer see. No, they didn't exist for her anymore. She wanted them back. She wished to have her life back. 

Lately, it'd felt like time had begun to follow a jagged course. Lately, events had begun to flow the way she perceived them, stitched incorrectly in a jagged collage. And at the edge of the void, in a place that was nowhere, she'd heard whispers arise from the abyss. Sometimes the whispers were nothingness, like the nowhere they were. And yet sometimes she could hear the way they flowed along the progression of her unknown sorrows.

"Don't you remember me? I am apart of what you think and experience. I can make you remember me."

Perhaps the voices were a painting crafted within the corner of her mind.

"Why don't you remember me? I am you. You don't remember yourself."

As they entered the campsite, she spotted a familiar calico. She, despite knowing the forgone failure, called out to her.

"Please, I feel like you said I know you. What is wrong with me? What happened that made me like this?" she cried. 

Yet again, she didn't even reply in words. She simply hissed as though insulted, and turned away. 

"Why, why do you ignore your own mind?"

Because nobody bothers to speak to me, she replied, in the current time, with the area of her psyche that she could really feel. Nobody will help me.

"I will help you, I will bring the experience of mentality back to you."

She felt the wings spread around her again. The shadow of unimaginable experiences, experiences which would bring her pain beyond what could be perceived and explained by living things. She knew this voice spoke in tune of the way the shadow of pain moved, the way it covered her. The way it hurt. And slowly, she could feel that this voice, this tune, it was becoming her own voice.

I remember--

She found herself back within reality, physically running away from camp. Sprinting in a desperate attempt to escape losing herself. Self. If she had no self, then there truly was nothing. Refusing to lie upon abstract pain, she continued running, making sure she felt the grass, making sure she felt the dirt upon her pads. Making she she stayed within reality, that nothing could take her away from here.

She desperately made sure she could not perceive the labyrinth. She found herself intruded by wonders if reality was real. Perhaps only the horrors of her psyche were real. 

What are you?

I am a liar, a liar to my own mind, haunted by my own ghost.

Suddenly, she could not run anymore. She screamed, she tried to scream the deafening whispers away. Yet, only her body could scream. Her psyche could not cry out for help, it was overwhelmed by it's own plight.

Who are you? she asked, or perhaps her mind asked.

I am Shimmerspark. I am being tortured with my own psyche, forced to watch her mind.

And here she was, there was her soul, on the brink of seeing everything.

Upon the brink of torture, she soon fell into a non-perceivable mind.

-

A/N

This chapter was so damn cool to write, the second half in particular. I'm a sucker for abstract or confusing stuff, tbh it's kinda guilty pleasure of mine.

And next chapter is gonna be full of that, so hope you like it as much as I do. Although it mightn't be out for a while, cuz I wanna celebrate New Years without having to work.