Silent Shadows: Book Two - The River of Secrets

XXXIV (Finale)

Content Warning: Child abuse, child torture, torture in general, more mutilation and more cannibalism.

Once a stranger, she'd seen the challenge of seducing the molly into following her fate as a ruler as a truly amusing game. She refused to think about the fact she was inflicting any pain. As she saw it, cats so unwise they didn't accept fate or higher power simply didn't deserve to have their emotions regarded either.

She shook her head. It was useless to worry about what was right and wrong, good or evil. Life was simply a game, and other living things were just toys. It didn't matter who her actions affected, it just mattered that she was having fun. 

To take a game too seriously was an easy way to lose it.

-

I don't have anything. 

Stormray had been her last meal. It was just her final expression of dependence, taking the last their body could give to her. However, she'd also carved off their face to keep it intact. It'd make a wonderful mask, her personal souvenir. By making them into her garment, she ensured they'd always be together. 

She had thought her loved ones were just her flower field, yet all of them had wilted away by now. The she-cat didn't want to plant anymore flowers, yet so many new ones kept growing. Knowing she'd have to see them wilt away, she wished to tear each petal off herself.

Her only daughter left was one flower she couldn't allow to rot. So she kept her in a cave with nothing but a small stream. Every once in a while, she visited the young she-cat with a little scrap of food, and she tore off a limb. Another petal.

Stormray had told her that morality was an illusion, and she was to do whatever she pleased. But deep down, she wanted to be the opposite of morality. Fate had been cruel to her, yet kind to so many others. Innocence brought foolishness, and intelligence brought manipulation. Happiness something nobody truly deserved. The world would only be right if every living thing experienced maximum pain, from the moment they were born. 

So she went off, tearing apart random cats. Assuring their deaths were as painful as possible, so the acts could truly be the opposite of morality. For some, she decided to inflict fates worse than death. She kept them in their own chambers, to abuse and torture them until they died too.

If she really did kill Stormray, despite her believing it may have been the better thing to do, she preferred to carry on another version of their unique philosophy in the fiercest way possible. She preserved the body parts of all her victims, she turned them into food. She shared the meals with her daughter as she slowly dismantled her as well.

Occasionally, she wondered if trying to be a hero was better. She was completely able to turn around, so why couldn't she? However, she always found herself laughing at that idea. To do any kind act, no matter how minor, was to fail her beliefs. 

Then, one day, her daughter died. By then, there wasn't much left of her. 

Upon her realization, she found herself smiling.

Somehow, it made her realize the only way to purify the world was to simply to start her own conquest and kill any cat she could find. No, any living thing. She'd stay with this group, and with the Clans and massacre them all once they no longer were useful to her desires. 

Her desires.

Her desires.

The fields were bathed in crimson, each body scattered in small spots of blood along the curves of the hills. The hills far too obsessed with order, laying down and letting themselves be marred with blood. Perhaps that was what was wrong with the universe. It was nothing but an endless machine, chanting harmony. 

There were a hundred lives lost tonight, yet in the grand scale of what was real it was simply another natural sorrow. Then, she looked up and beheld the sinking sun. It bathed the world in scarlet, such a majesty and it simply gave it's light to the remains of these things too weak to survive. Even though all this was insignificant, another massacre in the west, it was the destruction that brought out the full beauty of this crimson evening.

"Venusdawn, we...we helped you kill all these people, what is our reward?" 

Venusdawn smiled. Deep down inside her, there was Silentdawn, shocked about being referred to by her new name.

She turned to look at the tom. He was the youngest of the accomplices, just eight moons old. Eight moons old, and aiding a massacre. Such a lovely failure in life. Now he was ready to be executed on that spot.

"You were a useful thing," she replied. "But even though you helped get rid of some things ruining the world, you yourself still ruined it a little with your birth. It's for that reason I must end your life now, dear." The young tom suddenly froze as her claws unsheathed.

"H-Huh?" he stammered, before she swiftly slit his throat.

He staggered to one side, staring at his blood gushing to the ground for a moment as if he was processing the fact he was on the verge of death. Then, he seemingly turned to gaze at her, yet it may have simply been the life in his eyes fading as he dropped dead to the ground.

Venusdawn turned and instantly noticed the wave of panic falling over the rest of the group. She kept her claws unsheathed, and without hesitation quickly leapt forth to subdue the others. The evening was pierced by screams of regret as she viciously struck them down, dancing and fighting with the cowards who were simply facing what had always been meant for them.

And once she was finished, she stood still, marred only with another few bloodstains. Venusdawn turned to gaze upon those hills again. Everything in this world happened for a reason, and so many parts of it were simply natural harmony. Plants grew when it rained. The rivers changed through erosion. It was all just a boring system, as if the universe was obsessed with rules. And then there was harmony of fate, giving so many lovely lives yet causing so much pain.

I know now. I will not purify anything. I am defiling the world, defiling everything so that it can be in it's true, ideal state of agony and chaos. Really, it's not the world I wish to defile.

It's reality that must be torn apart.

//

A/N 

Anyway if there are any typos or anything in this, I am so sorry! I am in a bit of a rush so I probably didn't proofread it well. I don't really know what to write in these author's notes, and my mood is fine so I must say I am really hungry and I'm going to buy Asian food for dinner.