Fallen Leaves (Short Story)
He doesn't sleep anymore.
He's tired all the time.
He wanders.
And wonders how he got so lost.
Sometimes when it quiet-when it's calm enough-he can curl up and sometimes-somewhere-he finds sleep.
When he sleeps-sometimes-he dreams. The stone beneath becomes grass. The roof above is open sky. He feels-he lives-again. He chases-he catches-prey. He fights-he wins-against invaders. When he awakes he dies again.
When it rains he closes his eyes and runs-hides. When it rains he remembers. He can feel-again-the way the water dumped onto him. The way it rushed-tore-down his throat. The way it threw him-beat him-against the cave walls over and over until it took-yanked-the last of his breath from his lungs. He remembers how it burned-the water-inside him. How he remembers thinking that he never knew something so cold could burn so bright inside him. Like a star. Like a sun.
And he recalls with deep regret-shame-that his last thoughts were not of his mother-his world-but of death. And how he prayed to StarClan it would come soon-now-and stop the pain-torture-plaguing-destroying-him. He remembers being a coward. He's still a coward. Every time it rains.
He forgets. When he's younger-newer-he forgets the unimportant things. Which tunnel leads to the next. Where he put his bed-his home-the night before.
When he's older-duller-he knows every knot, bump, twist, and turn in the maze of tunnels but he forgets the things that matter. The first time he forgets he's unimaginably-deathly-afraid. He's sitting and thinking-brooding-when, suddenly, he can't remember his mother's voice. He can't recall the tenor of the words as they left her lips. He's so afraid he forgets again-to breathe. After that he recites every memory like a code-the code to his beating heart-again, again, again.
But they slip-sliding from his memory-like water trickling through cracks in a cave wall. He tries so hard to hone the details of his father-but were his eyes blue or green? He painstakingly retraces every step of his-once-home inside his mind-but was his den here or there?
After he begins to forget, he never stops. Sometimes, he can't remember his own name. There's no one here to speak it. But he can hear it sometimes-in the echo of his paws against the stony floor-and he sighs-relief, relief, relief-because they are some things he never wants to forget.
When she-Hollyleaf-comes everything changes. Her eyes are like the only color Fallen Leaves has seen in lifetimes of darkness. She reminds him how to speak-the words fall easier now. She reminds him of his name-she calls for him so often. She reminds him how to hunt-her stomach rumbles in a noise he has-as with so many other things-forgotten. She reminds him of what it was like to be alive.
And he rejoices because he's lived-existed-so long as nothing but an echo-a ghost. He doesn't want to forget.
He doesn't want to be forgotten.
She changes him. When the time comes he's not a coward anymore. He breaks free from the ground to fight. When she falls he promises not to forget her. And when he leaves-racing with his mother to the sky-he promises to see her again.