I once read of a throaway warriors concept where, if a spirit cat was killed and forced to fade away by another spirit, then every living cat would forget who they were. So, naturally, I waited two years to actually make a story out of it.

Enjoy.


I beg of you not to show despair when you see the many wounds upon my body, old friend. They are merely the price I had to pay to achieve our salvation. If you want to offer any aid to me, or if you would rather show your respects, then all I can ask is for you to sit down and listen to my words, like you have done time and time again.

Good, now that we are settled, I would like to ask you if I ever told you about "Passive and Preemptive Remembrance"?

Not sure? I do not blame you. As I speak, your memory of our conversations will gradually become foggier. What was certain to you about me yesterday will not feel so today, and by tomorrow, the questioning of such certainties will fade from your mind completely.

As I told you long ago, Passive and Preemptive Remembrance is something that we work towards, be it consciously or unconsciously, from the moment we become conscious of our identity until the day in which our body falls unconscious for the very last time. Our souls then escape such vessels of meat and bone, to become themselves vessels for the memories built throughout our lives.

Memories are what give a soul its divine vitality. That, you of course remember. Otherwise, you would not look so mournful right now. Lift your chin and cheer up for me a bit, will you? I would prefer my soul's final moments to be entrenched in an attentive gaze rather than a soulful one. I promise you that any grief you now feel will not outlast the time it takes for a leaf to fall, my good friend.

This remembrance I so adamantly speak of works in an interesting way. It is built upon how we interact with others when we are alive. Acquaintances, friends, family, those we hold dearest to our hearts, those we pass stories down to and those who are inspired by tales of our prowess; we provide them all with memories of ourselves. It all works itself into a passive system where, by just living to its fullest extent, a soul preemptively grants itself as much remembrance beyond death as it can.

What happens after all memories of one are eventually forgotten, and their soul fades away? Well, my friend, I cannot answer that question. No one has and no one ever will, and that is how it must be. If we knew the answer to every "and then?", there would be no thrill in asking or waiting to find out, do you not agree?

What I do know for certain is that a souls' vitality is entwined so delicately with its remembrance that, if you remove one, the other will promptly follow into oblivion. That brings us back to my wounds, unfortunately. What you see me bleed is remembrance in its purest form, as palpable sustenance for my soul. Every drop that drips from my chest and then fades away is a memory of me lost forever. This fleeting puddle at my feet may just be every vague thing that a dozen living minds once knew of me. Touch it and you might hear a passing comment from a younger me resonate behind your ears. Soon, these traces of my existence will fully spill out of my soul and depart the living realm forever.

No, my dearest friend. Your devotion to my remembrance touches me deeply, but these are forces outside of our control. You will forget me. Spirits are the only ones allowed to remember those that have been subject to an untimely vanishment, and as old as you may be, you are several moons away from joining your ancestors.

When that time does come, I am sure that my fellow spirits will make their best attempts at reminding you of who I was and how much you knew me. That act of remembrance will not bring me back, and I cannot guarantee that it will work at enlightening your obscured mind, but if many of the souls here managed to recall the faintest memory of Tigerstar's wickedness or Spottedleaf's kindness, perhaps you will also begin to remember pieces of the conversations that you are gradually forgetting.

Who are Spottedleaf and Tigerstar, you ask? They were both spirits who faded away during The Great Battle. One of them, Spottedleaf, sacrificed her soul to protect Firestar's mate, and the other soul was slain by the legendary leader of ThunderClan, who lost his last life erasing Tigerstar's twisted mark from clan history and memory.

Even after what I told you, it will be impossible for you to remember anything about those spirits. It was easy for me to remember, as StarClan welcomed me to their hunting grounds and shared their untouched memories with me soon after The Great Battle was over. For the ones who survived like you, nothing remains of Tigerstar other than vague stories of a villain whose name was lost to time.

The same goes for a more recent battle, the one that brought me these fatal wounds. A day has not yet passed since the return of the Lights in the Mist from the Dark Forest, and still, their victory has already altered the minds of every cat around the lake. You went to sleep with relief now that Bramblestar's impostor is gone, but the identity of that spirit is a mystery that will linger in your mind late at night, and most tragically, all living cats have forgotten about the one light that was lost to the mist- Bristlefrost. Much like her life, the remembrance of her soul was cut short too soon, before she even had a chance to even die first… You will hear her name being chanted by the spirits of Starclan for as long as they exist.

I… I feel tired now... So very tired… Could you please help a friend lie down? Oh, thank you… You are too kind, listening to what an old cat like me has to say… Ah, this brings me back to the duties we shared as apprentices. I never had the patience for elders and their stories, but you, my friend? You sought to meet each one of their countless needs…

You remember treating the elders and hearing tales, but you have forgotten about me being by your side during that time in your life… To lose such an early memory of us together can only mean that you are moments away from forgetting everything about me.

No, please. I insist, there is nothing to be done. I cannot be healed, and I cannot be spared of this fate… But there is nothing for you to fear, either…

Once I am gone, it will be as though I had never been here to begin with, and you will not mourn me. After all, one mourns only for the dead, not for the millions upon millions of lives that never came to be.

Yes, it is indeed strange. Why must souls die twice? And why must they be snuffed out so thoroughly? It might be dreadful to think of it, but you would be wrong to call this method unfair or cruel. I can only consider it as merciful.

I said that right… Having all memory of me be wiped out along my soul is an act of mercy. If you do not believe me, think of how, with death's embrace, we are promised a reunion with everyone we have lost. How crushing would it then be to know that one of your kin will not be there to welcome you? That the one you love will not be there to share an eternity with you? Or that a very good friend will not be there to comfort you and guide your steps into this astral realm of endless rest? Your eyes alone show how devastating the prospect of my departure is to you, my friend, so I hope you understand me when I say I am thankful that your grief will not be prolonged until the end of your days… That my complete and utter loss will at least have mercy on your mortal psyche.

My time is near, old friend… It is not fair of me to keep my rambling going and going, rarely pausing to let you converse in these last moments we have left. If I am perhaps talking too much, it is only because I cannot help but fear the oppressing nothingness that could be lurking past the threshold that my soul now stands at. Will there only be a void where silence is law and sleep is unending? Or perhaps, once there is no trace left of who I am, will my spirit be forged again into a new being? Pushed into a new body and be granted a new life to live?

I ponder those two options and I find it hard to see any difference between them. We may be reborn, and still, we remember nothing from our past lives. Would that not be a sign that, after fading away, our old selves did indeed face that nothingness we all fear so much? What change does it make if, each time I am reincarnated, I have no knowledge of what it was like to exist before?

Ah, forget it... There is no point in thinking my way around the inevitable. What I am will now be forgotten, no matter if any future lives await me…

I can only thank you for being here to listen, my very good friend. You have lent me your ears so kindly that I wish I could deliver anything of value for them to hear, without the memory of it being short-lived.

I… I suppose I should still try. You deserve my best effort at it. If the whim of fate grants you only one thing to remember from me, let it be this.

The passive and preemptive remembrance we built up throughout our lives can last a thousand seasons, yet it will nevertheless die and take our souls with it on some fateful day. But as dwindling as our stay in the minds of the living can be, it is simply a result of our actions in life.

You told me that yourself. Even if there is no one left who remembers how the lake came to be, it is still there every day, and it welcomed us all to our new home after we left the forest. Similarly, no matter how much of them you will remember, these conversations, shared as we grew older and even after one of us died, have shaped us both into who we are in this moment.

In the vast course of existence, there is and will always be a point where you and I were the best of friends, and unlike with your memory, nothing can shape or alter that past to remove me from it.

By the stars... As I spoke, I had not even noticed what happened to my paws. I cannot see them anymore... This lack of visibility is crawling up my forelegs…

This is it, my friend. As soon as I disappear, you will wake up and this will all feel like a strange and distant dream, one that you will quickly forget when your deputy summons you for your warrior duties.

I cannot feel my tail. Is it also gone by now? You say you cannot discern most of my hind legs? I see…

There is one thing I must ask of you, my friend. I assume that, after you, I am meant to be the last soul to forget who I was. So, could you please focus your mind solely on my name, so that you can whisper it just before there is nothing left of me? I want that to be the last thing I hear.

Of course you remember my name. You used to tease me by saying it was not a name you would give to a kit in a million lives.

Yes, that one! Please say it loud and clear before my ears fade away. I can only feel my chest, my neck and my head now… And I am awfully tired…

What comes next? Will I fall asleep, or open my eyes in a new body? Will my awareness be gone forever, or will it follow into a new life?

So many questions… I am glad to be with you as I ponder on them, my deepest friend… I hope you wake up with the blissful joy of a new dawn… Of another day to be alive...

Did you say something? That was my name I heard, was it not?

Oh, thank you… I almost forgot it...


Feel free to guess who the two unnamed characters in this conversation are.

Also, I had a ko-fi account setted up a while ago. If you think the quality of my writing is good and you can spare a cup of coffee, or if you are interested in comissioning a story from me, head over to ko-fi . com / bilbz.

Your visit alone will be more than enough for me. :)