#flashcry story

[residences-of-the-darkforest]

The Sward -- part 2: Eyes

Previous

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The group was discouraged when no one seemed to know of a way out of the barren land–or even if there was a place out at all. But the fact that they were now surrounded by other cats sparked hope that none of them had held for a long time.

When no one could answer her question, Sandhowl went on. “I’m clearly dead.” She spared a glance at the foam curling over her bottom lip. “Would I be wrong to assume that this is the Dark Forest?”

Flashcry sighed, letting his shoulders fall. He tried not to think about the deep scars carved into his belly and legs, or how they had been bleeding a trail behind him for as long as he had been there. Which was…Stars, he had no idea how much time had passed. But one thing was for certain: he was well and truly dead.

“That is where we appear to be,” he muttered. “Thought it’d be a bit more of a forest.”

Raisel opened his jaws. “Well, there’s a considerable lack of a forest,” he commented, words overlapping with Flashcry’s observation, though the other tom didn’t seem to mind the interruption. “I should bring that up with someone when we get out of here.” He tilted his head, licking his bloodied paw. “Eh, it’s better than StarClan. I could do without the sand though, but sacrifices have to be made, I assume.” 

He plopped down in front of the white cat, rolling onto his back with his paws in the air, the drying wet-red sand falling off of them in clumps. What a day….or was it a week?

When Sandhowl proposed the question, Bouncefur had flinched with such intensity, it almost had them leaping off of the ground. They blinked hard for several heartbeats, unable to believe the possibility. It was only worse that every other cat seemed to agree that that…place...was really where they were. 

“The Dark Forest?” they gasped, finally able to speak. “But I didn’t do anything wrong!” Their  tail swished in a panic. “This has to be a mistake. A bad dream, right?....Though it’d be an awful long dream….” They eventually sank down on the rough gravel, putting their chin on their paws as they thought. Eventually, the ginger cat looked up with a furrow of their brow. “Why are you fellows here then? I thought we were ‘sposta wander around the Dark Forest alone forever or somethin’ like that.”

Laureldawn carefully resisted the urge to smack the ginger she-cat. “I did what I had to do,” she muttered, almost a growl.

Bouncefur was completely oblivious to the she-cat’s urge, and shook their head. “I mean like, why are we all together if we’re ‘sposta be wandering alone ‘n stuff.” They rested their head back down, humming in thought. “Unless this really is just a really, really long dream and I’m gonna wake back up to see my family again. I mean, one time I had a really long dream where I was a kit again and grew up to be an elder all in one dream! It felt really real too.”

Sandhowl couldn’t stop herself from staring at the ginger cat, a slithering horror crawling up her skin. The cat’s words, their mannerisms, it was reminiscent of someone she had known in life–someone she would rather forget, but who had haunted her dreams since the beginning. She considered their words. Maybe she really was trapped in a dream. Or a nightmare, surrounded by cats that resembled her victims but different enough to give her false hope.

She pushed the thoughts and memories away and took in the cats around her. Did it really matter all that much if they weren’t real? What harm does indulging do? Then, as she looked, she noticed something strange in their eyes.

“Are my eyes pink like yours?”

“‘Pink’?” Bouncefur repeated, tilting their head in response to the rather unexpected question. They stretched their neck toward the sandy she-cat to get a better look, not noticing as Sandhowl leaned away from her. “Uuuuuuuh, yeah, sorta.”  They pulled their neck back. “Wonder what that means…” The ginger cat hummed in thought again, before springing up, opening their mouth to speak before swiftly closing it again. The thought had been lost.

Meanwhile, Raisel tilted his head to the side, examining the cats around him. Their eyes were varying shades of pinks. “I’m assuming it’s unlikely we all got hit in the face with a branch, so it has to mean something. There’s definitely something more to this place,” he went on, “when I was trai…” he trailed off, correcting himself. “...listening to the stories, there were always trees and monsters. So how do we find them?”

“‘Monsters’?” Sandhowl repeated, alarmed. Were there Thunderpaths here, and she didn’t know it? Or…she shivered…did those great beasts travel wherever they wanted here, round black paws crushing anything in their path. 

Raisel nodded before realizing most of these cats around him were most likely from Clans. Well, that’s awkward. “Er, no…well, maybe? I actually don’t know if those kinds would be here. Do you think Twolegs go to the Dark Forest?” He glanced behind him, now picturing hoards of Twolegs grabbing at them with their bony, furless long paws. He shivered before continuing. “The stories my group would tell were more so of cats so thin, they were just skeletons, wandering the forest and ready to leap at you. They were said to be so old that your paws would crunch through their bones, but that they’d swarm in hoards, kinda like ghosts. And they were here to torment the cats sent to the Dark Forest.”

Fearful murmuring broke out among the group.

Laureldawn sighed a very heavy sigh, tired of these guessing games and kit-tales. “The pink means murderer," she told them all.

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There are more responses beyond this seen on Prompt 4, but I figured this was a good place to pause for the story.

Characeters:

Flashcry belongs to @indigo-flightly-falls

Laureldawn belongs to @ambitiousauthor

Raisel belongs to @wills-woodland-warriors

Bouncefur belongs to @elementaldeityoffood

Sandhowl (me)

[residences-of-the-darkforest]

The Sward -- Part 1: The Meeting

The land was a maze, nothing like any of the inhabitants wandering it had seen or experienced before. Grey-ish sand stretched endlessly in all directions. There was no grass to sooth paw pads and no moss to make beddings, only sandy and grey rocks that lay clustered or spread in random patterns on the ground. There was no shelter either. The only trees present were long and thin blackened trunks with no branches or leaves, yet they creaked as if they had thousands of outstretched limbs caught in a storm.

Despite the horizon being clear of obstacles, no cat could see the way out. It was only the trees, the sand, and the rocks. 

Some of them had freshly arrived, others had been wandering for moons, even possibly years. In all that time, none of them had seen another cat’s face, only glimpses of shadows too far away to notice or too quick to disappear for anyone to realize what it was that they had seen–or to believe that it had been real.

But one day, five lost souls converged in the direction of the largest spindly tree, either hoping to climb it and spot a way out, to give themself a goal to work towards, or by utter luck, and the lone cats would not meet one face for the first time in a long one, but four.

First it was glimpses that they, at this point, began to tell themselves were simple tricks of the mind or land. But the closer they grew, the more solid those figures became.

~~~~

Flashcry stumbled through the broken and rotted trees, finally having seen the shadow of another cat. He hardly dared to hope that this one is real, after so long of no interaction. But it is real this time, and his unsteady paws carry him in a trance to see exactly who he's meeting. Are they hostile? Are they dangerous? He can hardly bring himself to care, so long as he can see another face.

~

Raisel shook his head, once, twice, and a third time. and yet the outline of a cat was still there. Heart pounding, he started running towards the shape.The sand and sharp gravel beneath him cut into his paws, and he dodged around the sharp scraggly “trees” growing out of the ground. The cat was still there–not a trick, not yet–and he ran as fast as he could, never taking his eyes off of the figure, too afraid that it would disappear the moment he looked away. Their back was facing him, and Raisel skidded to a stop. The sand beneath him and momentum he’d been building, however, did not help him and before he knew it he barrelled into the cat, slamming into them and knocking both of them to the ground with a hiss.

~

Meanwhile, Bouncefur, a ginger cat, had stopped dead in their tracks as they squinted at a familiar looking shape. “Oh StarClan, oh StarClan, oh StarClan,” they breathed repeatedly, unable to do or think of anything else for several more heartbeats. 

Another cat. A real one this time. 

They bounded over quickly, skidding to a stop as they noticed a few more shapes, one of which had barreled into the original shape. Oh crap, maybe they were in over their head. Was this a gang? Were there gangs in this place? The ginger tabby was hesitant, but started sneaking closer to see.

~

Sandhowl flicked her ears. Was that a startled yowl she heard in the distance? Beyond that, voices? She doubted it was anything other than her mind, or the land playing tricks on her, or even hope driving her to hallucinate, but what was there to lose in investigating? Taking a breath, she padded in the direction she was sure the noise had come from.

~

To say that Flashcry was startled was beyond an understatement. He had not so much as glimpsed the hair of another cat in as long as he had been in this awful place, and in one instance a body had barreled into him, sending him to the ground with the air run out of him. He hissed against the weight of the body above him and it hissed as well, clearly pained, before scrambling back. 

Flashcry stared, eyes wide, at the ‘attacker,’ then back at the figure that had held his attention. It moved closer now, near enough for him to see that it was a black cat with light blue eyes. 

The black cat looked at the both of them, clearly just as surprised to see another living creature, then her gaze flicked up, behind either tom. 

Flashcry followed it, and was surprised even further to see yet another cat staring at them. Their ginger fur was lifted slightly, and their eyes seemed wary and uncertain. 

The black cat, Laureldawn, plopped down and sighed, rolling her eyes at the newcomer’s alarm. “Keep your fur on. I won’t kill you. The others might, but I probably won’t.”

Flashcry’s ears pricked at the sound of another voice. For a few heartbeats, he said nothing, only drank in it like it was cold water in the middle of a drought.

Then his attention shifted to the fluffy ginger cat that seemed to tense up at any interaction. Maybe they were just as unfamiliar with the sound and sight of other cats as he was. Curious, he padded up to them, trying his best to seem nonthreatening. "What's your name?" He asked, titling his head and ignoring how strange it was to hear himself speak.

Bouncefire opened their mouth, dry from a lack of use, to respond, but cut themself off when yet another cat, pale as the ground, neared the group cautiously.

“Well,” they said, eyes blinking, “this is unexpected. I don’t suppose any of you know the way out of here?”

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Sometimes interactions aren't too-too clear, but I think+hope I did well in writing it down as a story.

To make it clear:

Flashcry saw Laureldawn and his attention was on her, and that's why his back was to Raisel.

Raisel saw Flashcry first and ran to him, and their moment of impact was witnessed by both Laureldawn and Bouncefire (who I'm guessing saw Flashcry first as well, given that he is noted to be the 'original shape'), and heard by Sandhowl.

Let me know if you think anything should be different!

--

Characeters:

Flashcry belongs to @indigo-flightly-falls

Laureldawn belongs to @ambitiousauthor

Raisel belongs to @wills-woodland-warriors

Bouncefur belongs to @elementaldeityoffood

Sandhowl (me)