#goblinsnap

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

Dark Forest Resident: Gremlinfrost & Goblinsmack

Gremlinsnap

Aliases / Nicknames: The Skin Hunters, The Skinned Echoes, Annoyance, Monster, Skykit

Gender: tom

Sexuality: pansexual

Family: Swallowflight (mother), unnamed father, stillborn littermates, Mistheart (older sister), Dewkit (nephew)

Other Relations: Goblinsnap (unknown exact relationship, possibly mates)

Clan: Pineclan, rogue

Rank: rogue

Characteristics: kills for the pleasure of experimenting with different methods of murder, sadistic, collected, morbidly curious

Number of Victims: 23

Number of Murders: 23

Murder Method: disembowlment, gauging eyes, luring into traps, impaling, skinning, hanging, drowning, dropping kits from pine trees, neck breaking, biting

Known Victims: Elderquill, Vixenneedle, Goblinsnap, Dewkit, several unnamed rogues, kittypets, and Clan cats

Victim Profile: rogues who hurt others, kittypets who abandon their kits, mentors who abuse their apprentices

Cause of Death: blunt force trauma, impaled through brain, leg skinned

Cautionary Tale: Cover your ears at night, for if you hear the crying echoes of the skinned cats, you may find yourself to be the next target

Story:

Skykit‘s mom died the day he was born. Maybe it would have been better if she had died giving birth, but instead Swallowflight had gone out for a walk while already weak and was killed by a loner.   

Skykit was fascinated by the body, and the skin torn off of half her face. How would that feel?  His older sister shooed him away, not letting him see his mother after she was dragged into camp. Mistheart was rough, and harsh, and believed it was his fault. 

After all, he and his dead littermates were why their mom was already weak. If you asked Quietkit, Swallowflight was reckless and it was her own fault. Skykit was fascinated too by the mean prankster, and despite Mistheart trying to keep him away from the strange older kit, they became best friends.   

Quietkit was basically an orphan, with his parents leaving him in the nursery for another queen to take care of. Both of them probably would have died if not for Mistheart, but in no way was she their mother.   

When Dewkit was born, Quietkit and Skykit were forced to sleep in the dirt at the edge of the nursery so that their aggressive behaviour didn’t hurt her. On one of the very few times Skykit was left with Dewkit, he was watching over the little kit when Quietkit brought in a mouse to fight over. After tearing Quietkit’s ear, he leapt over to the prey and mistakenly sunk his claws into Dewkit, her ribs crushed and lungs pulled out by his claws.   

Aliases / Nicknames: The Skin Hunters, The Skinned Echoes, Heathen, Mistake, Quietkit

Gender: tom

Sexuality: bisexual

Family: unnamed mother, unnamed father, Mistheart (guardian, wet nurse)

Other Relations: Gremlinfrost (unknown exact relationship, possibly mates)

Clan: Pineclan, rogue

Rank: rogue

Characteristics: kills for the pleasure of hunting other cats, sadistic, selfish, arrogant

Number of Victims: 24

Number of Murders: 24

Murder Method: disembowlment, luring into traps, skinning, hanging

Known Victims: Elderquill, Vixenneedle, Gremlinfrost, Dewkit, several unnamed rogues, kittypets, and Clan cats

Victim Profile: rogues who hurt others, kittypets who abandon their kits, mentors who abuse their apprentices

Cause of Death: blunt force trauma, impaled through brain, paw skinned, eye torn out, broken neck

Cautionary Tale: Cover your ears at night, for if you hear the crying echoes of the skinned cats, you may find yourself to be the next target

Story:   

Quietkit was the result of an accident, and when he was told as much he made it his mission to make as many “accidents” befall the Clan as possible.   

His parents left him in the nursery to be tossed between the other queens, none of them wanting the bitter and snarky kit. He found a friend in a kit born not long after him, Skykit, and that’s where their story really began.   

More and more pranks turned violent, resulting in Quietkit’s name being changed to Goblinkit just before his apprenticeship. With his partner in crime, they ran away to haunt the forest. He decided they should become warriors not even a moon after “training” together, and they named each other. But, overall, they were still barely six moons. 

They spent a lot of time in the abandoned buildings at the edge of Twolegplace, and were attacked by many rogues and kittypets, one of them assaulting Goblinfrost soviciously that he tore his tail in half. This led to the two deciding to kill the cats around them who were cruel. 

Rogues who hurt others. 

Kittypets who abandoned their kittens. 

Mentors who abused their apprentices.   

They were very violent and tortured many, many of these cruel cats.   Throughout the Clans, the warnings spread that if you heard the haunting echoes of skinned cats, they would play games with your life. And that they did: setting up traps, making deaths as slow and sickening as possible, making it a competition.   

When the deep-rooted, sadistically intimate rivalry they’d created wasn’t satisfied by hunting stray cats, the pair decided to start testing those attacks on each other.  

It started as small hunts, slowly getting more severe. On the last hunt, it resulted in both of their deaths. 

Goblinsnap found a trap one night, a long silver wire foxtrap, and he led Gremlinfrost into it after Gremlinfrost pulled his eye from the socket. He skinned Gremlinfrost’s leg before tying the fox tail around his leg to slow the bleeding.  

They continued the hunt, with Goblinsnap’s paw skinned and Gremlinfrost’s leg skinned. When Goblinfrost’s neck was broken, the skin hanging off in stringy chunks, he attempted to climb up the tree to where Gremlinfrost was.   Gremlinfrost, having pulled a pine branch from the tree, jumped down and slammed into him which sent them both falling. They were found washed up on shore, a branch impaled through both of their skulls.   

Their clanmates grieved for the loss of two small kits, and never knew of the short life they had lived after leaving the Clan.  

Additional information:  

 --Submission by @wills-woodland-warriors​

--Read their short story here: https://wills-woodland-warriors.tumblr.com/post/693246960525787136/short-story-skinned-echos-pt1-foxtails

--They were 8 months old at death.

--Kids are just like that.

[wills-woodland-warriors]

Short story; Skinned Echos pt1: Foxtails

Characters: GremlinFrost/SkyKit and GoblinSnap/QuietKit

Warnings: graphic gore, blood, death, vaguely implied cannibalism if you squint?, skinning  

See bottom for more notes

SkyKit blinked, pawing at the small lump of fluff. The kit was so small, and with it’s fuzzy grey fur and pink nose making it look more like something out of the prey pile rather then a kitten.

“It’s not like I’m going to hurt it,” He snapped at his older sister, who glared down at him before stepping out of the den for a moment.

QuietKit pranced in beside him, a mouse hanging in his jaw by a split and mangled tail.

“Wanna fight for it?” QuietKit dropped the mouse at his paws, head tilted slightly to the side.

He shrugged, rising to his feet to pounce on QuietKit. The two kits rolled, kicking at eachothers exposed bellies and biting at their ears.

SkyKit twisted until he was on top of QuietKit, and wasted no time before he bit down on his ear, teeth sliding all the way through and ripping it.

He leapt off of QuietKit as he cried, and he jumped over to the plump mouse and sunk his claws into it. It squirmed before stilling, a pitiful squeak filling the nursery.

SkyKit swallowed, looking down at his paws. His claws sunk deep into the small kit’s chest, which was collapsed. He pulled his claws out in a panic, the skin hooked on them as he pulled and pulled until he was free.

MistHeart’s anguished cries were heard all night. The two kits were tossed against the walls, starved for the next few days. After all, why should they have the food that could have gone to little DewKit?

The two kits curled up together in the small stump they had been left to sleep in, just outside the warmth of camp.

The cold nipped at their fur and shivers racked their bodies all night. They pressed as close against each other as possible, desperate for some kind of warmth.

. . .

He pulled SkyKit away from the fighting, tugging on his ear until he was following.  

“Why are they always fighting?” SkyKit muttered bitterly, muffled by the small spiky twigs in his mouth.

“Because we’re too awesome for them,” QuietKit imitated one of the prissy apprentice’s voices, sending the two into hushed laughs as they snuck around to the elders den.

Weaving the rose stems in was easy, just as easy as bitter berries stuffed in prey or positioning a dead snake from the prey pile into the warriors den to scare them.

. . .

GoblinKit and GremlinKit stared up at the leader, pelts prickled with unease. They were six moons, they should be apprentices! Not having their name changed by a former Kittypet!

The next night the two were leaping over fallen branches, their pelts gleaming in the moonlight.

They could do whatever they wanted now.

. . .

Training themselves was difficult, and if the fighting sessions became more and more frequent, more brutal, then who would notice?

GoblinPaw found it interesting how the skin tore, how they could sniff eachother out and hide and hunt.

Hunting small, useless prey wasn’t enough for him. He wanted more, and so did GremlinPaw.

. . .

Tails tore from their bodies, ears mangled into stumps and skin hanging from split tissue became simultaneous to shadowy nights and glistening stars.

Mama would have said GremlinPaw would go to the dark forest for this. But if starclan was where mama was, then why not have some fun down in the shadows?

After all, the dark forest would be a lovely place to hunt.

. . .

“There’s nothing wrong with a little.. hunting, is there?“ GoblinSnap stepped close to the smaller cat, his muzzle inches away from GremlinFrost’s ear.

“You should go back to bed before you get hurt,” GremlinFrost laughed cooly, unsheathed claws coming to rest on GoblinSnap’s paw.

GoblinSnap grinned, retching his paw away from GremlinFrost’s claws. He stepped away, eyes narrowed at the way Gremlin’s eyes lit up at the sight of the blood.

“Now, now, there’s definitely something wrong with that. If you want to go hide amongst the moss feel free-“

GremlinFrost bit down on the back of his neck, the tom finally shutting up as he pushed him back against the log.

“Ten minutes. Good luck.” Gremlin dug his claws into his chest, releasing the scruff of his neck.

. . .

GoblinSnap dug his claws into the dirt as he ran, panting heavily as he tried to remember the path.

His eye hung limply on his cheek, pulled completely out of the socket and hanging by a thread of flesh.

He leapt through a tangle of blackberries, the thorns pulling at his shredded pelt. He heard GremlinFrost on his tail, slinking through the thorny branches after him.

GoblinSnap twisted on his paws at the sight of the silver wire, turning just in time to watch GremlinFrost slide right into the fox trap, the wire wrapping around his neck and legs, cutting and pulling at the flesh until he could see bone.

GremlinFrost yowled out in pain, scrambling blindly to free himself as it cut into his pelt.

GoblinSnap pressed his claws against GremlinFrost’s caught leg, scraping against the bone and pulling the skin off of it.

Once the leg was thoroughly skinned, he gleefully brushed the yellowing leaves away from the wire, following it until he could pull the wooden stake out of the ground.

GremlinFrost lay beneath his paws, chest heaving as GoblinSnap untangled him from the trap, sliding in beside the injured tom to support his weight.

. . .

QuietKit tossed the fox tail to the smaller kit, laughing as SkyKit flinched away from it.

. . .

The fox tail wrapped around GremlinFrost’s skinned leg, the dull, dusty orange fur stained crimson with his blood.

GoblinSnap pulled the knot tight, cutting off circulation just above GremlinFrost’s leg.

One last hunt. One last seek.

. . .

GremlinFrost staggered through the branches, desperately trying not to slide as the bark dug into his bleeding leg with every step, the limb filled with thorns and wrapped in the foxtail, so stained and soggy that it almost matched his fur.

He leapt onto another branch, listening to GoblinSnap taunt behind him, his meows carried away by the wind and leaving only the haunting echo.

GoblinSnap was cocky. Arrogant. Selfish.

GremlinFrost understood his disadvantages. He couldn’t move very fast, he left a blood trail, and he was in a tree.

Except the pine branches didn’t have to be a disadvantage, did they?

With bleeding gums, he pulled off a sharp branch and dragged it across his skinned leg.

He let out a wail of pain, and looked down through the branches to see GoblinSnap grinning wildly at him from the bottom branches as he climbed.

GoblinSnap’s head hung limply, the skin over his throat ripped out and hanging against his chest, staining the remainders of glistening milk-white fur red.

GremlinFrost forced himself into a crouch, the stick clutched in his jaws, he stepped over the edge and barrelled into GoblinSnap, cries of pain echoing through the forest as the branches snapped and they skidded in the dirt.

. . .

GoblinSnap and GremlinFrost were found washed up in the river. A mangled branch passed through their eye sockets, impaled in each of their heads.

Pale pink tissue leaked out of the skulls. GoblinSnap’s neck hung completely broken against his chest, the flesh ripped off of his neck and leaving the vertebrae along his spine exposed.

Pus clings to cracked paw pads and maggots wiggled and dug around in GremlinFrost’s leg, minnows sliding through the water as they ripped off small chunks of flesh.

. . .

The clan grieved for the loss of two clanmates that night. QuietKit and SkyKit’s bodies drifted down the river, eternally entwined.

Notes

I’d absolutely love to hear peoples interpretations and/or thoughts for these characters!

I’ll soon have their dark forest mini bios added onto @residents-of-the-darkforest , so I’ll link that when it’s posted.

I’ll also have some picrews and a picrew I’m drawing over to add the gore-y wounds

I was listening to “you can’t hide by CK9C” so I guess you could say that’s their theme song?

Word count: 1,266

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

@wills-woodland-warriors Foxflake’s guts are still partially attached to her, so Gremlin and Goblin would have a hell of a time taking them. However! Her liver is able to be grabbed if you move the rest of the organs. I feel like they’d be able to snatch that up quite easily(if they can catch her without Shiverrose nearby

Shiverrose is always on. Guard

[residents-of-the-darkforest]

GoblinSnap didn’t have a family, or caregiver or anyone. It’s easy to write him out of the story, so I think he probably faded pretty quickly. And no one but Gremlin would notice. GremlinFrost ended up with nieces and nephews to remember him by, and now he’s alone in the forest because the two never tried to connect with anyone - @wills-woodland-warriors

oh okay so you're trying to kill me, that's what's happening

[wills-woodland-warriors]

GoblinSnap and GremlimFrost!

read more:

A warrior cat disaster — Short story; Skinned Echos pt1: Foxtails