Who are you? You shouldn't be here. You should get yourself to safety while you can. Get AWAY.
No?
Alright. I hope you don't mind listening to an old warrior recall his better days.
I guess it was stupid to go close to that mist. It looked dark, sinister,and I was young and curious- what did you expect? I was such a young warrior at the time. I was slain in my first battle...hmm. When was it? I think the leader's name was... oh no. I can't remember. I can't remember a lot of things, now. It's been so long... so long. The stars in my pelt seem to glow dimmer each time I look, and that barrier of mist still eludes me. I want to find it, but I just keep walking in circles. I'm so lonely here. I wish I had a friend. Oh, sure there are other cats here. But they don't care for me. They want to chase me out like the tresspasser I am. Especially that one, enormous tabby with a scar on his ear... you know, I don't belong in these skies. I should walk with Starclan. I suppose you're curious now. You're young... like I was. Oh, yes. I suppose I still look young. But I've been here so long I fell like I've aged a hundred moons. Maybe I have. I'm still as quick and agile as I was before that fateful battle, but my mind feels like I should be an elder. Such is the fate of those in Starclan. Or wait. Maybe it isn't. I was there such a short, short time...
Welcome to Starclan, young warrior. The soft, beautiful voice feels like broken stones inside his aching head. He just wants everything to stop. He's dead, isn't he? Why can't the world leave him alone now? You have served your Clan well. He knows it's lying. He isn't even a warrior, really. He vaguely remembers his warrior ceremony being held while he lay in the medicine den, barely concious. Barely alive. He struggles to his star-coated paws and shakes his head to clear it. He looks up at the pale, starry face, speaking to him an a far-off, echoing meow. It seems familiar to him, but he can't place it. Like a cat you might see at a gathering, but you don't know them. You know the face, but can't remember the name to match. After a short speech, he looks around. No other cats nearby. Good. He wants to be left to his own devices to explore, to discover what this place really is like. He stumbles along until he gets his balance back, and then he's sniffing at every corner. Maybe you know what this is like. Try mixing the day you opened your eyes as a kit with your first day out of camp with the thrill of your first assessment. That's what he feels like. He keeps going and going, with boundless energy! A short time ago he wanted to stop, but now he knows he just wants to keep going and going and never stop for anything. He wants to go see what that is, a misty wall off in the distance. So he runs. Why not? You can't run properly in the forest. You'll smack your head in, running into a tree! But here, it's a dark clearing with no grass or leaves covering the floor. That doesn't bother him. The tendrils of mist are tugging at the stars in his paws now, and he knows somethings wrong. He wants to stop, to turn and run back to where there were cats, that comfortable place in the forest. But he can't stop now. He's trapped, caught in that sticky, glowing mist. His paws won't obey him, and he's being sucked in. He can see beyond that wall now.
And what he sees scares him.
You're the first cat I've talked to in many a moon. Why, you ask? Well, I can't walk the dreams of just any cat, you know. You must have something special in your heart, to be able to hear my voice. In Starclan, I could go where I please in the dreams of cats. But not here. No, not here... it takes a certain kind of cat to break through the barriers between here and the forest. Both here and where you are. You see, dream-walking isn't a one-cat job. It takes co-operation between the dream-walker and the dreamer. You have to be open enough to let us in, and we have to be persistent enough to get in. What? You want to help me? Now, don't go making promises like that. You can't help me. I'm lost here, and if you were to somehow come here to find me, you'd only get lost as well. Nobody deserves this fate. And this place is bigger than it looks. It's endless, in fact. There's no sunlight, moonlight, or starlight, but evrything has this eerie, sick-looking yellow glow. It's desgusting. And you almost never see another cat. This place repeats itself. You'll pass one tree, then pass it again and again and again. You get confused. You can't find your way back to where you were just last night. You can't find your way back to the edge of the forest. To the edge of Starclan...
He is shot out of the mist and slammed into a stone. When he gets up and looks around, the mist is gone. He can't find it. He is getting worried now. But that way looks like the forest thins out. So he sets off into the thick forest. It doesn't get thinner after a few hours, but thincker, with denser and denser undergrowth. He's not used to it. In his clan, htere wasn't much undergrowth, he remembered. It's so quiet here. Quieter than death itself. No birds are singing, no sun or stars are shining- this is a place where Starclan doesn't belong, and it wants every creature here to know it. It's like the entire place is alive... alive, and it feeds off the fear of the cats who don't belong here. He shudders and tries to put that imagery out of his mind for now. Right now he wants to climb that tree. It's the climbing tree he never had back in the forest- tall, crooked, leafless, and he can't see the top. He digs his star-studded claws into the rotting, moldering bark and begins to haul himself up the slanting trunk. Then he hears something moving through the leaf litter. He scrambles onto a thick branch and crouches there, squinting off into the glowing yellow haze around him. Is it foe, friend, or prey...? The 'prey' option is checked off the list instantly. It's a cat. A black cat. He can't recognise it, but he knows the scent is from his own clan. He scrambles down the tree and strolls up to the cat. It hisses and arches its back. There are no stars in this cat's pelt. It's a dark forest cat. But he realizes this too late and it's time for the fight of his life. Or lack thereof. Now it's a hissing, scrabbling melee of teeth and claws that defies logic and sanity to the ends of the earth- this is a battle of dark and light, fire and water, good and evil, the Dark Forest and Starclan. He might have been smaller, but he was younger and pushed the black cat off and sent it, reluctantly, off into the undergrowth. He stands alone in the Dark Forest again, as if none of it ever happened. There is no blood, he and the other cat are already dead. This isn't natural, or even sane in the loosest sense of the term... but it dosen't have to be.
Hmmm... you should really be going now. You'll go insane if you stay here for too long. You don't belong. Get back to your own Clan, and I'll try to talk again tonight. You have your whole life ahead of you! Now shoo- it's nearly dawn. You're a good cat. You shouldn't worry about this horrible place. I'll be fine, I've been here for moons! You nearly never see another cat here- now out! Wake up! Wake up... wake up... wake... w...
Hello. It's good to see a friendly face. I know it's been several days- I've been staying away for your own good, you know. Why won't you believe me? This place will ruin you. Like it's ruined me. You can see the stars in my pelt. They seem to glow dimmer each time I look, so I try not to. This place is built on sorrow, fear, and hatred, and there is no escape. There is no existance. There is nothing, nothing, NOTHING! Huh... huh... I'm sorry. I can't stand it here...
He's panicking. It's been days since he came here and he still can't get out. He feels like a mouse does right before it is killed. He feels like a fish that's been flopped out of the river. He feels like a starclan cat in the dark forest. That feeling of creeping horror, climbing up from his shoulders, making the fur on his neck stand up, invading his chest and making his heart beat faster than it ever had before- he wishes that everything could stop and just end right here right now and her would never have to worry about anyhting ever again- but that can't happen. He shrieks a horrible wailing, trembling cry. The sick, horrible glow of the forest seems to get a little more... bright. A little more alive. The world seems to pulse before his eyes. Like a heartbeat. He can't take any more of this. No more. NO MORE! He realizes that he really is wailing this aloud, crying for someone to help him, to take him away, to save him from this place. This place made of something evil, vile, poison... He gives in. He limply collapses down on the dirty, grimy ground and heaves a sob, a single sob that seemed to have all his emotion, all his pain, all his love and hate and fear concentrated inside of it. It felt terrible, like an enormous pressur was upon his back, crushing him down into oblivion. The stars in his pelt pulse weakly in unison with his sobbing. He doesn't move. He doesn't bother. What's the point when there is no escape from this house of horrors?
What? You are still going on about wishing to help me somemhow? Please. Don't, whatever you do, do NOT come into this forest, ever. You would never find me, and if you could, you would be signing yourself to some terrible, horrible, fate. LISTEN to me. LISTEN- you CANNOT, EVER in your LIFE or in StarClan, come here. Promise me. Promise me! If you break this promise, you'll wish for an eternity that you hadn't. Or longer. Now, get out. Get out. I will not participate in this any longer. I'm simply giving younger cats ideas about coming into the dark forest in search of some long-lost warrior. No. They will not do that because I will not tell them any more. I want you to leave. Immediatley...
He stands up after a long, cold night. Or maybe was a moon. Does it matter? Does he care? Is there anything that can save him? He fears the answer may be no. No. No again to see the bright stars of StarClan and sleep in a warm, soft nest. Forever trapped in this hideous land of repetitions of nightmares. He gets up. There is no more fight left in him after the last night. He is resigned to his fate, horrid though it may be. He has given up. He has no hope, no dream of being rescued. Or does he? He ventures out onto the cold, damp path. He simply puts one paw in front of the other as he marches blankly along, knowing that he can't be interrupted by anyone. But there's no such thing as no one here. No such thing. And he is pounced on by the biggest tabby he has ever seen in his life or death. It's a battle. I hideous thing to see, a tiny cat, barely out of apprenticehood, and an enormous, seasoned warrior with claws like knives, slashing and biting at each other in a fight that neither can win because neither have any life, hope, or decency left to them. This is the dark forest. This is evil. This is everything. This is nothing.
Why are YOU here again... uhhhh. I can't keep up a fight any longer. This place will do that to you. This horrible, nasty place. This trap. It's like one of the ones that twolegs put out for foxes. The foxes are curious. They see something srange, and they go over to it, unable to help themselves. And then it's over, and there is no hope; I'm one of those foxes, and it's just a matter of time before my stars go out and I'm just another part of this forest. That's all I will be. Another leaf on the ristling trees, though there is no wind. Another stone that repeats itself over and over and over and over and...
"Get away," The tabby spits, drawing back. He rears up on his back paws, letting the smaller, younger cat see the long, vicious scar running down his stomach. What could have caused THAT. he wonders, as the sharp pain of long claws pierces him. Or rather, the anticipation of pain, which hurts just as much, or more. He can see the claws slashing away at him as he runs, sprinting all out, to do as the tabby says and get away from here. "If I see you again, you'll wish you'd stayed in starclan where you belong." But he already does. He already does. He keeps running until he finds a rock. With a hollow under it. Very much like the rock that he was slammed into on his first day in this forest. But the mist isn't here. This part of the forest is merely a repitition of a real place. Or an imaginary place, that some sort of incredibly horrid person dreamt up and made a reality. That's how it is. That's how it was. That's how it always will be.
Forever and a day.
I guess I'll be here forever. But you know what? Finding a cat to talk to after all these moons... it was... well. I'm not going to go on. I probably won't ever find the mist barrier. But maybe I'll see you again someday. Probably not. Don't go getting your hopes up, you hear me? That never get anyone anywhere, just brings unnessesary pain. This is goodbye.