sʜᴇʟʟ sʜᴏᴄᴋ [warrior cat fanfiction]

chapter three.

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❝ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ❞

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All night, Larkthroat's vision swam with his family's faces. Every single one of them, gone. His throat tightened as their faces became sharper. Gone. Their faces wavered slightly. Gone forever. His vision blurred, and suddenly they were gone, even from his head. The grief that welled up from his insides threatened to overwhelm him.

He had tried not to dwell on it. He had loved them dearly and forced himself not to think of how things would have been if they hadn't all died at the claws of the enemy.

Sometimes the pain was so great that he couldn't bear to get out of his nest in the morning. Nobody forced him to. They didn't care. Some of them lost family members, but none of them would ever experience the grief he had felt. They were privileged, beyond what they think of themselves, and they thought him useless and crazy.

Larkthroat squeezed his eyes shut and slid out his claws, feeling the tug of the moss nest as they clung to the weaponry that served as a constant reminder of what he lost. Of what he made others lose. The guilt that accompanied him was unbearable. It clawed at his insides, turning them to slush. Did other cats suffer like him? All he felt was coldness inside. The grief and guilt that haunted him every day.

Explaining grief to someone who has never experienced grief cannot be done justice. One cannot truly empathize with a grieving mother until they lose one of their own dear children. Everybody experiences grief in a different way, but grief is something that cannot be truly faked.

Larkthroat opened his eyes, and despite the natural night vision that cats were gifted, he could see nothing in the darkness of midnight. Cats all around him snored softly in their nests, content with their lives.

After all, the war was over, Larkthroat reminded himself bitterly. Over because the loss both sides have experienced caught up to them. As far as it goes, a war could spring up again in a few seasons when cats are plentiful once again. Then more lives would be wasted. His heart throbbed. When would the massacre stop? Would the war last seasons into the future, eating away at the Clans until all that's left is a few straggling rogues?

The tomcat forced his mind away from the war. It hovered in his subconscious, ready to burst through the moment he let his guard down. He instead thought of Juniperhiss. Not much better of a thing to think about, he told himself wryly.

He felt a small trace of guilt for the way he had talked to her, but something overrode that and made him angrier. She was acting like she had a right to know about his life. She had no idea what he was going through. She only lost a father in the war.