Chapter 5
There was a journey over the sunrise, but what they found will never be learned.
"Nobody said that that was all there was to it!" Acornpaw shouted jokingly at Flypaw,
"You just did, Ac!" She was laughing. So was he,
"I'm going to wake up As and make him eat with me, do you want to come with us? 'Hind the Medicine Den?"
"No, Otterfern's takin' me 'cross, or, 'longside, Thunderclan's border," Aspenpaw blinked his eyes open.
Acornpaw was standing right there in front of him.
Aspenpaw jumped and nearly fell out of his skin.
Acornpaw's pelt looked nearly a replicant of his own, and the blue of his eyes blended so seamlessly with the surrounding sky that he hardly noticed they were there.
Even the extended tendrils of fur that blew over his dark ears, it was all perfect, "Come on, As, green-leaf's nearly here! You slept new-leaf away!"
Aspenpaw's eyes dilated, so entranced by his brother talking to him.
He was back in Riverclan.
Aspenpaw could see his brother again.
But it was too late.
It didn't change a thing.
Acornpaw was still dead, and Aspenpaw, still his killer.
Aspenpaw was dreaming, further insinuated by the fact that he hadn't woken up in the apprentices' den.
He was out in the clearing, sleeping under the open air.
He couldn't remember what had led him to this point, but he knew that none of it was real.
Acornpaw was looking down at his resting form, obviously having expected an answer that Aspenpaw hadn't given him, "Are you okay, As? Bad dream?"
"You're d-dead. I've seen your face, in ev-in every place that I go," Aspenpaw was already starting to tear up.
Acornpaw looked confused, and nervously laughed, as if he was trying to convince himself of the words he was about to say,
"I'm not dead," Aspenpaw didn't want to live out this dream, not how it was supposed to be,
"Ye-Yes you are, and I, I-I killed you!" Acornpaw looked devastated and he whispered out a single word,
"Why?" Aspenpaw started crying, but his voice was so choked that it was painful, and no tears ended up leaving his warped vision.
There seemed to be no other cats in camp.
It was just the two of them now.
Acornpaw was crying alongside his brother, or at least, the visage of him was, and when Aspenpaw didn't answer his question, the blue-eyed tom started to argue, "But, we're here, we're right here in Riverclan, As!"
His voice cracked under the pressure of his tears, "We, we're, nobody's going to hurt us! We're home!" It stung more than any wound that Aspenpaw had ever acquired.
He had to turn away, looking over at the empty camp, all only slightly off.
It was all too shiny, and it slipped in his vision, as if he were walking.
He had to suck up his tears, if just for Acornpaw.
Even if he wasn't real, Aspenpaw wouldn't let himself cry in front of his brother.
It had an agreement of theirs, though neither had ever put it into words, to never cry in front of each other, instead both being avoidant in either situation that it appeared.
It was the one thing that the dream got wrong about him, "I'm sorry," Acornpaw suddenly spoke, but he sounded so far away,
"Don't say that to me, Ac. This is my dream, you know what I did," Aspenpaw steadied his voice, but kept his head turned away, unable to look into his eyes again.
Acornpaw didn't respond, and Aspenpaw realized that he couldn't hear his sniffling anymore, and sure enough, Acornpaw had vanished.
Aspenpaw wished he could believe that he was really in Riverclan again, but here, the dens were spaced too far apart, the blue sky was too bright, the dirt on the ground felt no different than stone.
None of it was real, and Aspenpaw shut his eyes again, willing himself to wake up from this nightmare.
The words that had been exchanged were already fading, and though he could remember them, he couldn't hear his brother's voice anymore.
They were just words in a dream, spoken by nothing but air and memory.
In his blackened sight, Aspenpaw could still see the camp, just outlined in the darkness, like the claw marks on the Great Rock at Fourtrees.
Once again he was brought back to the gathering place, and if he focused hard enough, he could see that too.
Aspenpaw's lamenting was met with complete silence of all the senses.
Nobody was around, and nothing changed when he blinked his eyes open.
Not even the clouds had moved. It was as if the dream had ended, but he was still trapped in it.
Everything that was supposed to happen, had, and everything else that could have happened, had, and now he was alone again.
He couldn't even get up off the ground anymore, and he didn't dare call out for company, too afraid of being met with the same visage, and with the same thoughts.
His eyes focused on the curves and edges of the fake clouds, following a line through them for minutes until they began to fade.
The whole world itself started ebbing away, but all that Aspenpaw did was close his eyes, and wait for the storm to be over.
An eye shot open, and then the other, like the instantaneous retreat of disturbed prey.
A grueling pain registered in Aspenpaw's brain before he could even realize that he was awake.
Breath caught in his throat before he could stop it and he started choking, forcing the gray tom to wake fully and sit up.
He was in a darkened room, sheets of string and water dragging down from the ceiling, though some were fallen on the ground, strewn about like they had been deliberately tossed out of the way from the central point of the dwelling.
Aspenpaw raised a paw to the pain in his chest, coming to with the memories of the previous day with a thud.
There was a wrap of some sort on the wound that he had received from yesterday, though, when he found a small pool of water in the corner, he noticed that it had been sloppily put together, as if by an apprentice.
Aspenpaw was upset, and wanted to tear off all the wraps, let it heal on its own if it would, but he knew he wouldn't do him any good.
It didn't seem like a deep cut, despite the amount of blood that had come from it, but Aspenpaw just surmised that up to the shock of the situation and the exhaustion he was feeling at that point.
He couldn't believe he had acted so helpless over such a small thing.
The water refracted against the wall and Aspenpaw looked over the other side of the room to see a small crevice letting in light, the only producer of such in this chamber.
He was in a prison, Aspenpaw presumed, having been knocked out and brought here by that patrol of she-cats.
There was a cracked piece of wall leaning against the rest of its relatives, and when Aspenpaw pushed it aside, he was privy to a murky tunnel of smooth stones and filthy water.
He also revealed two she-cats, standing on either side of the cylindrical passageway.
They turned to look, and Aspenpaw cautiously stepped forward, ready to unsheath his claws if he felt he had to,
"Whoa, twist'a! You can't be leav'en that this room 'til we got us an order to, or otherwise a good reason," The cat on Aspenpaw's right spoke, stepping in front of him and lightly pushing him back with her paw on his unharmed side,
"I don't want to be here!" Aspenpaw complained arrogantly,
"Welcome!" The other she-cat said, overacting with sarcasm,
"Don't you be worryin' too hard now, littlin, y'uv got yerself a meetin' soon enough. She should be comin' soon," The right one spoke again, stepping a little bit aside in her position as Aspenpaw had been receptive to her suggestion of stepping back,
"Who?" Aspenpaw asked,
"Names are a privilege you haven't got yet, littlin,"
"Don't call me that,"
"Good to know," She smiled cheekily, "Now go get yerself cleaned up and rehearse yer formalities. Yer first impression may be the diff'rence 'tween how many legs ya walk outta here with," The guard laughed to herself, though her partner just stared ahead, looking bored with her job.
Aspenpaw ducked back into the room without any more arguments, and the talkative she-cat came in as well to reset the cracked barrier back against the wall.
The pain in Aspenpaw's chest had tired him out despite the adrenaline of anger that he felt towards his captures, so he laid down in the tiny nest that he had woken up in, made of some prickly material that he couldn't even fathom.
He just wanted to explain himself and get out of here.
It had been wrong to try and gain help from these cats.
Aspenpaw closed his eyes and cushioned his head with his tail as he tried to get some more sleep, his chest pulsing with pain every time he breathed.
His dream came back to him, in fragments, shattered memories and pure fiction crossing over to fill in the gaps.
He remembered the empty space that had once been Riverclan camp, much more opened than he ever recalled it being, and he remembered the words that he had exchanged with his brother, but he couldn't see his face anymore.
All that had been there was just mist over the horizon now.
A greeting sounded from behind Aspenpaw's sleeping head, "Hello there, tom, is your chest still feeling those claws?"
Aspenpaw reluctantly raised his head and turned around, but didn't have the courtesy to greet her back, or even to rise from the nest, despite the warning that the guard had given him outside.
The words had come from, of course, a she-cat, black over most of her body, though with a few patches of white from her neck to her stomach and back, "I was told that you were sent by the Setter, is this true?" She got right into the point, which Aspenpaw appreciated,
"Yeah, Corrina. She said that if I needed help than I could find you,"
"And you need help?" She asked, her dignified voice catching Aspenpaw as very strange next to how he had heard the rest of the cats in the city talk,
"I've never been to the city before," Aspenpaw responded, an edge slipping into his voice at her interrogation. The she-cat, in turn, became accusatory,
"What did you expect us to do for you?" It was a fair question, seeing as Aspenpaw wasn't even sure of the answer,
"I've got nowhere else to go here, and I could help out," The she-cat widened an eye with suspicion,
"Forgive my expression, it's hard to gauge an outsider's intent, we get so few of them around here. I've sent somebody to meet with the Setter regarding the issue, so I must ask you to sit tight for a couple of days until she returns, that is, if you're telling the truth,"
"A couple of days?" Aspenpaw nearly shouted,
"I'll send somebody in later with herbs and prey. Don't stress yourself out too much, you might blow a vein," Aspenpaw was indeed fuming. He didn't want to be a prisoner anymore, "Is there anything else that you'll be needing, tom?"
"Fresh air,"
"Afraid not. I sincerely hope that you are telling the truth, or else you won't be getting that for quite a while," The words were obviously a test to check Aspenpaw's reaction, but they had no effect on him.
This must just be a misunderstanding, and Corrina would confirm that she had given him her blessing.
But what if she didn't?
The she-cat bid him farewell for now, and slipped through the wall, into the murky tunnel.
A worry chewed into Aspenpaw's neck and up into his brain.
His entire life seemed to ride on what information Corrina would give their messenger, and he had only known her for a single day.
With all of the talk about feuds between toms and she-cats, Aspenpaw was afraid that Corrina wouldn't vouch for him and condemn him to whatever punishments these cats had for him.
He started pacing, knowing that he could only wait now, except for one thing.
The light, the minuscule slit in the upper cornice of the right wall.
The mud and stone was soft enough for Aspenpaw to dig his claws in, and he started climbing up.
He didn't have much of any experience in climbing, but with more effort than it was worth, he stuck his paws into the embrasure, and started raking.
The crack was hardly large enough for his paws, much less fit for the average-sized tom, but the more he clung on, creating friction with his claws, the more the material on the wall began to rub off.
Aspenpaw had placed his hind legs on two large bubbles protruding from the surrounding enclosure, but one of them broke and sent him crashing to the ground.
Aspenpaw started feeling dejected, the pain in his chest swelling from the tumble, but looking at the progress he had made reinvigorated him.
It was nearly wide enough for him to slip his head through now.
Double-taking at the entrance to make sure that nobody would rush in after hearing him fall on the ground, Aspenpaw scrambled back up quietly when it felt clear to.
He held on again and replaced his hind paws on a couple of hard bubbles, and he started scraping again, trying to push out as many remnants outside as he could as opposed to letting them fall to the ground and alert the guards.
It was a slow and tiring process, but he could see outside, and as bleak as it looked, more narrow-ways and sky-reaching buildings, it was nearly paradise compared to where he was.
When the wall was completely exposed and Aspenpaw couldn't dig further, he turned his attention to the ceiling, ripping it apart with vigor.
His shoulder slipped in, painfully, but that was all he needed.
The scraps and bruises and dust fluttering over his pelt and into his eyes was nothing to the satisfaction and relief of being able to push himself through the hole.
He let go of the bubbles, and he was out, into the open air, the wide, cloudy sky.
Aspenpaw ran as soon as he was standing on his legs. He wasn't completely out yet, but he had a better fighting chance out here.
He wouldn't let himself get cornered again.
All of his senses were fully alert as he stumbled past dead end after dead end, slowly getting further and further away, keeping careful track of his trail.
There was nobody following him, and by the time that Aspenpaw saw a thunderpath down the way, with twolegs walking out in front of it, he knew that he had made it.
He was safe. Now the adrenaline was wearing down, Aspenpaw curled into himself in pain, his chest seizing from the excitement, and otherwise, his paws were all scraped up, his claws deformed.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an overhang on the side of a building, with a consistent elevation up to the top.
Aspenpaw could only stare for a moment, this bizarre possibility making itself known to him.
A horn from a monster startled him into action.
There was no place left on the ground for him to go unless he wanted to drift through the crowds of twolegs, so he started up.
As he leapt to the metal cage, he was shocked at how sturdy it was, nearly like he was on solid ground if not for the conforming cracks of missing space, small enough for Aspenpaw's paw to span the length of three lines.
He moved carefully despite the safety of where he stood, disliking the feeling of his toes slipping beneath where the rest of him stood, even if the holes weren't large enough for him to get stuck in.
There seemed to be a thousand steps up, but the promise of what was up there sent Aspenpaw continuing on.
Every five steps there was a small platform, indistinguishable from the first that he had stepped on.
It felt like he was climbing over the same old ground, but when he reached his head over the edge, a brilliant picture bore to his eyes.
He was high above all life that he could imagine besides the soaring creatures of the sky.
Aspenpaw rushed up the next few flights, knowing that the view from the top of the building would entrance him, but the pain in his chest slowed him down.
He wasn't even worried about being followed anymore.
It was as if nothing could hurt him up here aside from the wounds he already had.
Another step, and another; Aspenpaw felt his tired body wane and slump like water running upside down, yet he kept going, only letting himself take short breaks to make sure he was still able to breathe.
He moved through shifting eyes, blurring between the mundanity of sight, the blackness of early sleep, and coming back to before his dreams could wring out his soul.
But as his eyes snapped open one more time, Aspenpaw swore that he had lost the battle to stay conscious.
The clouds were only hardly out of reach, and there was horizon in every direction.
A harsh wind blew like a hurricane, and Aspenpaw realized that he wasn't dreaming.
He had made it to the last platform, a walled-in plateau overlooking the entire city, or at least, as much of it as the eyes would allow to be seen.
Aspenpaw looked down, exhilarated, and he saw the twolegs for just what they were, creatures of life.
Though so unnatural in their creations, the bobbing heads waving through crowds, waiting for others to pass before they could, flooding in and out of structures.
The comradeship between some, and the paranoia between so many others, it was all the same as any other being.
Aspenpaw saw the relation of all creatures in the simple image of them passing alongside the thunderpaths, simply living.
Sleep still wrestled him, despite the whipping wind on his face, and Aspenpaw gave in, feeling fulfilled in his realization of the lives that the twolegs lived, but knowing that that understanding could later bring him pain.
Aspenpaw didn't dream.
It was still day when he awoke, though the clouds were unfamiliar now.
He was still where his eyes had left him, atop the grand pillar in the sky.
He was shocked that he had ever even been able to close his eyes with the shrieking volume of the city below, monsters still howling and birds occasionally chirping along.
Aspenpaw felt somewhat miserable, despite the incredible view when he leaned on the parapet.
His breathing was uncontrollably rapid, and each time his lungs expanded, a sharp pain grew in his chest.
The wind was still so strong up here, shedding off excess fur from Aspenpaw's pelt and sending it away in the breeze to fall someplace far away, like the achenes of a dandelion, reinventing themselves a hundred times over in various dirts across the world.
The pain was growing, and the trivialness of twoleg life below only brought him more sadness.
He tore his gaze away from their daily strifes and began pacing the length of the rooftop, trying to forcibly limit his breathing.
It was a game between his lungs and his chest, each vying for space in his body, and each distressing Aspenpaw's nerves when they lost control for even a moment.
He tried to concentrate on something else, but he couldn't even imagine something at this moment, focusing instead on his paws as he moved slowly from wall to wall.
He told himself that this was just a passing moment caused by the overexertion that he had displayed climbing his way up to where he was.
This was just what it felt like after getting wounded.
As he neared a wall again, he stared anxiously and longingly at the upward path that had taken him here in the first place.
He told himself again that he had nowhere to go on the ground; he was intent to weather the pain out up here.
It felt like the claws were still lodged inside him.
Aspenpaw didn't know how to fill the time until the pain passed.
He couldn't think about anything else.
As he made one last round from side to side, Aspenpaw looked down and noticed that blood had begun seeping from behind the dry herbs and cobwebs that had been sloppily paced on his chest.
That same fear of his insides struck him, and he was finally forced to admit that something was very wrong.
He couldn't take the pain anymore, and dragged himself up and into the step-path, nearly falling down the first flight.
He started heading down mindlessly, guiding himself where he knew he needed to go but was unable to admit.
There was an infection in his chest, he knew the signs of it, and he needed help.
Though he hated it, he knew where he was going.
The cats in the she-cat base were the only ones who he knew how to find, and the only ones who could treat him.
It wasn't until now that Aspenpaw realized how foolish it had been to try and escape; he could hardly move at this point, he certainly wouldn't survive out here for long.
The steps appeared no longer as such, instead they were just incongruous shapes entirely separate from their whole.
Going down was far harder than going up, as though the pain was comparable, his senses were distorted from the onslaught of it that he had been experiencing since he started up this way.
On top of that, his vision was deteriorating as all of his energy was spent focusing on the pain in his chest and the fear of going back to the she-cat camp.
He was in the worst place he could be at this point.
If he didn't give up, he would simply die in this unfamiliar land, but going back, he didn't know what the punishment for running away would be, and if it would be any better than death.
As he neared the ordinary world once again, he resorted to simply sliding down the steps, trying to save his energy for the walk back, if he could even remember the way.
He knew he couldn't fall asleep, or else he may never wake back up, and, although the thoughts that plagued his mind and the past actions that he had performed, Aspenpaw didn't want to die.
He was too afraid.
He was on the final layer, just a leap away from the ground.
Falling more than jumping, Aspenpaw found himself feeling the artificial hard earth on his pelt, relief spilling over him.
Pushing himself to his paws proved to be more difficult here than it ever had been before, but looking up and seeing drops of blood sprinkling down from the rafters gave him the strength of fear to pull himself together.
One step, and then another, and Aspenpaw was on his way, trying his hardest to recall which turns he had taken, searching through his blurry vision for markers that he had passed before.
His nose was of almost no use here in the city, clogged with fumes and the scent of disposables.
He wondered if cats were out looking for him, or at least, he certainly hoped that there were.
Passing a familiar colorful wall, full of tens of images laid atop each other, Aspenpaw suddenly remembered exactly where to go from here.
Up and over a small incline, he was met with the sight of his escape location, rubble drifting out from the sides of a break in the ground.
Aspenpaw swallowed hard, causing more pain to course through his tired body, and prepared to face the punishment of his actions.
Until I write again,
-Gojira
