Here's the second half of the double-update I promised! XD I greatly enjoyed writing this one, and hope you like it, too!
Chapter 20: Sparrow
The darkness was starting to get to her, Sparrow realized when she thought he saw a figure lurking in the shadows and heard the horrible shrieks echoing painfully around her, seeming to drum into her ears with the banging of a thousand souls. The sounds couldn't be real. The shape couldn't be real. She was alone. No one was there. She was alone.
Various scenarios ran through her mind. She could be going out of her mind. She could be in a coma, like Greyleaf had once been in. She could be asleep, dreaming…. No, not dreaming. This was more like a nightmare.
She was alone.
That sentence in and of itself seemed to have become her very existence. No one was coming for her. No one was going to save her. They didn't know where she was. She didn't know where she was.
And so, Sparrow waited, feeling lost and hopeless. She'd never been truly alone before; there'd always been somebody nearby to give her a sense of purpose. And even back when she had been out collecting herbs for Featherheart on her own, during the deepest part of the night when all of the patrols were resting in their nests, Starclan had been with her.
She couldn't feel the presence of her starry ancestors anymore.
It was odd, how impotent she had been rendered just by being cut off from others. She could neither gather the strength to move nor summon the capacity to think positively as she normally did. Her mind seemed to have fallen into a deep slumber such as that of the twolegs' monsters. It only appeared to be able to perform the process of running along the same circle of thoughts.
I am alone. No one is here. I am alone. No one is coming for me. No one is going to save me. They don't know where I am. I don't know where I am. I am alone.
The consequence of this was a shadow of gloomy depression, one such as Sparrow had only heard tales of and seen in others. She'd never had to face such an illness before, and she found that she didn't care about trying to cure it. What did it matter, anyway, since no one was going to come for her? She could die in here, and no one would know. No one would care.
"Hello?"
The unforeseen, unexpected sound caught Sparrow off guard, causing a jolt of shock to run through her. It couldn't be real, could it? She was alone. There was no one there. There hadn't been a voice. It was as real as the screeches had been—just a figment of her once vibrant, now eclipsed, imagination.
"Are you still there?"
There it was again. That voice. That phantasm. That apparition. It wasn't real, she told herself. She was alone. The darkness was her only companion.
There was no sound this time, only a tense silence. Then…
The sensation of touch lightly brushed her side.
Sparrow jerked her head to the right, and her nose bumped into soft fur. She could smell the scent of the mountain on it, could feel the silkiness of the coat, could imagine the many hairs intertwining to form the intricate layers of a pelt.
"Are you real?" she asked quietly, her voice barely even a whisper. All she knew was that her isolation had seemed to have come to an end. And oh, how she longed for some company!
"Yes," came the answer, and Sparrow leapt for joy, immediately lighting up like a lightening bug on a summer night.
"YAAAAAAYYYY!" she squealed, green eyes bright once again and a gigantic, jovial smile overtaking her countenance.
The one speaking to her chuckled softly, the voice warm and full of amusement.
"I'm sorry I left you here for so long. It must have been dreadful."
Sparrow shook her head gleefully—they couldn't see her, but oh well! "Nope! Not anymore! Sure, it was a little scary, but now that you're here it's not!"
Once again reassured by the presence of another, Sparrow's mind went right back into hyper-mode as if a switch had been flipped back on.
I wonder who it is?! OOOH! Could it be Mister Chunky Squirrel!? Mister Chunky Squirrel is soooooo fun! Or what about a friendly fox? One might exist, and it could be talking to me! Orrrrrrrrrrr, what if it's an alien? THAT WOULD BE SO COOL! Then I could FLYYYYYY!
"Are you an alien!?" the spotted she-cat asked excitedly, bouncing on her toes.
The response was an adamant giggle, drawn from deep in the chest, and the reply of, "No, Sparrow, it's just me."
"Who's Me? You? It's nice to meet you, Me!"
Sparrow continued to run a bucketful of crazy ideas in her head. Now that she wasn't alone, she felt better, more at home. Like nothing bad had ever happened.
Me could be a badger, or another cat, or maybe even a dog! OOOHH! OR MAYBE ME'S A RABBIT!?
"Are you a rabbit, Me?" she mewed adorably, her green eyes wide and kit-like, though she couldn't see anything.
More laughter echoed through the darkness, and Me said, "Okay, Sparrow. Just follow my voice and you'll be able to see."
"Yay!"
She bounced after Me, following the sound of their voice as they said, "Just a little bit farther, and you'll be able to see again. It was pretty dark in there, so try not to open your eyes too wide; the sun's coming up."
"Okay!"
She dutifully obeyed and squinted her eyes to an almost-closed position. Within moments, she could feel the warm radiance of the sun's rays tickling her fur, and it was somewhat miraculous how the rising sun lit up her eyelids, coloring them a deep pink. Then the color would pulse into an orange-yellow and red, painting across her vision like water-color as the heat spread throughout her cold, tired body. She almost didn't want to open her eyes, the whole experience was so stunningly beautiful!
But her curiosity was needed to be sated! She was going to see what Me looked like! And so, slowly creeping her eyelids open, Sparrow saw the form of….
"Irvine!" she smiled brightly up at him, and he smiled back, his auburn eyes glowing in the morning sun.
It was a beautiful moment, that sight of a friend, and it seemed to stretch boundlessly like a jubilant meadow. That was, until Sparrow opened her mouth again.
"Have you seen Me? Me just led me out of the cave! Me was soooo nice! Do you know them?"
Irvine's face lit up in confusion, his brows furrowing as he frowned slightly, before his visage transformed to one of understanding.
"Oh," he mewed, with a tinge of laughter in his voice. "You mean Me? I'm Me, Sparrow."
"Well I know that you are you," the tiny grey addendum replied, "But where is Me?"
The blue-gray tom sighed, but it wasn't a sigh of annoyance, more like a sigh of resigned amusement.
"Sparrow, Me was—well—me."
The grey she-cat's eye's widened, their pupils dilating widely. "Ohhhhhhhhhh! You're Me, Irvine? Wow! That's so cool!"
The white-chested tom laughed heartily, his red-brown eyes closing with delight, and he stamped his white paws in a little dance.
"It… It appears that... my worries about your mental health... were misplaced!" he wheezed between laughing fits, "You're… completely fine!"
Sparrow gigged as well, joining eagerly into the friendly laughter, before asking, "Were you the shape I thought I saw?"
His face immediately grew serious, his mirth ceasing, and he looked down at her with grave eyes.
"You saw someone?"
Sparrow shrugged and replied, "I dunno. I thought I did."
"Wait here," he said tensely, whipping around and venturing back the way they came.
Looking back as the blue-gray tom melded into the impenetrable darkness, Sparrow saw the identity of her prison. An arched cave, barely two fox-lengths wide and two tail lengths high, stood fixated into the rock of a mountain wall. Almost invisible, it looked like just another shade of dull color among the relatively barren landscape. The small crevice seemed to have a mood of its own—and a black one at that.
Sparrow examined at it and shivered, her eyes closing for a half-second. And in that half-second, she almost missed the streak of fur that flashed past. When she opened her eyes wider to get a better look, the disturbance was gone. Just like that. No sound, no scent; just a second of sight.
Not moments later, Sparrow heard soft growling, and Irvine emerged from the cave with his ears pinned back against his head.
"Whoever it was, they got away," he grumbled, kicking a stone. "We're blood-meat!"
Sparrow cocked her head to the side. "Blood-meat?"
The silvery-blue Bloodclan to-be looked at her and said, "In other words, we're dead."
"No we're not!" Sparrow responded brightly, "See? We're still breathing!"
She gave him a warm smile, and the tall tom couldn't help but smile back. But the smile didn't reach his eyes, which were pools of worry.
Signaling her with a flick of his white-tipped tail, Irvine began walking away from the dark cavern and towards the rugged stone land beyond. Sparrow enthusiastically followed him, glad to get away from the somber grotto.
They continued in companionable silence for quite some time, just enjoying the presence of one another as they walked back towards their destination—of which Sparrow deduced was Bloodclan's waterfall cave. The spotted she-cat didn't feel the need to babble on like she normally did, didn't feel the need to fill in the empty space. It was nice, she surmised, to just spend time with still air devoid of words and just enjoy the sights, sounds, and smells with someone.
But… there was just one thing she wanted to know.
"Irvine," she mewed, turning her head up and to the right to look at his face.
"Yes," he replied, calmly interested.
"Were you the third cat that showed up when those two toms were…" She trailed off, not knowing how to say it.
His gaze grew hard, and he nodded, stopping suddenly. Claws sprang forth from his white paws as he slashed the ground angrily.
"Those piles of eagle scat! The never should have touched you!"
Irvine's breathing was heavy, his pupils slits, as he glared at the ground and spat, his lip curled in an enraged snarl. Sparrow quickly put her tail over his back to calm him and waited until he had himself under control before saying anything else.
"It's okay, Irvine!" she said graciously, "I forgive them! It's not like they really meant it, after all!"
She bounced backwards with a huge grin and waited for him to smile, too.
He didn't.
"Sparrow," he said, his voice tart. "They did mean to hurt you! They did hurt you! Look at those scratches on your side!"
Sparrow gave the wounds a quick glance. "Not really, Irvine. They didn't know any better, after all."
The white-muzzled tom just looked at her like she was crazy. After staring at her for a full minute, however, he sighed and shook his head.
"I don't see how, but if it helps you to think that, go ahead."
Sparrow bounced a little and continued their walk forward, still grinning from ear to ear. Now that that question had been answered, she was curious about something else.
"What was that cave we were in?"
Irvine took his time in answering, his brow furrowed in deep thought. He took his time in answering her, and Sparrow let him. It was obviously a question that warranted deep thought.
"I guess you could call it 'sacred ground'"
"Sacred ground? Like the Moonpool?" she asked, turning her head to the side quizzically. That place certainly didn't hold the same calming, welcoming feeling as the Moonpool did, but maybe that was just because she wasn't a Bloodclan cat.
Irvine slowly nodded. "I guess you could say that…. But it's different."
"How?"
"Well…." He trailed off, staring into the distance, before answering again, "Bloodclan has what we call the Tribe of Endless Killing. When we die, that's where we go." He looked back the direction they had come from. "To live in the darkness forever, with endless... hunts…."
Sparrow nodded, not pushing for more. Whatever this 'Tribe of Endless Killing' was, it seemed as if it would be pretty special to the Bloodclan cats, just like Starclan was precious to her. Plus, her friend seemed to be unsettled by the topic. She would respect that and give Irvine his space.
They didn't say anything more after that, just walked back in silence once again. When they arrived at Bloodclan's camp and the cascading glimmer of the waterfall was familiarly towering above them, the two passed through its shimmering spray and went their separate ways.
Thinking back on the ideals of Bloodclan, Sparrow wondered why he'd even bothered to help her in the first place.
YAY! So another chapter has been completed! XD And this one's 2,000+ words!
Question Of The Chapter: From what you know of Bloodclan, what do you think the Tribe of Endless Killing is all about?
Bible Passage Of The Day
"Be merciful to me, O God, for man would swallow me up;
Fighting all day he oppresses me.
My enemies would hound me all day,
For there are many who fight against me, O Most High.
Whenever I am afraid,
I will trust in You.
In God (I will praise His word),
In God I have put my trust;
I will not fear.
What can flesh do to me?
All day they twist my words;
All their thoughts are against me for evil.
They gather together,
They hide, they mark my steps,
When they lie in wait for my life.
Shall they escape by iniquity?
In anger cast down the peoples, O God!
You number my wanderings;
Put my tears into Your bottle;
Are they not in Your book?
When I cry out to You,
Then my enemies will turn back;
This I know, because God is for me.
In God (I will praise His word),
In the Lord (I will praise His word),
In God I have put my trust;
I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
Vows made to You are binding upon me, O God;
I will render praises to You,
For You have delivered my soul from death.
Have You not kept my feet from falling,
That I may walk before God
In the light of the living?"
Psalm 56