Tagging @Meadowpaw
CW: Graphic mentions of cat death, violence, imagery of bugs, and panic attacks.
Shaky, panicked breathing echoed through the empty medicine den. The dirt below Hollowmumble's paws was littered in claw marks, a desperate attempt to ground herself as she gasped for air. Like a shadow, she was hunched over in the farthest, darkest corner of the den, as far from the entrance as possible.
The walls spun around her like her whirring, panicked thoughts. The eyes of everyone stuck to her pelt like bugs, crawling through her fur and biting her, impossible to escape no matter how much she tried. Blood spilled across the stones, cats screaming and wailing in grief and rage and triumph. Her teeth clinched together painfully. A throat ripped from a body, mouth bloody and sharp. Sobbing echoed in her ears, almost as if those cats were here next to her.
Hollowmumble shook her head. Molewhisker's bloody, battered and crushed body. The scent of Skyclan on it. The stunned looks. The stares at Dustystar and Goldenroar, cats already preparing to see their loved ones lying in the cold dirt, staining it red. Cloverpaw. Cloverbloom. Oh, Clover...
Her ears pressed back against her head painfully, and she leaned down to lay her head on the ground. Her paws moved to cover her face. Clover's small body painted red, wounds criss crossing her skin, eyes dull and lifeless. The all consuming, unstoppable gorge, taking her away, falling falling falling until the water consumes her...
Hollowmumble couldn't do a thing. It was set in fate. Something bad would happen. Some awful would happen. Her friends would come back horribly injured, they don't have the herbs for this, they'll get infected, they'll die, if they even come back at all. She can't do a single thing. She tried and nobody listened to her.
Why was she even here? Dustystar clearly didn't want her here, the apprentices, the silent judgement from her clanma- from the clan cats. Weaselchirp and Meadowpaw telling her that she was doing this Wrong. But what other way was there? Dustystar wouldn't listen to anything else. She wouldn't see that the violence will only make it worse, stupid and naive that she was.
She was young. Hollowmumble forgets sometimes, but the cat who had taken leadership upon herself was barely two winters old. She was caught up in the violence of the wildcats, thinking it was the only solution. Why did she even try to say anything if it was all useless in the end? All it got her was rejection.
Oh how she misses the barn, and her people before that... Oh how life was so much simpler. She longs to have it back. The easy comradarie, not stained by blood or border feuds or Starclan or leadership. Every cat was equal. Every cat was welcome, even her. Even useless cats like her who couldn't hunt for shit when Merrystalk found her, who still can't fight even if her life depended on it...
She isn't built for this world. The world that the wild cats live in. Oh how she wishes to just grab Clover and leave. Just run together, far off somewhere, find some nice people to take them in and live a quiet life in solitude. The others, Meadowpaw, Merrystalk... they would never come along. They're too engrained in the clan. They would stay to their dying breaths...
...Hollowmumble doesn't know if she can do that, for them. Not anymore.
Shaky, panicked breathing echoed through the empty medicine den. The dirt below Hollowmumble's paws was littered in claw marks, a desperate attempt to ground herself as she gasped for air. Like a shadow, she was hunched over in the farthest, darkest corner of the den, as far from the entrance as possible.
The walls spun around her like her whirring, panicked thoughts. The eyes of everyone stuck to her pelt like bugs, crawling through her fur and biting her, impossible to escape no matter how much she tried. Blood spilled across the stones, cats screaming and wailing in grief and rage and triumph. Her teeth clinched together painfully. A throat ripped from a body, mouth bloody and sharp. Sobbing echoed in her ears, almost as if those cats were here next to her.
Hollowmumble shook her head. Molewhisker's bloody, battered and crushed body. The scent of Skyclan on it. The stunned looks. The stares at Dustystar and Goldenroar, cats already preparing to see their loved ones lying in the cold dirt, staining it red. Cloverpaw. Cloverbloom. Oh, Clover...
Her ears pressed back against her head painfully, and she leaned down to lay her head on the ground. Her paws moved to cover her face. Clover's small body painted red, wounds criss crossing her skin, eyes dull and lifeless. The all consuming, unstoppable gorge, taking her away, falling falling falling until the water consumes her...
Hollowmumble couldn't do a thing. It was set in fate. Something bad would happen. Some awful would happen. Her friends would come back horribly injured, they don't have the herbs for this, they'll get infected, they'll die, if they even come back at all. She can't do a single thing. She tried and nobody listened to her.
Why was she even here? Dustystar clearly didn't want her here, the apprentices, the silent judgement from her clanma- from the clan cats. Weaselchirp and Meadowpaw telling her that she was doing this Wrong. But what other way was there? Dustystar wouldn't listen to anything else. She wouldn't see that the violence will only make it worse, stupid and naive that she was.
She was young. Hollowmumble forgets sometimes, but the cat who had taken leadership upon herself was barely two winters old. She was caught up in the violence of the wildcats, thinking it was the only solution. Why did she even try to say anything if it was all useless in the end? All it got her was rejection.
Oh how she misses the barn, and her people before that... Oh how life was so much simpler. She longs to have it back. The easy comradarie, not stained by blood or border feuds or Starclan or leadership. Every cat was equal. Every cat was welcome, even her. Even useless cats like her who couldn't hunt for shit when Merrystalk found her, who still can't fight even if her life depended on it...
She isn't built for this world. The world that the wild cats live in. Oh how she wishes to just grab Clover and leave. Just run together, far off somewhere, find some nice people to take them in and live a quiet life in solitude. The others, Meadowpaw, Merrystalk... they would never come along. They're too engrained in the clan. They would stay to their dying breaths...
...Hollowmumble doesn't know if she can do that, for them. Not anymore.
