He was floating, floating somewhere strange. His emerald eyes were wide and alert, yet there was no more danger, no more threat. Wherever he was, he was safe, and that was comforting. The bloodshed was over. The pain and suffering of battle lingered, but it was a dull ache, as if the killing and the horror no longer concerned him. The terror that had struck his heart and screamed in his mind had lost it's cruel edge. The darkness told him he didn't need to worry. The shadows embraced him and whispered in his ear and he knew that everything was over, and everything was okay. The void was his only friend now.

Is this what it's like to die?, the tom couldn't help from think as he floated. Suspended in this bridge between everything and nothing?

Dark wisps drifted past him, tickling his muzzle. Or at least, where his muzzle should have been. All he saw was stars - the only something in a world of nothing. The spirits of fallen warriors filled his mind. Warriors that had fought to their final breath protecting everything the Clans lived for, everything the Clans ever will live for. Grief crawled steadily into his brain.

And, in his mind, the pictures took form. The darkness did not fade. However, he knew with confidence that the lake was safe. It was not something he could see with his eyes - but instead a knowing, a sense of contentment. The nothingness suddenly felt more comforting than it did before. He felt at home. The Clans had no threat, not any longer, not for a long time.

A stirring in the shadows. A sharp intake of breath. The tom opened his mouth to speak.

"This is not StarClan, Spottedleaf." His voice was hoarse, as if it had gone unused for moons.

"That's right, Firestar." The voice came from behind him, but Firestar felt soft fur brushing against his own as she sat beside him. The petite she-cat addressed him silently, her expression unidentifiable. Was that pity in her amber eyes? "Your place is not among StarClan. Not yet." Firestar's mouth had opened in reply, but the words died in his throat. What did Spottedleaf mean? The Clans were saved, were they not? Where else would the ginger tom be needed before joining the ranks of StarClan? He was dead - there was nothing else he could do!

Firestar's head was bursting with questions, and he was tempted to voice his confusion. But, the ginger tom got the feeling that Spottedleaf knew little more than he did. Maybe that was why she was here, and nobody else. This place - not the physical world, nor StarClan or the Place of No Stars - was something more than the Clans, more than the stars themselves. It was the sense of everything and nothing that filled Firestar with a sense of understanding, in a way. That everything was a bit bigger than he imagined.

"I have to go back,don't I, Spottedleaf? There's something I need to find."

"Rather," Spottedleaf replied. "There's something you need to fix. Something now walks in the shadows of the past - your past - specifically. It threatens us all."

A seemingly sudden intake of breath came from Spottedleaf, but there was a grim sense of knowing in her eyes. She gazed forward, motioning with her tail to the seemingly endless void beyond.

"You should go." She murmured. "Whatever you are needed for, it seems to concern the future of the Clans. Without you, they are doomed to destruction."

"And what of you?" The ginger tom cried, silently chiding himself for sounding more desperate than curious.

"Firestar," A sad look flashed in the tortoiseshell's amber eyes. "You saw what happened to me back at the lake. I'm beyond StarClan now - there is no saving me. I'm sorry." She trailed off, exchanging glances with Firestar. There was a silence - one Firestar was unwilling to fill.

"I understand," He sighed deeply, closing his eyes. Spottedleaf had accepted her fate the moment she lunged towards the ghostly she-cat pinning down Firestar's mate. She had known spiteful Mapleshade would not spare her. If she could move on from her death - then why couldn't he? He rose to his paws, shakily. "I'm ready." The words came to him.

Whatever Firestar was expecting - it was not this. A piercing yowl ripped through the air, filling his head. In a second the void was gone and in its place was rushing water, all around him. He tried to cry out, but all air was expelled out of his lungs as he thrashed about wildly. The tom was confused; surely this was not supposed to happen? He felt himself sink deeper and deeper, dragged down to the riverbed.

However, as Firestar grew weak, his vision did not fade. Uncertainty clawed at his mind, and his mind filled with questions he had not once dwelled upon. Had he been a good leader? He had not seen the betrayal that Tigerstar had planted in his Clanmates. What of Ivypool, of Blossomfall and Birchfall? Had he been right to trust his warriors so openly?

The ginger tom closed his eyes so as to block out his faithless thinking. To his surprise, he could not feel the torrential waters swirling around him, not any more. Reluctantly, he reopened his eyes. A gray she-cat stood before him, her eyes blue as the river and muzzle tinged silver with age. There was a sense of defeat in her expression.

"Bluestar? Why are we here?" Firestar called out, running towards the former leader. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks. A dull feeling ebbed away from him, and it left him feeling hopeless. He was worth nothing as a leader. Everything he had done, it had been done in vain. After all, what was a leader if their entire Clan was against him? The feeling hit him and his stomach plummeted. His mind flashed back to none other than his leader ceremony. The words uttered to him that night were vivid in his mind.

"With this life I give you nobility and certainty and faith. Use it well as you lead your clan in the ways of StarClan and the warrior code."

Firestar realised with a jolt what was happening. He was being stripped of his lives again, one by one. He didn't know how, he didn't know why. But the tom was experiencing the same emotions he had felt each time one of his nine lives left him, a swirling feeling of hopelessness, of despair, a growing darkness.

The sight of his leader vanished before his eyes even swifter than it arrived. Firestar had not even had the time to cry out her name before his vision was replaced by something new. Spottedleaf. Gone, something else. Yellowfang. Gone, something else. By the time his first and final life had come and gone, he realised that everything that had happened had happened in a blur, he could remember nothing else. All that was left was a dull ache, and a unrecognisable feeling growing inside his chest. Was is curiosity? Naiveté? It was something he couldn't place, like running water slipping through his pawhold.

And, just when Firestar thought it was over, just when he thought he was alone, he noticed an unnatural feeling come over him. His paws began to tingle, and the sensation of ground under his paws began to fall away beneath him. The toms long life flashed and flickered before his eyes, obscured by shadows, blurred by the void. He almost felt as if he was drowning in his own past as the dark memories filled his head.

He opened his mouth to cry out, for Spottedleaf, for anyone, but no noise escaped. He was falling, falling into the seemingly endless nothingness. It seemed the void was his only enemy now. His strength failed, his vision faded.

Before he lost consciousness, Firestar heard one last thing. A final breath of air whispered the words into his ear.

"A Flare of Night will come, history will be rewritten, and Fire will not save the Clan."

His paws gave way.