Legacy: Timeless (Book 2)

Chapter 26: Revolving Darkness

Chapter 26: Revolving Darkness

Scorch blinked her eyes, it made no difference. Her surroundings were cloaked in raven black as she lay wide-awake in her nest with the sounds of heavy breathing and soft groans filling the thickly cold air around her.

The night after the deadly fight was full of doubt and darkness. Scorch's own wounds were numb and her soul was silent. She wasn't thinking as she stared at the air, void of light. That's how she felt, no light touched her and the scariest part was that she was okay with that.

Light only makes the darkness darker... She convulsed as the image of Nightwing's twisted face suddenly appeared in front of her eyes. She shrank away from nothing and was left trembling as the memory faded. Scorch felt as if Nightwing had fractured her; and now it was a count-down to when she would break.

Rubbish! You'll overcome this like always, you're stronger than that psycho! Just give it time... But that didn't help for the here and now, she wondered if she would even get any sleep that night.

She rolled over, still trembling from the nightmare in her mind. She looked at Boulderpaw who slept next to her; a tight ball of gray fur. I'll let him sleep, she thought, slightly calmed by the reassurance of his presence. She longed to talk things out with him, since he was the only one she felt she could share her fears with.

But these days we're so busy, we hardly have time for greetings. Her spirit was now tainted by sadness as she got up, carefully creeping out of the den full of sleeping wounded warriors. The air was cold and the light was none, it was probably cloudy.

She crept out of the camp, not being seen by the sleeping sentry who although had not participated in the battle, was exhausted from all the other work that had been left to be done by the few able-bodied cats. Scorch paused only long enough to look back and see Flickertail in the clearing doing a solo, silent vigil.

The other cats had been too exhausted and wounded to keep vigil, so Flickertail alone sent the spirit of his dead sister to her place among the stars. Scorch wondered if she could see Sweetberry's memory, but fear had too strong of a numbing sensation on her and she couldn't find any mirages in her state.

She exited the camp, wading through the marsh with silent slowness as her legs grew painful and then numb. But she was out of it and walking nowhere before long. She couldn't stand the stifling stillness of the pines and headed toward the lake, almost crying when she couldn't hear the laughing lap of waves on the shore.

She knew that ice must have formed on the edges of the lake, but she felt as if the lake had betrayed her by refusing her its comfort. She gave up, just for a moment, but she gave up and collapsed on the shore that was drenched in darkness.

Why did I lose everything all at once? But... what did I lose? She blankly realized that she didn't even know what she'd lost; she still had her two closest friends, Painted and company were alive, the cats weren't anywhere close to giving up, so what had she lost?

She didn't know, and it clawed at her as she clawed at the stones on the shore until her claws ached and her paws were scratched up as the smell of blood penetrated the burning chill of the night.

Scorch was alone and she stared at her paws and dwelled on that loneliness in her soul as she cried for that something that she'd lost. Then she felt something, nothing much, just a light caress on her ear; cold and soft but comforting. She looked around, her eyes not spotting anything as she searched.

Was it a mirage? But she didn't feel the usual sensation that came from a mirage, and the wind rushed around her cold and real. She wasn't dreaming, she felt it again. But she wasn't scared, it was a relief; even if it was tiny, the relief to not be all alone.