Silent Shadows: Book Two - The River of Secrets

IV

This chapter depicts hallucinations and psychosis, this is where the psychological themes in the story begin.

Finally digging the passage to unconsciousness, she found herself in a mental labyrinth once again. Yet, in her always troubled mind, the places her mind had crafted warped into places of terror. Locations of Hell.

Tonight, her sleep brought her back in time; she was transported to the past. It was, once the first night. The sun's first sleep after the apocalypse.

The two sat alone in their home at the edge of the wasteland. The apocalypse had reduced this once homely place to a sight of death, yet nobody had bothered to build the graveyard upon the destruction. She and her companion simply inhabited the mirthless place that was once their home. Perhaps there were other places to venture to, places better than this. But right now, they were unable to leave. They couldn't leave.

Then one sunset came, and the two decided it was time to part. They had been companions before all they'd known had been destroyed. Yet, under sapphire and gold skies, those two friends decided they were both ready to give up the last soul that'd stood beside them, and stray forth into the night.

Silentdawn opened her eyes.

She found herself instantly soaked in the sight of the pitch-black sky. She'd expected to see the sun awakening with her once again, but it seemed she'd been too early. Grief had brought her out of her dreams and into the ebony woods, laying alone in the muck. 

The molly didn't truly awaken, her senses resurfacing to take in the murk of the obscure forest that the night had painted invisible. But as she soaked in the darkness, the context of her dream began to return. Though unwelcome, it seeped into her mind and caused her tired serenity to melt away. Stormpaw...

Out of nowhere, she found herself suddenly plagued by regret. It overwhelmed her soul like a tremendous flood, drowning her in a torturous feeling. Why'd she part from the very last cat she had? Why'd she ran away to pursue revenge alone? Perhaps it was possible she could find Stormpaw again, somewhere, but Silentdawn was quick to realize that was simply some whimsical fantasy. Their travels had probably taken them somewhere far away from her. It was unlikely she'd ever be reunited with them.

As she sat laid still upon the forest floor, drowning within her troubled thoughts, rain began to fall from the black skies. While she'd much rather have stayed resting, the showers descending through the treetops and turning the muck to liquid prompted her to move to somewhere less uncomfortable.

With displeasure, Silentdawn pushed herself to her paws and set off into the black forest. Her travels through the thick woodland eventually brought her to a spacious glade where a vast lake stretched out before her. She knew it wouldn't serve as shelter from the rain, but some unknown thing about the shores drew her forth. Huh, the she-cat pondered as she came and sat before the waters disturbed by the night downpour. The rain doesn't really feel so awful.

Her soul suddenly at an odd state of peace, she lowered her head to stare into the water. Yet, through the waters fragmented by rainfall, it struck Silentdawn that there was nothing staring back at her.

She had no reflection.

"What!?" she hissed as if she was searching for an answer. But the truth was that she knew exactly what was happening. No, not now! Just when I felt calm for once!

"Hey! Silentpaw! What's up!?" a high-pitched voice laughed. Silentdawn, simply feeling disappointment rather than panic, turned around to see Shimmerpaw standing in the darkness wearing a determined grin.

"Not now. Just...go away, leave me alone, please," Silentdawn hissed. Shimmerpaw let out a teasing laugh.

"Who pissed in your midnight snack, Silentpaw?" Shimmerpaw sneered. How realistic the fabrication felt didn't sway Silentdawn. She didn't hesitate, bounding forth and swiping at the mocking illusion of her old friend as if it was simply an object to be pushed away. Yet, her swipe seemed to work. Suddenly, the place where Shimmerpaw stood was now occupied by nothing by obscure trees.

Then, one second later, suddenly she was there again.

Silentdawn felt as though her pelt had been stained with blood. Yet she also felt as if there was nothing, that she had not even hallucinated it. It appeared to her as series of fading crimson splashes upon her fur. They were there, and yet they were not. 

Right before her paws, there was Shimmerpaw. Laying dead upon the ground, her throat slit, her body laying strewn in a splattered puddle of crimson. Silentdawn froze, she felt as if her heart had been run through with an iron dagger.

"Shimmerpaw, did I...kill you?" She knew she really was alone, an insignificant wanderer in this forest. Yet she didn't wish to stay silent forever. Just as the question escaped her lips, Shimmerpaw's lifeless eyes seemed to awaken from death. They shifted to stare up at her. Suddenly, she was smiling.

"You killed me? Why're you concerned about that?" It was so teasing, just like her. Yet it was dressed in such a cold tone she'd never heard from Shimmerpaw's tongue. "No wonder you're losing your mind. For the last few moons, the only interactions you've had with any other cat was just interrogating them and killing them. Think of it. How many innocent cats must've brutalized, never to feel anything again. Because you, for no reason, thought they had to do with the ones who'd ruined your life."

"Wh-what!? No...no I didn't," she spoke, stricken again with the knowledge that the only thing speaking to her right now was her own mind. A cacophony of screams was rising behind her, yet it didn't piece her ears. It didn't shatter the earth. Those screams of a thousand deaths simply rested, nothing but some insignificant background noise.

She threw her eyes back from the illusion of Shimmerpaw. As her eyes rested on the lake, her vision of that was suddenly shattered as well. Colours of blood, colours weaving the outlines of corpses in the lake danced right before her eyes. The cacophony of death in the background was clawing desperately at the walls of her mind, fighting to get out. 

"No..." She attempted to dig her claws into the earth, pondering if the ground beneath her paws was simply a hallucination as well. Reality was washed away in a wave of darkness, leaving her to spiral down insanity's coil. "STOP IT! GET AWAY FROM ME!! NOW!!!"

Silentdawn bounded past the shores of the lake, overwhelmed by the terror that the brutalized cats in the waters were ready to infiltrate reality and bring her down with them. Stormpaw. The name dashed through her mind like a gust of wind rushing past. I have to find Stormpaw.

As she eluded the glade and hid herself away in the woodland again, she was suddenly greeted by a familiar pair of purple eyes. She skidded, her run put to an abrupt stop, and she simply stood shivering before that same teal-eyed tabby. She stared quietly at Silentdawn, her face now fixed in a look of incomprehension. "Huh??"

"Damn it, Shimmerpaw. Can't you just be real? If you're not here, why can't you leave me alone?" She spat, as Shimmerpaw continued to stare at her in silent confusion. Then, as her green eyes plunged into Shimmerpaw's violet eyes, Silentdawn suddenly felt strangely comforted. She didn't understand why, but the she-cat who stood before her felt so much more real than the fabrication she'd met her all those other times. Yet, Silentdawn didn't wish to let herself be decieved.

"What could make you go away? Couldn't I just...forget about you? Forget about all the ones I used to love that aren't even alive anymore?" Silentdawn hissed in fury, striking her claws through the illusion. Strangely, her claws did not phase through her. They struck flesh. Briefly, her claws were soaked in blood. The expression of confusion painted upon Shimmerpaw suddenly shifted to anger. In one second, her claws became unearthed, and she swiped them through the calico's face, before spinning on her heel and bounding away into the darkness.

Silentdawn was left in a state of confusion. Was it possible for injuries to be part of an illusion? She could feel it clearly, the pain in the location she'd been stricken and the blood trickling down. Perhaps she just had to wait, wait for it to disappear. None of this was real, after all.

The she-cat wandered. Restlessly, she waited for the sun to finally awaken and chase the darkness away.

And yet, even after the obsidian skies had faded to azure.

The injury never vanished.