Playing StarClan

by inversereality

Once, Shard and Hail were in love. Then came Viper, who stole Hail's heart while Shard was right there, leaving her to commit a murder in the dark of the night, one that could never be forgiven. But she didn't stop there - this awakened in her a love of killing, and for a while she thought she was greater than StarClan. But murder isn't a game. And StarClan can't be beaten.

25. Chapter 25 - after

I try not to think of my life too much. The life I used to have. I don't have one anymore, so I try not to think about it.

Sometimes it comes back to me, though. The brightness of the entire first half of my life. The darkness of the second half. All of the colors. All of the cats, the feelings. Love. Warmth. Hate. Pain. Heat. Coldness. Agony. Grief. It amazes me, sometimes, the spectrum of emotions I felt in my life. I don't have any now. That's why I try not to think about my life: when I do, it reminds me that I used to have emotions. When I think of things from my past, I get this tug in the center of my chest, like I should be feeling something. Like I should remember what those emotions felt like. But I don't. I don't remember, and I don't like remembering that I can't remember. Or, I feel like I shouldn't like it. But I don't really feel it at all.

I mostly just sit around now. I'm more now like I was in the first half of my life. I have my silver fur, my glowing blue eyes. But my emotions are gone. Sometimes, I try to remember what love felt like. Sometimes I try to remember pain. I'll scratch my shoulders through thorn bushes. I'll claw through my fur. But I feel nothing, and my fur heals within moments.

I would have given anything to feel again. I would take the agony over nothing at all.

It's so cold inside myself.

But I did it all to myself. Now, with no emotions, I can see that there could have been other ways. Everything is objective now, and I can see things I couldn't before. I could have reacted in some other way.

Hail could have too. Sometimes I see flashes of his fur between trees. But I feel nothing for him anymore.

We both could have reacted differently. And Viper, whose black fur is always in the shadows, sitting. Never moving. She's always in the same place, the same position.

All of us did this to ourselves. We all could have reacted differently. Everyone.

Most of all, I could have done something else. But I murdered. The blood of too many cats soak my paws now.

So here I stay, for the rest of eternity, forced to hide in the shadows of the Dark Forest, lunging for prey that was never really there and never will be.