Silent Shadows: Book Two - The River of Secrets

XXIX

Content Warning: Suicide ideation.

Pebblestar stared down, unable to believe what he was seeing. She stood surrounded by countless corpses. Amid the wildfire of rage within him, he felt a wave of terror. Yet, like everything, he refused to express it. He simply chuckled.

"N-No problem," he said, stuttering. "I guess I can just recruit more mercenaries. I-I'll return with an army stronger than ever. Those who defied me will finally die."

Despite him staring at the group he'd been trying to eradicate, when he looked back down at the corpses, the she-cat was gone. He turned around.

Suddenly, she was there, right behind his brother.

-

Shimmerspark had wished to never see him again. Yet, he was right in front of her. But before she had to leap inside the unimaginable to tear it apart, she had to get through this obstacle first.

"Shimmerpaw," Selenostar spoke. "I-I'm sorry." She didn't reply. She didn't care who he was, whether he was her father or whether he was a stranger, he had to taste justice.

"Give me the torch," she asked him.

With a look of pain in his eyes, he silently crouched down. "Take it," he meowed.

Shimmerspark grasped the torch in her own maw, and, quickly, she tossed it back at the tom who'd given it to her. Despite the pang of guilt she felt when she glimpsed the terror in his eyes, she knew it had to be done. Her father screamed in pain as flames engulfed him, and it didn't take long before his wails stopped.

Yet, through the fire, she stared over at him one more time.

"Pebblestar," Shimmerspark finally spoke, gazing at him.

He stared back at her, frantic with panic. Shimmerspark leapt over the fire, walking forth to stand in front of him as blazes surrounded the two.

"No. I won't die. I will never die," he hissed at her. "I am death! I'm a God! It can't be something that happens to me."

"It happens to everyone," she replied.

He stared at her, the last of his rage finally dissipating to futile panic. Shimmerspark felt as if she was going to give out from the heat at any moment. Yet she didn't focus on the heat, nor the feeling of suffocation. She simply stared with satisfaction as Pebblestar screamed out one last time, before the fire engulfed him too. He simply disappeared into a swirl of flames.

Finally, she thought as she looked on.

It's finally over. 

-

"Did we do it?" a tomcat mewed beside her. "Did...did we win?"

Silentdawn stared blankly as the once light rain began to grow heavier, pouring down on the flaming tree. The flames began to die down rather quickly, finally ending and simply leaving behind a charred tree. For something so glorious, the blaze went away quickly and left behind feeble ashes.

"We did it, we won!" a she-cat cheered. Joy began to sweep over the crowd, and yet, their happiness was Silentdawn's sorrow.

I didn't want to be saved. 

I was supposed to die. Why...why didn't I just die this time?

Her heart dropped when something charred fell from the tree. 

It brought her walking on, walking on to that symbol of the death meant for her. A memory struck her.

Silentpaw had been wandering the ruins of all she'd known ever since it'd happened. Wishing someday, everything would come back. Secretly, she wished to somehow cause her own death, to step into some lake and let the unknown take her. But she simply couldn't bring herself to do so, her instincts were desperately trying to keep her alive.

A sudden stench hit her as she wandered on the border. The stench of death. Her curiosity brought her wandering forward to see who it was, stepping upon the border and seeing the shadow of a corpse at the foot of a tree.

Silentpaw came closer, and froze. There she was. That ginger and white pelt, those yellow eyes, this was the she-cat she'd fell in love with yet could never have been with.

And she laid there, in a puddle of her own blood, her eyes locked in a state of dying bliss forever.

Silentpaw felt sick.

Why...why do I have that feeling again, for someone I hated so much? Silentdawn wondered.

//

A/N

Ok 1 more chapter to write and I'm finished for today. I'm tired.