Tumbling

It all returns to nothing.

He could only watch.

Flames spewed forth, razing the earth over in far arching lines of carnage as the terrified cries of fleeing cats served as the backing chorus to the nightmarish scene. Trees burned, illuminated as withered skeletons while the canopies were reduced to smoking mushroom clouds of smog. The once proud and imposing bramble walls of BoulderClan had collapsed to charred pieces, never to stand again. With a crackling snap and crunch, multiple smaller trees toppled over. They smashed into the ground, shooting out fiery splinters that fell from the sky in a shower of dying embers.

Shrieks rang out into the night, high pitched and riddled with agony. Cats ran around blindly while completely engulfed in fire as a crisp, putrid and revolting stench wafted from their roasting bodies. One after another, they eventually dropped still to the ground before instantly being washed over in a tidal wave of flowing flames. They were incinerated at once.

Something truly strange and extraordinary occurred then. A form of some kind of predatory and gigantic cat appeared to manifest from the fire itself, exuding a horrifying aura that carried a distorted sense of majesty about it. In one fell swoop, it lashed out and toppled even more trees, sending them careening to the forest floor in a explosion of billowing smoke and scorched earth.

Redoak observed it all numbly from his perch on the Highrock. He stood as the lone figure over a sea of flames. Nothing lie left of BoulderClan below him. The familiar sights of his old home, of the medicine den where he'd spent time in Fernleaf's care, the nursery where his shaky upbringing began, apprentice den where his burgeoning relationship with Hollyfrost started, or even Crowstar's den where the great leader had revealed the tragic tale behind his conception and more had been cleansed entirely.

The fire claimed it all, roaring out unchallenged and victorious, as it continued torching the surrounding forest in its sweeping claws. The forest was its domain now, and it'd continue marking its territory until a point was reached where it either ran out of life to consume or dwindled away in appeasement.

Everything that mattered to him in the world was gone. He'd lost everything. In the midst of the swell of flames below, there lie a momentary break in its tirade. There he saw the faint, translucent image of an impossibly small, if not outright malnourished kit with ginger fur. How could he possibly not recognize the saddened yet hopeful look in its eyes. For moons he'd looked out those exact same eyes, holding out hope for when he became an apprentice and things would finally be different.

"I let you down," a detached echo of a voice clattered from Redoak's throat. "From the very start, I've been letting myself down."

Every mistake, every misstep, every foolish action on his behalf thinking he knew better, they all amounted to this outcome. One after another, each and every one of those failures slammed against his back, teetering him towards the edge. The images of all the lost lives, of cats like Brackentail who shouldn't have died in the manner he did, to Falconpaw who he should've controlled his anger against and let go, his mother who'd hoped for a happier future for her son than she got herself, and lastly Oakclaw who'd injured his own reputation among the Clan to improve Redoak's and have it backfire, they all bludgeoned him in the back of the head, causing Redoak to lean forward.

And then he fell, tumbling down from the top of the Highrock to his fiery demise. With this he would return to nothing just like the rest of BoulderClan. The flames would extinguish his existence once and for all. It's what he deserved. A cat who lost his ability to be useful to others didn't have a future.

It all keeps tumbling down.

But that hadn't transpired. Redoak survived the fall. He wasn't dead. It was the worst possible punishment, burned yet still living. Hollyfrost stood over him, coldly overlooking his singed body. He noted blearily with pain she appeared largely unscathed. Unlike him, her body wasn't burned.

Vengeance and cruelty were battling fiercely for dominance within her heart. Each instinct wanted to be the first she allowed herself to indulge in. To kill him instantly or make the tom suffer? The indecision was worse than a kit being given the first pick between playing outside right now or playing more later.

The fact she'd avoided the fire's rampage was less survival instinct and more circumstantial luck. The moment MeadowClan had invaded and attacked, she'd found herself at the back of camp when lightning arced across the sky and struck a tree. As flames were consuming everything near the front, she remembered the secret groove located in the bramble wall where she was. It was the same back exit she'd used in the past to go visit Falconpaw undetected.

She shouted as loudly as her voice would carry out, drawing as many cats attention on her position as she possibly could. Hollyfrost tore at the bramble walls hole, exposing it further and ushering as many of her Clanmates and even MeadowClan cats out of the camp as could fit.

There was no telling how many of them had actually gotten out. At risk of her own life, she vaguely recalled Sagebrush appearing and proceeding to forcibly shove her through the hole out into the forest. Safety wasn't guaranteed that easy, however. She, along with several others, scattered off into random directions, as faraway from the fire's ongoing path as was feasibly possible. Hollyfrost wasn't certain how long she'd ran, just that by the time she was aware of her surroundings again she'd somehow cross over into the marshlands of SwampClan territory.

The fire didn't appear to be extending in her direction, so she waited out the worst of the danger there. She had the option of running around blindly in search of the SwampClan camp for aid or braving a risky return to BoulderClan in hope of finding survivors. Her curiosity eventually won out and she cautiously slunk back to stumble across a surprise. Redoak.

"What would Oakclaw think if he saw you like this? You dedicated your life to him like some kinda swooning kit, and now that he's not here you're gonna roll over like an ant and just die? What a joke." The revulsion laced through her tone was palpable. It indicated clearly she was viewing a lowly creature who's appearance made her stomach churn. "Where's your backbone? Don't tell me you're still too good to fight a Clanmate?" she jeered mockingly.

She stalked around him, tail flicking with agitation. Despite every provocation, Redoak seemed uninterested in actually fighting for himself. What was she meandering around for then? If he refused to even put up a fight she should just do him the favor and end it now. He'd just told her himself his life wasn't worth anything.

Hollyfrost flexed her paws, extending her unsheathed claws out to bare. Enough of this. She reached out and pressed her paw hard onto Redoak's neck, piercing the skin instantly as she bared down. This would end it for good. Redoak just looked at her. There wasn't sadness, rage, or even hatred reflected in his gaze. Only mute acceptance.

"For Falconpaw!" she yowled out and then raked across with her claws – or would've if she hadn't lifted her paw away at the last moment.

Hollyfrost threw her head back, angrily cursing the smog infested heavens. It wasn't there. No matter how hard she tried to convince herself, the conviction to harm him wasn't strong enough to spur her on. As badly as she'd thought she did, Hollyfrost couldn't tap into the callousness needed to do it. Everything about it felt disingenuous.

So many moons had been spent in the company of Falconpaw and others, speaking out directly against this sort of behavior. They'd chanted words of encouragement together, dreaming of a future where bloodshed would no longer be a thing among the Clans.

She was tired. The sheer exhaustion of it all caused her whiskers to droop. She'd criticized the Clans for moons about their endless cycle of hate and pain. Even after everything Redoak had done, she didn't want to contribute to the same sort of reality that'd led him to end up as he was now. It'd be a mockery to Falconpaw's memory. And what's more, it'd make her just like the same sorts of cats she'd been rebelling against this entire time.

Hollyfrost looked down at Redoak. What do I do with you then? She allowed exactly six heartbeats to pass by before making a decision.

"Get up, we're leaving."

Without waiting for so much as a response from the tom, she clasped onto the scruff of his neck and forcibly hauled him up. A sharp intake of air sounded from Redoak as his wound instantly flared up at the sudden movement.

"What're you doing?" he gasped out. "I–"

"Shut up!" she growled through a mouthful of fur. Hollyfrost gave him a furious shake before letting go. "Walk," she commanded. "We're leaving."

Redoak stood shakily on his paws, staring at her wide eyed and confused. "I don't understand. Why didn't you kill me?"

Hollyfrost marched directly in front of him, standing less than a whiskers breath away. Her honey yellow eyes met his hard. "You said you needed to be useful to someone, right? Well, you're under my command now to do whatever it is I want. And my first order is for you to walk. We're going to find either Lilypaw or Fernleaf to take care of that burn and then you're going to keep walking."

"...Hollyfrost," he began weakly. His expression was haggard and desperate. "Falconpaw and about what I did...don't you want to revenge for it? Don't– "

"No more talking!" she snapped, anger still sharp in her tone. "You're not forgiven and you don't get a say. I'm just tired of seeing things constantly get destroyed around me. Just once, I'm going to do what I want and not have a story about the Clans end in tragedy. But if you want to be punished so bad, fine. I deny you from dying. The perfect vengeance against a cat who wants to die is to force them to live on. It's what you deserve."

She thought about Sagebrush and Lilypaw, about Falconpaw and Cedarshade, about the numerous amounts of cats who'd tragically lost their lives tonight over nothing. She even thought about the wobbly legged tom in front of her and their complicated history together. Yes, there'd been enough tragedy in the forest to last a lifetime over. Hollyfrost wanted something whole now.

She prodded Redoak forward with her nose. His steps were reluctant and slow, but silently he proceeded to move without further urging on her part. Hollyfrost took lead and began traversing through the blackened and smoking remains of their former home that lie in rubble. A long and arduous trek surely awaited them. The future was as unclear as the muddled sky of Silverpelt above, but for her anything else was certainly better than remaining here.

A/N: All that remains now is the epilogue. Thank you all so much for the constant support over these past six years. We're almost there. This has been such a long time in the making. I've honestly changed and evolved so much as a writer that it's so odd to look back on older chapters of this story throughout the years while noticing visible shifts and changes in my overall prose and character work. This story isn't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but its taught me so much about myself as a creative, especially where my strengths and weaknesses lie.

It's wild to remember this whole thing originally started out as a one-shot in 2012, meant to catalog through specific life alternating moments in the life of Redoak. After shelving it for a while though, I revisited it in 2013 and figured I could use it as the basis for a multi-chapter tale instead, and so over the course of these six years I basically used that one-shot as the outline. The prologue of Broken is nearly word for word copy and pasted straight from the original one-shot.

The inspirations behind Broken are too numerous to name, but I would truly be remiss if I didn't take a moment to specifically thank and shout out Dawnfrost96 and her story Unwritten. It's a Warriors story from 2011 I read then, which had a sizable impact on the general structure of this story. For those of you who have always wondered where I got the idea of mixing present tense first person perspective with limited third person perspective, it's because of her and that story. I remember reading it back then, remarking how neat of a concept it was. So a couple of years later in 2013 when I decided to make Broken, I gave it a shot and found it was a nice way of not only keeping intrigue high, but allowed me to mislead the readers into believing certain things were true, because it never occurred to anyone that the character of Redoak might be a unreliable narrator. If you're interested, you should definitely give Unwritten a read.

With the end of this story, I have one simple request. I usually make it a point to never ask for reviews until a story is finished, so for this story's end if you have anything of note or interest to say, please drop a review. I'd genuinely love to know what you all thought of this, whether positive or negative, I'm actively seeking out feedback of any kind. Be honest and thorough. You can list things you liked, whether favorite chapters, characters, moments or scenes, and why, etc. You can do the exact same thing for your dislikes as well.

I can't thank you all enough again for sticking so long with this story, and the sometimes year long hiatus I would take in-between. Your continued readership is a big reason why I kept coming back. The epilogue should be out in the coming days, and then we'll officially be done for good. Look forward to it.

-Lightning