A tide of bone shattering terror throbbed through Leafpool's pelt as her blood seemed to crystallize in a constricted shunt of alarm. There was a sound, like nothing she had ever heard before, swallowing the entire medicine den. It grated her ears like rock against bark; cornered her nerves like a hostile invasion; slapped her fur slick like a blizzarding battle cry. Eyes blurred in panic, Leafpool swung her head numbly around, desperately seeking the source of this abusive sound. Her pools of distress locked themselves hungrily on a flicker of movement near the bramble screen. It was just Jayfeather.
"Are you okay?" the smoky gray feline seemed to float towards her like an ominous storm cloud, ready at any moment to lash out its electrifying claw of lightning and paralyze her senses completely. A touch of concern flickered across his sightless eyes, but Leafpool hardly took any notice.
"Jayfeather, that sound . . . we are all in grave danger! Something terribly evil has come to get us-"
"Have you lost your mind? Everything's as silent as new moon!" the apprentices' harsh words scoured deeply into Leafpool's hallucinating consciousness. A twinge of interest strummed along his whiskers as he meowed: "Have StarClan sent you a sign?"
All words tangled inside Leafpool's throat. Her mind felt like a racing whirlwind, flinging poison-coated secrets at her that she had assumed would remain buried for moons. None of this was supposed to happen. Every possible flaw to her explicitly naïve plan had surfaced, their moons of dark hibernation now drawn to an unexpected halt. Leafpool felt as if she was brimming with aged dust as every securely rooted secret was just carelessly tossed at her, like they were a bunch of kittypet toys. Yet all she could manage to stutter was: "StarClan does not speak with me anymore, Jayfeather."
If her apprentice had anything to say, Leafpool didn't hear it. Her body was pulsing erratically, screaming in agitated bursts of heat. Her surroundings began to whirl uncontrollably around her, until Leafpool felt as if she was positioned in the eye of a terrifying storm. The lethal sound was fully upon her now, caterwauling in her sensitive ears as if StarClan was declaring a mutinous war against Leafpool. Petrified, she backed away blindly, her feet carrying her along a dream-like path to a hopeless shelter.
StarClan, I'm so sorry!
But the ear-splitting sound continued to echo violently about Leafpool, clawing at her until she whimpered for mercy. Sickening red eyes, shining as if they'd been bathed in freshly-spilled blood, glowered at her from every possible angle, pounding down on her ruthlessly. Every muscle seared in jarring pain until her body felt lifeless, as if cats were ripping her limbs apart in one simultaneous effort. She could hear their hisses of disgust and thistle-coated snarls, tearing away at every ounce of security she had left in her lifeless soul.
Traitor! Traitor! Traitor!
The words clung to Leafpool like the most stubborn burrs, suffocating her in their chokingly dark meaning. It was a subversive chorus now, all the cats of StarClan were willing her to flee, willing her to die at the paws of those who had remained loyal, wishing her to live the cruelest life duly imaginable-
"Leafpool!"
Arctic cold claws dragged at her paws as she splashed vulnerably within the depths of the medicine den's pool. Her name. That was her name . . . Leafpool.
"Leafpool! What in StarClan's name has gotten into you?" Jayfeather yowled, his pelt bristling in waves of prickly hot anxiety.
Leafpool let her head snap to face the medicine cat apprentice. No . . . he's my kit. My son.
A hazy mist seemed to cloud Leafpool's vision, smudging Jayfeather's outline until he camouflaged against the swarm of glittering cats, seething in a haunted fury.
"No, Jayfeather! Not you too!" Leafpool howled the words until her voice cracked in defiant indignation. He's too young to hunt with StarClan. He shouldn't be judged because of my actions. She watched in utter horror as Spottedleaf wrapped her tail, dripping in ruby red blood, around Jayfeather's unsuspecting flank.
He shall pay the price for your mistake.
"Nooooo!" her thoughts were spoken aloud in a fit of terror. Even Spottedleaf has turned her back on me! In one perilous leap Leafpool bounded on top of Jayfeather, instantly knocking him to the depths of the deathly cold earth. She gazed deep within his useless eyes, soaking up his bountiful flashes of panic striped confusion like a cat madly salivating over its prey.
"Leafpool, everything is fine!" Jayfeather struggled lamely to fling her off, but Leafpool was too heavily weighted with grief to allow him any freedom. Without any thought at all she began desperately licking his bristling fur, trying with every echelon of strength in her to save him from StarClan's cruel bloody grasp. As his mother, it was her duty. All those years watching Squirrelflight care for her kits was over.
"Would you get off?" anger radiated from Jayfeather's taut mew, muffled due to Leafpool's maniacal licking; by now it was bordering on sheer insanity.
Her body tremoured like an earthquake as a pair of needle like fangs gripped her neck fur, lifting her ungracefully off of Jayfeather's quivering body. He was shaking from ears to tail-tip, a look of wild fright glazing his eyes stone still.
"Enough, Leafpool." The steadily reassuring voice came from her leader, Firestar. His calmness pierced Leafpool like a thorn, so juxtaposing amidst her immoral surroundings.
"But my kit, my kit is in danger-"
Firestar flanked Leafpool swiftly, and, without hesitation, began to lead her strappingly out of the medicine den towards the highledge. "He is perfectly safe, Leafpool."
"No!" Leafpool's yowl of motherly disbelief was cut short by Sandstorm's tail sweeping over her outstretched jaws. She felt her feather soft fur brush the opposite side of her flank.
"You need to rest, away from the others." Sandstorm's words were filled in agonized concern, despite the mutinous looks being thrown at Leafpool from the rest of the clan. She felt her mother's rough, sand papery tongue rasp over her ringing ear.
Leafpool hardly even realized she was moving; all she could think about were Jayfeather's gazeless eyes, stricken in paralyzed terror. Her paws padded unthinkingly along an indefinite path, muscle memory the only thing assisting her parents as they escorted her caringly to Firestar's den. In what seemed like slow motion, as if StarClan had frozen her body to ice, Leafpool curled up in her father's nest, its warm padding sending shots of rebellion along her fur. She didn't deserve this. She didn't deserve her clan's hospitality, not after what she had put them through. Images of a depressed cat emblazed itself within her mind, limping sluggishly to the fresh-kill pile. It was Squirrelflight. She lifted her head unbearably, as if every movement sent her into a deeper state of cramp inducing despair and misery. Her eyes, glassy and broken, raked the pelt of another cat in the distance; to Leafpool's horrified dismay, he seemed just as melancholy blank-minded and heartbroken as her sister. It was Brambleclaw. Leafpool realized with a toxic shudder that she had not only managed to shatter her own life into useless pieces, but those closest to her as well. How could she have been so selfish?
Firestar and Sandstorm fussed around the abandoned mother, but they were merely ghosts to Leafpool, caressing her fur like the wind in the forest as she stared fixedly ahead into oblivion. Nothing mattered anymore. Everywhere she stepped a scar of destruction seemed to imbed itself permanently behind her. She was a liability to every cat she knew.
I don't deserve StarClan's guidance. I don't deserve a life period.