A/N: This is my entry for Scarheart of Darkclan's contest! The prompt it was based on it 'And The Whole World Listened', which sparked inspiration in me from the moment I first read it. Hopefully, I'm going down a different road from what most people will choose to wright about; though me posting it so soon is probably going to lessen those chances. ^,^ Anyway, I hope everyone will enjoy reading this!
It had been moons since the Red Haze, as the remaining cats of the clans called it, had settled over the forest.
Moons since the prophecy was told: The hope of the clans calls out from the mist. An answer will sound from within. As long as the stars shine above, the shadows will never win; live in the light, but do not let the sun shine too bright.
And moons since it failed. There was never a call, save the ones sent up as the cats asked Starclan for help. There was never a response. Never an answer. And now, there is no more hope.
Starclan has fallen.
The Dark Forest has merged with reality, cats long dead now walked among the living.
Ruling them all was Burningsun. A tom that was once the pride of Windclan, a warrior loved by all. He was the perfect cat; mate to Rosethorn, father to Thornkit, Mistkit, and Sunkit. Next in line for deputy and someone even the elders loved. Brave, strong, and someone that lived by the warrior code even if it meant going against his personal beliefs.
No one expected him to be behind the gruesome murders that had spread through the clans. To be the cat behind the sudden lack of prey, caused by badgers led into their territories, or the one giving away secrets and battleplans to the cats of the Dark Forest, who had somehow managed to get through into the world of the living.
Except for one cat, a new warrior, that went by the name of Silvermoon. She was a clanmate of Burningsun, a she-cat that had spent her life looking up to the ginger-pelted warrior. And she was the only cat that ever bore witness to Burningsun taking a life; that of, Honeyblossom, a Thunderclan queen.
She didn't see anything these days, though, and was mostly confined to the elders den.
Her once bright green eyes, so full of hope, full of love and spirit and the promise of a great warrior, were now covered by a thin mist. Long scars marred her once pretty face, horrid red streaks where her light blue-grey fur would never grow back. Clawmarks.
Burningsun had blinded her and blamed it on the murderer of Honeyblossom. And the cats of Windclan believed him, not her, claiming that what she thought happened being attacked by Burningsun, who was the killer, the real killer had just been a dream brought about from the pain. Their Medicine Cat, Hawkbreeze, told her to rest and not to think to much about it.
Then she told her that her eye-sight would never come back and she would be blind for the rest of her life.
And the clan had no room for a blind warrior and no more room for Medicine Cats, Hawkbreeze already had an apprentice, a scrawny brown tom by the name of Cricketpaw, and she had no need for two.
So Silvermoon was sent to the Elders Den where she listened to the other cats talk about the killings, they were still going on, and that Thunderclan was suspecting a Riverclan she-cat called Brightpetal. There were rumors that a battle was going to be started over it.
Sometimes, the elders would try and draw her into their conversations.
"What do you think, Silvermoon, about all of this?" Stoneclaw would ask her. He had been forced to retire early when his back leg was broken during a battle with Shadowclan and was always trying to include her.
But Silvermoon never told them what she thought, what she knew was the truth, and would merely shake her head and go back to whatever she was doing; usually grooming her blue-grey pelt and basking in the sun just outside of her den.
Nightbreeze would scowl at her and Dappledoak would swish his tail angrily, turning back to their conversation and telling Stoneclaw just what they thought was going on. Stoneclaw would listen to them but sometimes, most of the time, he would watch Silvermoon with an expression almost similar to pity.
She never saw it, of course, and she never knew that the tom wanted to hear her tell him the real story of how she lost her sight. He knew there was more to it than what they'd been told, because Burningsun had never bothered to give much detail of the events.
Most of the time she was left to herself.
Since her sight was taken from her, her personality changed. No longer was she the kind and caring warrior they used to fight and hunt beside, but a bitter and cold she-cat that always seemed to lurk just on the edges of their minds. Everyone blamed it on the fact that she thought she no longer had a true place in the clan but no one tried to tell her otherwise.
What could they tell the blind cat? The one that could do nothing but eat their rapidly waning supply of fresh-kill and take up places in their camp?
They didn't tell her what went on outside of their bracken walls either. She didn't ask.
Instead, she listened.
Listened: as Brackenfire of Thunderclan and Darkflight of Shadowclan and Skypaw, from her own clan, and so many others all fell prey to their mystery attacker.
Listened: as cats spoke of shadows appearing where they shouldn't be there and of the horrible feeling that they were watched whenever they left their camps.
Listened: as Greystar, their leader, tried to calm his clan when a heavy mist settled upon the moors. Then the lake. Then the forest. Soon spreading to cover the entire territory and getting thicker everyday.
Listened: when they started to howl and wail about the stars in the sky starting to flicker out and dissapear. One by one. And with the stars, the Medicine Cat's connection to Starclan.
And then there was nothing to listen too because there was no one speaking.
It seemed like a heavy layering of snow had settled on the lake area Silvermoon called her home. It was silent, all the time, unless cats were wailing out in pain as cats made of shadows sunk their claws into soft flesh; ripping and tearing and clawing, even when they shouldn't have been able to be felt.
No one left the camp unless they had to and everyone was hungry. Everyone was scared. They looked towards Burningsun for help and guidance, because surely the one cat that had never shown fear over what was going on could help! Surely he would!
And help he did, though it wasn't the cats of the clans that he was helping.
No. Burningsun cast away the fatherly warmth that had always seemed to exude from him and showed everyone his true colors. Calling the mist a Red Haze and saying it was created from the blood of his victims and his prayers to the Dark Forest, Burningsun took his place as leader of the lake.
And though Silvermoon couldn't really see it, she could picture the mountain of bones that he would yowl to his followers from. She could picture the way his ginger pelt would grow stained with blood, turning more and more red as the days passed. She could picture the horrified and disbelieving looks on her fellow Windclan cats faces. Maybe even on the faces of the other clan cats, as he had been a popular warrior before all of this started.
And when they finally found her, laying just outside of the camp, head resting on her forepaws as she tried to ignore the world around her, she could picture the looks on their faces. Angry, scared, apologetic. Maybe even guilty.
Stoneclaw was the first cat to finally pad forewards, ears pressed against the top of his head, hunched as though expecting an attack at any moment. He didn't trust the mist, even when it wasn't moving.
"Silvermoon?" He asked her, voice low and trembling. "Silvermoon? I'm...We're sorry. We didn't believe you but you were right."
And Silvermoon lifted her head up, revealing matted fur and sunken in grey-misted eyes, and she stared not at him, but through him. To the scared kit that lived inside of him, inside of all of her clanmates, that just wanted everything to go back to how it used to be.
And then she laughed. A short, bark of a laugh.
"Sorry?" Silvermoon asked, pushing herself to her feet. "You're sorry? For what? Casting me aside like I was crow-food and refusing to believe me? Or are you sorry that you have no one else to come complain to? You aren't sorry. You just want someone to fix your mistake for you!"
Greystar, now on his last life and looking frailer than ever, shook his head at her. "We're sorry that we didn't believe you sooner, Silvermoon." He mewed, voice solemn. "And I'm sorry that I didn't realize you were the answer the prophecy spoke of sooner."
There was more hidden in his words then what was said aloud, and Silvermoon heard them.
Heard his desperate plea for her to save him and the rest of Windclan, the rest of the lake.
Heard the accusation that she could have done something sooner to stop the madness that now surrounded them, lashing out from the mist that covered everything and ripping away their lives and all they held dear.
She could have done something about it. Silvermoon knew that. She had known it for a long time. "You know, Honeyblossom came to me the same night I lost my vision. She told me that I could stop Burningsun. I could save all of you. I thought about it for a while. I decided that it wasn't worth it."
Silvermoon tilted her head to the side, the tip of her tail twitching as she padded over to stand closer to the surviving members of her clan. Badgerpaw, the only apprentice still alive from Windclan, edged away from her; amber eyes wide with fright.
"Why should I risk my life for cats that didn't care about me? Hmmm?" She purred. "Why should I bother? I decided that I shouldn't. See, I can't see the mist so it is no concern of mine."
Because if she couldn't see the unnatural shadows then they couldn't hurt her. Silvermoon didn't know why, but the cats of the Dark Forest couldn't touch her.
She didn't realize that it was because she was already one of them. A cat of the shadows and a cat of hate. Someone even Tigerstar would have been proud to know.
Her words echoed across the moor, loud against the night air, and Windclan seemed to edge away from her as a group. They were horrified, disgusted, whispering as though she was deaf instead of blind. Moving away from her as though she, and not themselves and their own ignorance, had been the one to bring about all of the deaths that they'd seen.
Silvermoon let out another bark of laughter. A surge of glee shot through her at the thought that finally, finally, everyone was listening to her.
As they slunk back into the camp, more fearful then they were before, she let out one final call.
"Maybe you should care for your own more, Windclan! If you had, this might not have happened!"
And it wouldn't have.
If she had known that they still loved her, still wanted her as a member of their clan, then she would have done everything in her power to save them.
It was their own fault.
They should have listened to her sooner.
-The Cats
Silvermoon: A thin, blue-grey she-cat. She was film-coated green eyes, scars running over the top of both of them.
Stoneclaw: Large, heavily muscled tom. Blue eyes. His back right leg is twisted and he's unable to put any weight on it.
Honeyblossom: White she-cat with tan, ginger, and cream splotches. Blue eyes.
Greystar: Scraggly furred tom with a grey pelt. There's a large white patch of fur on his chest. Light blue eyes.
Badgerpaw: Black tom with white tabby stripes. Amber eyes.
Burningsun: Large, ginger-pelted tom. He has cream dapples on his flanks and bright amber eyes.
Rosethorn: A light ginger she-cat with light grey paws. Green eyes.
Hawkbreeze: Dark brown she-cat with lighter brown stripes. Light green eyes.
Cricketpaw: Small, brown tabby tom. Amber eyes.
Nightbreeze: Once a pure black she-cat, she now has grey streaks blossoming across her pelt. Bright blue eyes.
Dappledoak: Dark brown tom with lighter brown flecks. Blue eyes.
Skypaw: Small blue-grey tabby she-cat. Amber eyes.
Brackenfire: Brown tom with ginger rings arouns his legs and eyes. Green eyes.
Darkflight: Sleek black she-cat with one white front paw. Bright amber eyes.
Thornkit: Light ginger tabby tom. Green eyes.
Mistkit: Light grey she-cat with a ginger tail-tip. Amber eyes.
Sunkit: Dark ginger tabby tom. Green eyes.
Brightpetal: A white she-cat with ginger and cream dapples. Bright blue eyes.