Despair
Despair. That's the feeling I remember pumping through my veins at that moment, plunging my thoughts into eternal darkness and sucking every ounce of vitality out of me with each second that went by. I didn't understand, at the time I couldn't have. What had I done to make them feel this way towards me? If I only knew what it was, I could change it. I knew I could have! At least that was how I felt back then.
He wanted to vanish. In that instance every bit of nerve and tissue, down to the bare molecules that made up his being were screaming out at him to run away. Worthless. Inconsequential. They recited on endless looped in his head.
Redpaw's pelt fluffed out in embarrassment, face bowed in burning shame under the glare of the deafening silence that seeped from each corner of the Clan. His worthlessness was undeniable in the face of this kind of stance. The unanimous silence signified the Clan's shared opinion of him.
Every kit before him had been swiftly made apprentices and their mentors chosen without haste. However, when it finally came time for Redpaw to join his Clanmates in the coveted celebration, he discovered alongside the entirety of the Clan present that Crowstar had been unsuccessful in finding a cat to agree to mentor him.
What was wrong with him, Redpaw wondered brokenheartedly. It hurt, the sheer act of being shunned to his face so blatantly and without remorse suffocated something dear and desperate within him. The pain could only be compared to the process of being eaten alive from the inside out. It began in the center of his heart, a poisonous seed, that then slowly grew and slithered its way out and around to the rest of his organs and bones, gradually eroding his essence away in quick succession until he was nothing more than a walking corpse, an empty husk that echoed with empty cries of despair.
"I ask again," Crowstar's strained voice called out over his head. "Will no one cat step forward to mentor and guide this apprentice on the right path to success?"
Once again deafening silence met the request in rebuttal.
Redpaw could only shrink lower into himself in the midst of such domineering refusal. He couldn't bare the sight of the look of utter disgust and disappointment that was sure to be there dare he look up and face anyone. Was he that worthless that no cat would even allow themselves to be associated with him? He just wanted to run away at that moment. Every inch of his body was screaming out at him to do so.
Flee! Run away and don't look back, ever. You're nothing, less than worthless even. No one wants you here, they never have. Can't you see that, you mousebrained cat?! Get out! Get out now before they have the chance to abandon you to the wilderness themselves.
He was shaking, Redpaw acknowledge at some point. His body was rippling with tremors of bottled anguish, threatening at any moment to overwhelm him and send his body into a frantic bolt for the gorse tunnel that led out of the Clan.
He very much doubted anyone would care at all at that moment to, at the very least, call after him and that was what troubled him the most. Not that they would call after him, but the mere idea that he cared whether or not they did. That was the problem. Never how horribly he had been treated by the lot of them, he still cared. It was probably the lowliest level of pathetic a cat could stoop to, but he had long since crossed that line moons ago.
Bombarded by a swarm of his own insecurities and fears brought to the forefront, Redpaw was torn over what would manage to kill him first: Baring the immense turmoil of forcing himself to stay in a place where he wasn't wanted or lost alone to fend for himself out in the wilderness of the forest?
It was difficult to gauge which would be the more insufferable existence in the end. No matter the outcome he would end up alone, without a single cat in the expanse of the night sky that was StarClan that would bat an eye in remorse.
"What in the name of StarClan is wrong with all of you?!" An outraged meow broke through the spell of taciturnity.
Redpaw looked up surprised, quickly turning around to scan the crowd of cats for the one that had just spoken. The Clan looked amongst each other in shock, seemingly floored themselves that someone had actually chosen to speak up. There was a bit of murmuring and growls as the crowd reluctantly began to part as the form of an incensed toriseshell pelted she-cat began to shove her way through the throng of them to come stand by Redpaw in the front of the Clan.
Suffice to say, Redpaw could hardly believe his eyes. What was she doing?
Fur ruffled, tail stiff and erect in the air, Hollypaw planted her paws firmly to the ground, casting a chastising glare across the entirety of her Clanmates. "If you're all doing this as some kind of joke stop it now. It's not funny at all, just cruel!"
A slight commotion broke out amongst the Clan as several cats attempted to step forward and cease her tirade, but the act of doing so only moved to incite the newly apprenticed she-cat's rage even more as she vehemently demanded, "He hasn't done a single thing to any of you, so why are you treating Redpaw this way? Why?"
"It's complicated, Hollypaw," her mentor, Roseblossom, answered in a placating tone, stepping forward toward the apprentice. "You're too young to understand right now. You all are to-"
"No!" Hollypaw snapped disconsolately, backing away from her approach. "If you're going to treat him this way than he at least deserves the right to know why. All the apprentices do."
Roseblossom halted in her tracks, casting a weary glance up the Highrock towards Crowstar, before falling troubled back onto Hollypaw. The motion didn't go unnoticed by Hollypaw, who pounced at once, pressing imploringly into her mentor, "What? What do the rest of you in the Clan know about Redpaw that the rest of us don't? We have a right to know. Isn't that right, Redpaw?" she called, suddenly turning towards him.
Her eyes were bright and swirling with a multitude of emotion, the most prominent of which being a sense of burning desire of self-entitlement for those things she felt were being denied to her, whether just or not. What could he say in the face of such undying passion? Without pause, she had been the only cat to step forward and defend him. It would only be the right thing to do by returning the favor, right?
"I think that's quite enough, Hollypaw," a light, bonhomie voice carried above the heads of everyone present. "Crowstar, if you don't mind, I think I will volunteer myself to mentor the apprentice."
The possessor of the voice that had spoken in the clear and even tone had come from the back of the Clan, near the entrance of the warriors den. The sound of the cat's voice became a mere afterthought for Redpaw though, with the startling revelation of their body.
That was my first look at the tom that had volunteered to become my mentor, a truly frightening and shocking experience for me, might I add. I didn't know it then, but from that point onward he would shift, change, and help shape the very way I approached life.
To say the tom was huge would be an understatement. Redpaw racked his memory for an image of having seen this tom before around the Clan, but he drew up nothing but blanks, which he wasn't too surprised by. There wasn't much chance you would ever forget seeing a cat like him. Muscles rippled beneath the stout, light brown tabby's fur as he towered over most cats in the Clan, his imposing size casting a dark shadow that Redpaw suddenly found himself swallowed up by and Hollypaw shrinking away from as the tom strode forward to the bottom of the Highrock, dipping his head low in respect towards Crowstar.
"Ah, Oakclaw, thank you," Crowstar sighed, sounding relieved. "You have just relieved a rather sizable burden from my shoulders."
Redpaw reflexively flinched upon hearing these words. A burden? So was this what the great Clan leader himself saw Redpaw as?
The slight facial movement made on Redpaw's part had managed to grab his new mentor's attention as Oakclaw's eyes briefly grazed over him and Redpaw suddenly felt his insides freeze under the unreadable gaze of the substantial sized tom's pale eyes. It wasn't like other cats. No, Redpaw doubted any cat had eyes the same as Oakclaw. They lacked a personality.
It was the only way he could properly explain them. In just that brief glance, Redpaw had been unable to detect even the faintest flicker of emotion or hint of a conscience in that tom's eyes, and it unsettled his senses. In some way Redpaw's petrified mind reasoned that being under the direct target of hate and spite filled glares was better than that. It was better than nothing at all. At least then he could tell they felt something. At least he knew they felt a shred of something towards him.
The indifference that he had seen there had stirred something inside of him that cried out for his attention.
"It's not necessary to thank me, Crowstar, really. I'm just doing my part for the Clan. Anyone who truly respects and honors the warrior code would do so as well." Oakclaw's voice was warm and forthcoming, appearing completely amicable on the surface, but Redpaw's fright never allowed him to ignore the fact that despite this, his eyes never changed in the slightest while speaking.
The remark of Oakclaw's seemed to strike a deeper chord amongst the older members of the Clan, causing several of them to look uncomfortably amidst each other, while others completely averted their gazes. Had he actually managed to stir up a hint of guilt within them for their behavior towards Redpaw? The ginger furred tom could hardly believe it.
"Well," Crowstar called, straightening up on his perch on top of the Highrock, "If there are no objections to this choice, then I formally name Oakclaw as Redpaw's new mentor. It is with my hope that he will guide young Redpaw on the right path to becoming an invaluable member of BoulderClan that we can all be proud of. Clan meeting adjourned."
His job done, Crowstar departed from the Highrock, turning tail and disappearing behind the moss curtains of his den without a further word. That now left Redpaw alone with the rest of the Clan and his new mentor.
He wasn't sure who felt more uncomfortable, him or them. Oakclaw for his part either remained completely oblivious to the absolute awkwardness surrounding them or much more likely entirely uncaring towards it.
"Come," Oakclaw suddenly ordered, turning to head for the gorse tunnel without single other word. He hadn't even stopped to touch noses with Redpaw like the traditional greeting between an apprentice and their new mentor.
The Clan stood in a stupefied silence, watching as Oakclaw's boulder like back disappeared into the depths of the gorse tunnel. The great tabby had an odd, blithely sort of way about himself that Redpaw was thankful to see he wasn't the only one to obviously notice.
With a start, he realized Oakclaw wasn't intending on planning to wait for him and quickly ran after his fleeting form. He felt the stares of his Clanmates follow him on his way out and he ducked his head instinctually, mistaking the stares for their usual hate filled ones, oblivious to the fact that they were more displaced and at a loss for words more than anything else.
I remember running behind Oakclaw after that, my tiny underused legs struggling to keep up with the longer, more confident stride of the tabby tom. Even back then, before I'd ever realize it, I was already padding after him, trying my absolute hardest to keep up and attain his attention, anything to be the first cat to peer behind the veil of those eyes and feel accomplished, as if I was actually someone that mattered. I guess I just never knew the depths, in which, I would go just to have it.