Chapter 25: Greyleaf

Greyleaf was horrified, appalled by what she had just witnessed.

Lying there, covered in blood, with his entrails splayed out around him, was Ecthrois. And standing above his body, drenched in the red-hot liquid of his life, was Goldenpaw.

Her daughter.

And not only this, but seeing the Bloodclan toms… she didn't know how to describe it… mutate into such horrendous monsters… it unnerved her beyond words. The unnatural combination of heinous red eyes and hideous, bulging bodies was almost too much too look at. And the wicked fangs and claws of the creatures that the toms had become even more so added the effect of a chthonic villainy. She'd only ever seen such an infernal transformation in nightmares.

Then, like a freight train, it hit her.

She'd seen this before.

In her nightmares.

All of a sudden, all of the painful memories came flooding back to her, and she felt like the ground disappeared from beneath her paws, plunging her into an endless plummet through eternal darkness. The same gruesome face glared down at her—the one that had haunted her conscience for moons, its blood-coated fangs bared in a malicious snarl as it laughed at her demise, the fur on its body patched and ragged—as she fell, plunging into the never-ending abyss. Its hateful, sinister voice held no love, no compassion, no mercy within, and neither did its burning amber eyes as they glared down at her from a face she knew so well. A face that had preyed upon her sanity since the day she fell into a coma.

A demonic Pinestar.

"NO!" she shrieked, retreating backward with a jerk. "NOT AGAIN! GO AWAY! GO AWAY!"

It didn't matter that there were dozens of cats watching her, judging her, looking at her like she was crazy; Greyleaf was breaking down. The walls she had built to stabilize herself were dissolving before her eyes, crumbling down with her into the pit as she tumbled into despair. Hope for the future, for the better, for the possibility that she might come through this time in Bloodclan alive was becoming but a flickering ember as the dreadful image of some aberrant rendition of her beloved mate kept flashing across her vision, growing closer and closer until it was as if she could feel its breath on her face before darting away again. Malevolent laughter echoed painfully in her ears, and she pinned them to her head, backing father into the shadows until her rump pressed up against the cold, stone wall. And that only made it worse, reminding her of that horrible nightmare that she had been endlessly trapped in, running and running from an unidentifiable spirit that wished to destroy her, to blot her off the face of the earth and cackle as she bled.

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Her screeching only got louder as she became more and more swallowed by darkness, her eyes slammed shut to try and relieve herself of the terrible, wicked figure, but it stalked her wherever she went, snickering in her ears as it ghosted around her. She began running, not looking where she was going, just desperately trying to escape her torment. The ground beneath her paws was nonexistent as she suffered the sensation of ceaseless free-fall, unable to make sense of the world around her as she remained imprisoned in a hellish dimension within her mind. There was nothing but the blackness and the monster. Trapped inside the confines of her own waking nightmare, Greyleaf was unaware of her location, her physical state, or her sense of direction.

All she knew was blackness and the monster.

She didn't know that she was close to death, didn't know that her pads were cracked open and bleeding, riddled with stone protrusions. She didn't know that she was teetering on the brink of a cliff for the second time in her life, didn't know that she was about to slip…

Until she did.

For a precious moment, her green eyes opened, unseeing of reality or the torment. For a precious moment, her vision lit up with faded scenes of the happiest moments of her life: becoming a warrior, spending time with her mother as they hunted in the forest during her moons as an apprentice, sharing a sparrow with Blackfur on their first day of apprenticeship, running through the forest with Goldenfur, meeting Pinestar in the old twoleg den, watching her kits laying at her belly on the day they were born, playing hide-and-seek with her brothers and sister in the forest when they were kits…

As the last image flashed before her eyes, Greyleaf lurched out of her nostalgia, shock coursing through her. There was a memory, a real memory; she'd seen it. It had happened; the vision had been so genuine, so substantive...

But she had been an only kit.

Greyleaf didn't have time to ponder the fact, because as soon as she returned to actuality, she felt the teeth in her scruff and the strain of gravity on her body as she was suspended in mid-air…

Hanging above a gigantic black chasm.

The inky, malignant void yawned below, jagged mouth full of protruding rocks opening wide to devour her, and its concentrated shadows reached up for her with long, thorny tendrils of death. As Greyleaf helplessly kicked her hind paws at the climbing darkness, the rift seemed to pulsate with evil, deep-throated cackling that emitted from its writhing gloom to scorn her. Unable to think about the fact that struggling would most likely cause her to fall, she began twisting and squirming fruitlessly in an attempt to escape the arms of pitch that grew ever closer and threatened to drag her down into the pit.

Her eyes bulging and chest tightening with fear, the grey tabby she-cat let out a shriek of terror at the sight of the terrible branches of evil almost grabbing hold of her tail and the gaping drop below her, freezing like ice from immeasurable shock and fear as she was hauled up and over the lip of the abyss by some unknown being. As she was lifted higher and higher, away from the tendrils of death, the blackness coiled back and hissed in outrage, as if cheated out of something it desired, and Greyleaf slowly realized that an attempt to rescue her was being made. Her life—however insubstantial it may be—was hanging by a thread in the paws of a stranger, as she could neither detect nor recognize the scent of her rescuer in her paralyzed state, and her onset of shock slowly lost its hold on her panicked mind as she saw the darkness retreat further and further.

However, even when she was safely on solid ground, she didn't unlock. She could scarcely blink. Her body had gone into full lockdown, and she could not consciously reverse it no matter how hard she tried. It caused frustration to rise unhappily within her that she could not utter a simple "thank you" to her protector or even offer a small smile of gratitude, as she would've wished would be done for her had their roles been switched. But alas, even when she finally regained control of herself by suppressing the memories of the whole experience into the furthest reaches of her mind and was able to stand, her mysterious guardian had vanished, leaving in their wake only a single tuft of black fur.

And so, alone on the edge of a fissure, the night winds billowing through her fur, Greyleaf was left wondering: Who had saved her?

GASP! HER CHILDHOOD HAZ BEEN REVEALED!

Question Of The Chapter: So, what do you think happened to these 'brothers and sister' that Greyleaf remembers now?

Bible Passage Of The Day

"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory.

All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats.

And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left.

Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in;

I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.'

Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink?

When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You?

Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?'

And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'"

Matthew 25: 31 - 46