𝘼 𝙃𝘼𝙒𝙆'𝙎 𝙍𝙀𝙏𝙍𝙄𝘽𝙐𝙏𝙄𝙊𝙉, warriors

──── 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐥𝐨𝐠𝐮𝐞.

THE ETERNAL SHADOWS stretched endlessly in all directions, the air filled with a hollow silence that seemed not even to breathe. Darkness lurked beneath the trees that rotted for indefinite time, which still rotted with no sign that urged them to stop.

     This was a dead world, a wasteland.

     And yet, the old cat had called it home for seasons, generations, even.

     Laid upon a nest of rotting moss that was just too damp for her liking, sheltered by a den of broken twigs on their last breaths, the cat listened. She watched from the shadows as nothingness continued to creep by. How long had she been here? Days and moons and seasons. She was so faded now — a mere whisper in the wind. No one remembered her anymore, and why would they?

     This land was her home, as promised by the stars. As desolate and dark as it was, she remembered little else.

     The sunlight against her fur, the taste of warm prey in her mouth, the soft caress of the breeze, it was all a faded memory.

     She'd been here too long, and would continue to remain here forever.

     Forever . . .

     The cat had grown to detest that word.

     Back when she was new to this land of shadows, Forever hadn't seemed so terrible. But now, with so much time having passed and an eternity to go, she was starting to wonder if trying to keep from fading away was worth it.

     How long had it been since she spoke to another cat? How long since she could cherish the sound of another's voice?

     Too long. Far too long.

     And yet, the silence carried on, as it always had.

     She had stopped singing the lullabies of her mother long ago. The words dried up on her tongue as did the memory of the melody. Slowly, little by little as the generations moved forward, the cat lost more of herself. Like an aging warrior would lose memories as time passed them by.

     Was this what it truly felt like to grow old?

     Perhaps the age of life and the age of death weren't so different after all.

     The feline shifted in the shadows, resting her head on her paws as the eerie silence whispered among the trees. The hollowness had long since become normal to the residents of the rotting forest, and none really cared about it much anymore.

     After all, they were doomed to suffer this fate from the moment they were born. All who ended up in this afterlife had started innocently, but then the circumstances of their lives had brought them nothing but torment and sorrow.

     Just as she was about to close her eyes and doze off into another dreamless slumber, the molly was jolted back to the desolate world, eyes snapping open as the dead bushes rustled somewhere beyond the walls of her pathetically small den.

     Getting to her paws slowly, the faded cat pushed out of the rotten-twig den and looked around, ears pricked to listen for anything that might be nearby. She suspected it might be her dear friend, Half-Face, coming to see her after they'd been separated by the eternal vastness of the Dark Forest, but when she opened her mouth to taste the air, the scent of the cat she grew up with wasn't what hit her taste buds.

     The bitter tang of starlight danced on the edge of her tongue instead, nearly choking her with its purity. She stepped back, coughing in response to the taste just as the bushes rustled once more.

     She stepped back, fur bristling as she prepared to take on whatever starlit fool had dared to cross into the outlands of the afterlife. Her claws slid out from their sheathes, sinking into the grainy soil.