*awkward silence* Uhhh hi! xD I'm somewhat back!
Thanks for the reviews, by the way; I used to write chapters in advance, so I always forgot to add my responses to your comments, but recently, I haven't quite found the incentive to do that. On a brighter side, however, maybe I'll finally remember to respond to reviews from now on.
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Tunnel cave
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Chapter Twenty-One
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"I remember you. The one who was working with Leopard, right?"
Inconsequential words in a lost memory.
And then it all disappeared.
Groggy vision. Confused thoughts. It didn't match up with the bright light shining inside the cave.
Something had happened last night, Mousepaw was sure. Something that involved a conversation, although with whom, she couldn't recall. Strange. She usually didn't have that horrible of a memory. Perhaps she was just tired.
Someone was sitting in front of her, a tiny fish wriggling between his claws. Someone familiar. Mousepaw quickly struggled to get ahold of herself. Of course he was familiar. "Hi, Lightning," she muttered.
The fish flopped onto the ground, almost dead but not quite. "So, what happened last night?" Lightning said, glancing at her warily.
Mousepaw nearly started. She had just thought it was a brief memory lapse, and that no one else had noticed. "Um, you tell me."
For the first time, she noticed that she appeared to be in a different room than the day before. There was a single skylight on the ceiling, but other than that, only one other entrance that she could see. Mousepaw could still hear the sounds of the flowing stream, though, so it must not have been too far away.
"Uh, so when I came in at first, I couldn't find you. Eventually, I realized that you ended up in here, somehow, and you were muttering—"
"I didn't do anything weird, right?" Mousepaw interrupted. "I could have sworn that someone was talking to me just last night."
Lightning grinned back at her reassuringly. It seemed like what he did every time there was tension in the air. "Heck, of course not," he said, "aside from nearly biting my head off when I tried approaching you."
"Uh, what?"
"Nah, kidding. For the most part, you were just muttering unintelligibly. Nothing to worry about."
They sat in silence for a while, Mousepaw poking unenthusiastically at the fish, until she finally said, "That reminds me: I haven't gotten those voices in a while. I guess what I felt when I had that weird moment last night felt sorta similar to the headache I would usually get, but also different."
"So, pretty much the same but pretty much different. Got it."
"Lightning, you're not funny." Mousepaw took a deep breath. "I'm sorta thinking about what might happen or might have happened between Frostfall and Driftsong after I left. Maybe my episode last night had something to do with them... and while we're on that subject, Heartbreaker is still stuck with her."
Seeing Lightning's expression, she quickly added, "Uh, I'm been busy while I was away. Making friends and such. I've also been losing them."
"I know, it's just... that name reminded me of something." Lightning was staring off somewhere into the distance, his whiskers twitching. "Not that name specifically, but more of how it's structured, if you catch my drift."
"Please don't tell me there's a Throatstrangler and Bonesmasher as well."
Lightning shrugged, and for a moment Mousepaw was actually concerned.
"Um... you're not actually serious, are you?"
"Hey, I think that's enough of that," Lightning suddenly interrupted, standing up. "I feel like going outside, enjoying some fresh air right now. Maybe even doing some light hunting." He flashed her a smile. "I don't think you've been outside for a while. Let's go."
Mousepaw sighed. "Stop. Intentional information withdrawal. Conspicuously inconspicuous change of subject. Just stop."
Lightning was already on his way out, barely sparing her a backward glance. "I believe in my ability to run away," he said, disappearing around the corner.
The day seemed to fly by. Mousepaw thought it would be the opposite, given the fact that she had absolutely nothing to do now that Lightning was outside. But her pondering must have taken up much more time than she had originally thought, because before she knew it, the sun was already setting.
For some reason, she had been dreading this. Perhaps it was the fact that she wasn't sure what would happen tonight. Perhaps it was that she had been worried that Driftsong would make a return in her dreams. Or maybe it was just because that Lightning still hadn't come back.
But whatever the case, Mousepaw began pacing around the cave, trying to blink the grogginess from her eyes even though she knew that sleep was inevitable. Eventually, though, she gave up and slumped back against the wall, allowing her eyes to close for the first time in a long while.
Just before she nodded off, a shadow flitted across the corner of her vision. She cracked open one eye, suddenly alert, but then noticed that Lightning was back, curled up on the other side of the cave. Maybe he had just been coming back. Or she was just starting to get much too paranoid.
It didn't take long before she finally fell asleep, a half-formed plan in her mind. Something about what to do in case Driftsong decided to pay a visit to her again, and also something about Heartbreaker. But in the end, it didn't matter anyway.
No one came for her.
No one chased her through her nightmares.
And Driftsong wasn't anywhere near her, but it didn't feel that way at all.
By the time Mousepaw woke up, she almost expected Lightning to be there again, holding a new fish between his jaws and grinning at her. But he was gone again. Sighing, she repositioned herself against the wall and stared out the entrance to the cave, wondering if she should try exploring for a change. She really needed some peace of mind right now.
Slowly, Mousepaw padded over to the patch of sunlight and dwelled in it for a moment, squinting out past the darkness of the cave and trying to get her eyes to adjust. Just a few trees dotted the landscape in front of her, the rest of the space taken up by wildflowers. "Lightning?" she called halfheartedly.
No response. She pressed onward.
This sparse forest seemed strangely deserted. No birds sang through the leaves over her head, and rustling in the undergrowth was nowhere to be heard. Eventually, though, Mousepaw came upon a long, winding dirt path that wound through the trees, as if it had been specifically made to walk on.
Curious, she redirected her route and began following it. Something about this path reminded her of the first time she had entered the tunnels, that feeling that there was something else beyond her world that she couldn't understand. Those strange objects lying in the dust, the high beams that supported the tunnel ceiling... it was just so unnatural.
Finally, the trees cleared out once and for all, and the path widened.
In front of her stood tall, looming dens, higher than even the ceiling of the cave. They might have been much more impressive at an earlier time, but Mousepaw noted the crumbling walls, the fallen roof, the entrance that seemed to be collapsing in on itself. Normally, she might have been much more wary, but there didn't seem to be anyone here now, and she couldn't come up with why anyone would want to live here.
Past more rows and rows of these dens she went, silhouetted against the backdrop of a mountain peak behind them. Mousepaw frowned. That mountain did seem familiar. It must have been the same one that she saw every day from NightClan.
Still, it was strange seeing it from a whole new perspective, and it wasn't just the mountain.
Something rather large must have built all of this, Mousepaw pondered, pacing beneath the shade of a smaller den. A tiny leap of thrill suddenly raced through her. If she wanted, she really could just go on forever. There had to be a lot more to the world beyond what she was seeing, and anyway, there was no way she would ever go back to NightClan.
She paused.
Reconsidered as she remembered something.
It wasn't just about her, wasn't it? If she ever went back, nothing good would come of it on her end—of that, she could be certain. But hadn't Driftsong been threatening to end NightClan for good? Mousepaw turned back so that she was facing the far side of the mountain, the one sitting above her former home, and realized that for all she knew, it might already have happened.
There suddenly came the soft rustling of leaves behind her, and she hurriedly turned around.
She had been wrong after all. There were other inhabitants in this area. In front of her stood a broad-shouldered tabby tom, who couldn't have possibly looked more disinterested to see her there. Mousepaw waited for him to make the first move, but when he simply resumed staring at her, she said awkwardly, "Uhh... hello."
He flicked his tail at her before turning around and padding away.
Mousepaw knew that she could have just walked away as well, but annoyance rushed through her and she quickly followed after. "So, uh, are you the only cat living here?" she tried next.
No reply. He dug his claws into the trunk of the nearest tree and began nimbly climbing up toward the first branch.
"My name is Mousepaw," she said, trying to gesture as much as she could. Maybe he was deaf.
There was silence for a few more moments while the tom finally settled onto the branch, paws folded under his tail. Then finally, he said, "Sleet."
Mousepaw turned her head toward the sky skeptically. "Sleet?"
"My name is Sleet."
"Oh."
They stood in some more awkward silence for a moment, before Mousepaw couldn't stand it anymore. "Do you live here? Is this your home?"
He glanced over at her strangely. "The world is my home."
"Okay." Mousepaw took that as a yes. "So, you're a... loner, correct?"
Sleet seemed a bit confused at that question. "I prefer not to associate with others, yes."
"So, am I the first cat you've seen in a while or what?"
Sleet proceeded to simply ignore this question, while staring at something in the distance with quite a fair bit of intensity.
Several moments later, he slipped down the other side of the branch and was gone.
it's just his personality, if you're wondering