Chapter 11
The face in the reflection is that haunted one, the one that will never leave.
Aspenpaw slept in his dry, spiny nest as if he was sleeping in the sun.
When they had returned to the commune, he had fallen half-way unconscious and hadn't yet awoken.
Deya must have told Apollo by now, though Aspenpaw had no real sense of time where he was.
It seemed like he was too tired for dreaming, so he just found himself in reflection about the day's events, trying to fit them all soundly together, and analyze the broken social scene that he had borne witness to.
He wondered what these cats would think of the clans.
He also thought about climbing up to the rooftops again.
His eyes flickered in distress from beyond his sleep at the image of the deepening earth through those metal bars, scantily holding his weight without shivering from their hinges,
"All this time later," Aspenpaw didn't quite know what he was referring to, but those words felt correct in this moment, like they spoke to some kind of truth that he had just found.
Contrary to what the actual meaning of those words could be, Aspenpaw realized just how little he knew about himself.
He hadn't had the chance to discover himself for quite a while now, and he felt completely ignorant because of it.
At the same time he understood how young he was, but he also felt that he ought to be wiser than he was, stronger than he was, healthier, and more understanding.
He had wasted his life so shortly into it; he didn't know what he would do if he lived for years on.
Acornpaw's murder still haunted him, of course. It scared Aspenpaw to think about how long he could be alone for.
It scared him more to think that the next life might be just as lonely. His body wasn't quite ready to wake up yet, but Aspenpaw abandoned hope to rest peacefully.
He hadn't slept soundly in four moons.
Aspenpaw slipped from sleep and landed back in his nest, disturbed by a tapping on his neck.
A voice spoke and he groaned out an intelligible answer, something between, "Yeah," and "What?".
At first, his eyelids refused to separate, even as the voice addressed his name.
His muscles constricted and slacked involuntarily, as if his whole body was consumed by purple purpura, "As, get up, we gotta talk,"
The words came clearly and Aspenpaw flickered his eyes, adjusting to the minimal light streaming from the grimy, previously clear, stone patterns.
Rain had never reached in this building to wash it out.
Beside his settled body was Deya, her scarred face giving Aspenpaw a small jump in his bewildered state,
"Sit up, we've gotta talk," She repeated, and Aspenpaw slowly moved into place, too sore to even stretch,
"What's going on?" He asked, inviting Deya to explain herself,
"So," She sat down, towering over Aspenpaw, if only because of his poor posture, "Apollo seemed pretty unhappy with our findin's, but she said that it was good news. Said it means that Jean's been pushed back to our corner of the city by the rebels,"
"Well, that's a good thing, ain't it?"
"Should be, I just don't think Apollo knows how to deal with things when they're goin' right. Plus, it means that we're all now on the frontlines. We're leading an offense on them tomorrow, provided that we get some help," Aspenpaw wondered if he would take part in this fight.
It seemed like the perfect opportunity for Apollo to test him,
"Are there other communes around here?" Deya scoffed a small bit,
"Always hated that word. They're close enough to get there and back by 'morrow night. But don't think that means that you won't needa fight with us. You won't get a moment of respite here,"
She smiled kindly.
Aspenpaw appreciated her tactly placed good nature, but he had another important question to ask,
"What exactly are we fighting for?"
It had been explained broadly by Corrina and Jingo, but Aspenpaw really didn't know what the goals of any of the involved parties were, or any of the history which led to this point.
Deya seemed at a loss for words for a moment,
"I'm, not really the cat to ask. I'm not a maroon, which they'll all always hold over my head, though I don't think Di'iv is either,"
She lost focus for a second before bringing back the point, "I certainly don't understand as much as all them. What I know is that my sisters are bein' enslaved by some wicked toms, and I can't think of a better way to pay out my life,"
It was similar to how Aspenpaw felt about the whole situation, but he still felt like he needed more of an explanation.
Mysteries frustrated him, which was perhaps why he was so quick to anger.
He decided to hold off asking for more information.
He trusted Deya enough,
"What's a maroon?" He instead asked, trying to slowly wean off the previous topic of discussion,
"That's like, a runaway," She explained, "A runaway slave, that is,"
The hypnotizing echo of paw steps down the black tunnel quickly halted the conversation.
There were two cats coming towards them, identifiable by the slight asynch of their walk cycles.
The shapes appeared, swashed and discolored by the sharp black and white light of the long room.
Nobody said a word for a moment, as if mutually trying to discover who the others were in the early morning darkness,
"Who's there?" One of the shapes called out, a she-cat's voice that Aspenpaw didn't recognize,
"It's me, and the tom," Deya responded.
The cats came closer, and though Aspenpaw still didn't recognize the first speaker in any meaningful way, the other cat was Roco, the medic, most likely here to check him over again.
Her face was, as it always was when Aspenpaw saw her, continuously molding and stiffening like the unpredictable sparks of a fire, ready to crack at any moment.
Deya removed herself from where she sat and walked past Roco, settling out her way by the other cat, who had also slowed to a stop.
Roco didn't greet him today, and Aspenpaw wondered if that had something to do with the fact that this was the first time that Aranyer wasn't the one watching over them.
The similarly colored she-cat bent down and ran her paw over his chest, the healing wound still sending him pain as she came to touch it.
The sharp breath that Aspenpaw let out seemed to signal this to Roco, as she pulled away and began bundling a clump of cobwebs.
Suddenly, an exclamation erupted from beyond them, owing to the unfamiliar she-cat, "You told him my name?" She cried with disbelief and betrayal.
Aspenpaw recalled how precious names seemed to be to the cats of the city, and he figured that it had been wrong of Deya to share that information with him,
"You ungrateful traitor!" The cat, exasperating and bristling with shock and anger, spat an insult that Aspenpaw didn't quite know the full meaning of, and then flew from the room, retreating through the slip out to the open air, leaving the commune entirely,
"Di'iv!" Deya called after her, and after passing a guilty glance towards Aspenpaw and Roco, she burst out in pursuit, leaving the two cats alone for the first time ever.
Roco instantly stood up and shuffled her paws a couple steps, looking similarly betrayed and fearful of the present circumstances.
Yet she didn't run, like Aspenpaw suspected she might.
She just looked down at him, and trailed her eyes carefully to the mess of herbs and cobwebs which she hadn't yet applied.
Aspenpaw wanted to reassure her that he had no foul intentions, but he was nervous to open his mouth in case he just instead scared her off.
Their eyes never met, though they explored the other intently.
The moment grew too strange and Aspenpaw felt the need to break away, figuring that he would lose nothing either way by opening his mouth,
"You can keep going if you want," He spoke quietly.
Roco snapped her head in place towards him, bewildered by his sudden demeanor, yet, despite her caution, the pressure seemed to dig deep into her fur, and she moved to the side, putting the pile of herbs between the two of them.
She bent down and Aspenpaw raised his neck, displaying his throat so she could work with less worry and more room.
He then, on a gamble, said something else in the hopes of easing her tension, "My name's As,"
Roco's eyes widened and her body stiffened, before letting out a nearly unintelligible string of sounds,
"I-I-I, o-oka, I-I'm, I, Y-Yeah," She closed her eyes and shook her head away, as if in distress,
"I'm sorry," Aspenpaw whispered, feeling suddenly ashamed for his actions, even if he couldn't have known better.
Roco didn't look up for a few more seconds, but it was clear that she had heard him.
Neither of them said another word, and Roco applied the herbs sloppily onto Aspenpaw's chest as fast as she could.
Aspenpaw didn't complain, he himself wanted this ordeal to be over as quickly as possible.
Roco didn't waste a breath more than she was forced to in the room, and when she left, Aspenpaw laid down his head.
The only escape now was sleep.
The journey was stolen and brief, without a single vision to possess his mind from the events of the world before.
Aspenpaw rose, feeling inadequately serviced by the experience.
At least he felt a little less sore.
The room was as empty as when he had left it.
He stared longingly at the dark tunnel, the entrance to the real commune.
He had never seen passed where his eyes allowed him from where he stood now.
Nobody had yet offered to take him there, and Aspenpaw wondered if he would ever be trusted enough to see beyond the echoing passageway.
Outside, he could hear the wind bang harshly against the sides of buildings.
Despite it, the day was extraordinarily quiet, like the eye of a hurricane, that calmness of floating in the air before being whipped back into the flurries.
Aspenpaw stepped over to the entrance, light only shining in through the slitted outline.
He passed through the tight grime of the barricade and emerged looking ragged, though the wind soon made that irrelevant.
The thought of a hurricane evolved into something else; a fear of the upcoming battle.
He hadn't had much time to think about it, and Deya had passed it to him in such an unsentimental way that he hadn't thought past whether or not Apollo would put him up to it.
But now the fear hit him.
He had never fought a proper battle in his life, and his apprenticeship knowledge would do him no good if he froze in the fight.
He had no way to estimate the scale of the battle, or the ability and technique of the city cats, and he had no idea at all if he would be able to hurt anybody again.
Aspenpaw wondered where that tom was, the one he had struck across the face when he first arrived in the city.
He had come to terms with it, but it was still another sour spot in his memories.
The wind fought hard, but Aspenpaw continued moving through the narrow-way and emerged on the side-path of the underutilized thunderpath.
There was nobody around, cats and twolegs alike, and the wind calmed a bit when it had the space to roam freely in the sparse outskirts.
Aspenpaw hadn't even begun to see the city, he only stood on the borderline now, fields of crusty earth stretching out over the barren, hollow land.
"Coyotes," The messengers, sent to ask for the aid of relative communes, had returned the previous night, nearly all at the same time.
Two of the three came bearing the news that soldiers were being sent their way.
Aranyer was among them, explaining her absence in the day.
Apollo had gathered the commune in the main room in wait for the support, declaring that they would waste no time when they arrived.
Aspenpaw learned that Rese had been sent to scout out the location of the legion which he and Deya had witnessed.
He hadn't seen Deya since she had upset Di'iv, who sat alone with conviction in her eyes as she waited,
"Think it's an omen?" There were ten cats altogether in the room, split into small cliques of no more than three.
Aspenpaw was on his own, and as was Di'iv and a black cat who he'd only seen moving from and about.
Aranyer and Roco sat together by the furthest back wall, occasionally speaking softly to one another.
Apollo sat opposite of them, waiting by the entrance with Rese standing behind her, though not so much as a glance passed between them.
The final three cats, who Aspenpaw didn't know the names of, were between the tunnel and the entrance, somewhat opposite of him, and they had been talking like good friends, a good tone to hear in a cat's voice after all this time.
Aspenpaw had forgotten how nice it was to hear, even if they weren't his friends.
The golden one, the one closest to the entrance, responded to the middle tabby,
"Well, I remember that a priest once said that a dog's howl 'fore a fight meant that the side with less cats would win,"
"And was she right?"
"I think so, yeah, though I never stopped to count,"
"That was at North-Side, right?"
"Yeah, weren't you there?"
"I don't have a very good memory of that place,"
"Yeah, that's fair, I guess," The third she-cat in the group didn't say a word throughout the exchange, but she listened intently to their words, as if also recalling the memory.
Aspenpaw turned his head and saw Apollo whispering in Rese's ear, who bolted away as soon as she finished, rushing past the conversationalists and plunging into the dark tunnel.
Apollo then raised her voice to the audience, instructing them, "We'll wait outside!" and then she squeezed her lithe pelt past in between the barricade and the building walls.
She was quickly followed by her war patrol.
Aspenpaw at first resolved to be the last to leave, wanting to stay out of everybody's paths, but once they had all gone, Di'iv had also stayed back, sitting hunched in the harsh darkness, complemented by the black patch that patterned the wall behind where her figure formed.
Her eyes were on the ground, bashful, anxious, and furious.
She didn't glance up at Aspenpaw, perhaps didn't even realize he was there in the darkness, but her expression never changed.
Aspenpaw almost approached her, or at least, he fantasized about it.
He wanted to be able to introduce himself, make her understand that he wasn't a threat, save her in some way.
He just wanted to have some control.
It was as if she wasn't a real cat, instead, an idea for him to mold into whatever he thought would make him feel better.
Aspenpaw recognized the feeling, he had been doing it for moons, forcing comfort out of Rustheart and Loneheart at their own expense so that he wouldn't feel so cold anymore.
Except, he did truly care for them, and the hurt that he had given them was only another regret he would never forgive himself for.
He didn't know Di'iv at all.
Temptation pulled at him to talk to her, and he didn't know whether or not it was for a good reason, or if that even mattered at all.
Aspenpaw turned his back to her, and he slunk out the crack in the wall, escaping from the decisions and squirming out into the open night.
It was warmer and brighter than the inside, with only one or two winds to blow away all of the heavy thoughts.
Out here, the cats were gathered in similar groups, and soon after Aspenpaw stepped out onto the stone ground, Rese returned, churning her large body from behind the barricade, Deya appearing beside her.
Aspenpaw sat in the shelter of a shadow against the opposing building.
Rese ran back to Apollo, who sat with her back to the group, watching for their visitors, and Deya sat alone in the same shadow as Aspenpaw.
A waft of unfamiliar scents suddenly filled Aspenpaw's senses, and he forgot about his misgivings momentarily as he watched nearly a dozen cats round the corner to greet them.
There was no fanfare or rejoicing to their entrance, in fact, the night was completely silent for a few seconds.
Aspenpaw studied the clearing, watching the still, craned necks of Apollo's cats, and the slow approach of their new legion,
"Apollo," A leader stepped forward, bearing the fellow's name on her tongue and dipping her head halfway down to the ground.
Apollo didn't waste a breath,
"Line your cats against the wall, they'll get their orders," The newcomer nodded again, turning and motioning with her paw,
"Split," The cats took their places against the opposing walls of the two entrapping buildings,
"These are all the soldiers sent by Lake and Emere. I am Marrow, second in command to Lake," She bowed again, and Aspenpaw realized some of the importance of names in the city.
It was as if Marrow was entrusting her life, and the lives of those she led by proxy, to Apollo's command by simply telling her her name.
Apollo hardly acknowledged the smaller she-cat, turning to Rese and entrusting her with the order, "Pick your cats for the frontal and backup units,"
"What about second wave?"
"You'll pick cats for that," Apollo looked to Marrow.
The two got to work gathering most of the cats.
Aspenpaw sunk further into the shadows as Marrow strode closer, unsure of what her reaction would be to his presence.
Luckily, she didn't make it as far as him before being satisfied with her choices.
But Apollo did. The white she-cat first approached Deya, flicking her left ear to signify that she wanted to talk to her, before flickering in and out of the wavy shadow, appearing and disappearing in the sheath of darkness like the blink of an eye.
Suddenly she was before him, and she spoke with a voice like a crashing tree, "You'll stay behind the battle and protect Roco. And keep your distance from us as we travel,"
Aspenpaw nodded hastily, foregoing his cool exterior that he tried to keep up with her in a mixture of shock and intrigue.
The lack of extraneous details and nuances in Apollo's words gave him so much room for interpretation, and gave him so many unanswered questions.
He didn't know how Apollo knew, or could confidently assume, that Aspenpaw knew Roco's name.
He didn't know why she trusted him to protect their only healer.
And he couldn't completely fathom the motive behind the second order.
Logistically, he thought, it shouldn't be a problem when they were moving, in fact, it was only safer to be as close as possible to the larger group of soldiers.
Apollo would only need to warn the newcomers that there was a tom among them, but maybe she simply didn't want to.
Apollo hid her emotions so well from Aspenpaw and, seemingly, from everybody else as well, but there was a certain pride in this choice, or a fear for the integrity of her commune and, maybe, her personal character as well.
Aspenpaw had always assumed before that Apollo was only cautious of him because of his status as an outsider and a tom, but there seemed to be so much more under her exterior that he would never be able to dig through.
Aspenpaw had never heard cats walk so silently.
The war patrol took a similar path to the one that Deya had taken him through, and though he was still a bit sore, the journey felt like it went by shockingly fast.
The moon was high above them, centered in the sky, and there were plenty of stars to thwart the blanket the night that kept them safely hidden.
Aspenpaw walked isolated, hardly keeping the rest of the patrol in view, with Roco.
They kept far apart and hadn't said a word, but they each glanced over at one another frequently when the other wasn't looking.
The wind crept along his dry lips, hardly phasing the young tom as he stared down the corridor.
A signal was raised and the spots were taken deep in the shadows.
A large space dangled in front of Aspenpaw, far longer and wider than the narrow-way of the commune, but still claustrophobic for the heat of a battle.
There were five or six buildings that stretched down the way, the space between them hardly large enough to fit a paw through.
Aspenpaw stood where the sidepath gave way on the turning in.
He cautiously stepped forward, Roco much closer to him now, her eyes wiling as she searched for danger,
"Over here," He whispered quickly to her and bounded over to an unenclosed metal box that stretched halfway up the second closest building, as if it had been used to raise somebody up.
There were several ceilings all the way up, but the one right above head was very low, and the space was cramped, but it was possible to slip through the bars to escape and was nicely hidden from starlight.
Roco followed him in, seeming not to be wary of him whatsoever in light of a greater danger.
She laid the few herbs she had carried with her out on the ground, quickly sorting them as Aspenpaw stood watch, looking out through the bars to see the cats silently coordinating with one another.
They all seemed to be pointed at a single structure at the end of the line,
"I'm sorry, that I've, that I've been so rude," A whisper came from behind him, "I'm-I'm really thankful, that you're here,"
Aspenpaw couldn't hide his shock, though the shadows probably did a pretty good job.
Roco wasn't even looking at him, however; she was just prodding anxiously at her leaves.
Aspenpaw first tried to nod, not knowing what to say, but was unable to get the message across, and he mustered out,
"Okay," Roco didn't seem to have much of a reaction, as if she was in a trance, "It's okay,"
"You-You're goin' to, protect me, right?"
"Yeah, that's what I'm here for,"
"Wh-What if you-" She searched for the words, "-g-get hurt?" Aspenpaw tried to reassure her, feeling his own fear of the impending conflict start to overflow from his quickly chilling body,
"Aranyer will protect you then," Roco didn't even react to Aspenpaw using the other cat's name.
Her pelt bristled, not with anger or contempt, but some other emotion that Aspenpaw couldn't identify,
"She-She-" Aspenpaw could hear in the stillness of the night the splash of tears against the earth, "-She doesn't care. She d-doesn't care about me!"
Aspenpaw didn't look back to see if she had spoken loud enough to be heard by the mass.
He had hit a hard nerve in her, and Aspenpaw didn't think she should have been sent here; it was causing her too much pain.
By this point, Aspenpaw should have cut her off, reminded her where she was and that she was safe, but he didn't.
His curiosity overshadowed his morals and he remained still as he listened to Roco say the things she would never say otherwise, "Sh-She doesn't-doesn't want me to feel bad! S-She doesn't care!"
Aspenpaw nearly broke away from himself to try to comfort her, but before he did, or at least, before he would reason he was about to, Roco whispered one last thing,
"She wants me to die,"
Aspenpaw could have told her that she was wrong, or even risked running out to get Aranyer and prove what he couldn't know himself, but he didn't.
He just stood there.
The moments were closing in, and Aspenpaw wasted all of them.
By instinct, Aspenpaw found the urge to cry himself, as if in defense.
It always seemed like he thought that crying made him the victim, and that was all he knew how to be.
Suddenly, a battle cry erupted into the clearing, and war was upon them.
An exodus of bodies flew down from the steps of the furthest building, pouring out like blood, scattering and pooling seemingly at random.
The defendants had been caught completely by surprise, and were thus entirely uncoordinated as claws began to rain down on them.
Several toms turned back on the steps to face the she-cats who had driven them out.
A standoff began for a short moment, limbs swiping across thin air until one tom, using the advantage of his lower elevation, sliced through his opponents tendon, which dropped her down the step where she was quickly swarmed and put to rest with a rip at her throat.
The scream electrified the sky, and it echoed like thunder as more bodies fell.
Many of Jean's cats were dispatched in their unorganized frenzy, but it didn't take long for their senses to return to them, so although there seemed to have been more toms in the beginning, only a minute in, the sides seemed to even out as the second front emerged from the darkness to block any fleeting escape.
There were at least six wounded bodies splayed out on the ground, and no doubt more inside from the initial ambush.
A she-cat, who had fallen to the floor, was trampled under the sparring cats, both allies and enemies alike, and her bones crunched like rotten wood under their claws.
A tom broke from the surrounded circle of Jean's soldiers for a moment before having his throat slit, throwing out a couple random swipes as the life drained from his eyes.
Cats continually slipped on split blood, fighting for their lives.
The conflict was so closely knit, and no training had prepared any of them for this, so cats wrestled clumsily with one another, often cutting their own compatriots in the madness.
Aspenpaw had never seen the heat of a battle before, nor had he ever seen so much blood in his life.
Not even his dreams had prepared him for the slaughter that he saw before him now.
From this far away, every body looked like Acornpaw.
Suddenly, one more she-cat fell, and a break was made.
The toms broke through the lines and out into the deep clearing.
Aspenpaw backed up, trying to stay hidden in the darkness, and bumped against Roco, who was shaking with her closed off from the horrors.
Many of the herbs had blown away in the wind with nobody to watch over them.
Aspenpaw spotted Rese and Deya fighting beside each other when the break occurred, only to be quickly separated by individual opponents challenging them.
The fighting was suddenly uncontained, and became far less feral as cats had the space to perform their trained moves.
Still, there was no passion in the fighting, and no mercy.
Their bodies continued to seep out blood, all rolling down the clearing into the gutters of either edge, where a couple cats seemed to get trapped between their attackers and the liquid that weighed down their fur and slid their paws from their intended targets.
One of the cats who had been speaking happily with her friends only a short time ago stumbled away from her attacker towards the safety of someplace else.
Her stomach was nearly eviscerated, and her claws looked to be all crooked, having broken off deep inside the flesh of her opponent.
Her tail made waves in the blood that dropped from her underside.
The tom responsible for her present condition walked slowly behind the dying she-cat, his body far more intact.
He watched with fascination as the she-cat strived to live.
Her mind was completely gone, and soon her body fell with little grace to the ground, her head slamming against the grain and jags of the city floor.
Aspenpaw had stopped breathing, but Roco was still crying, and the tom suddenly flicked his ear and jerked his head towards them, locating the hidden duo and charging with a deadly intent.
Aspenpaw stepped forward to confront him, a growl forming uncontrollably in his throat, and a whine escaping too.
Though they danced about for a moment in expectation, the red-covered tom suddenly drew back his sneer, and he asked with a deep, confused voice, "You're a tom, ain't'cha?"
The words passed right through Aspenpaw, his own growl overpowering any attempt at reasoning with the cat, instinct the only thing motivating his present movements.
The other tom smiled, and he tentatively slid a single paw back, leaving a bloody trail for remembrance.
And then he laughed the laugh of an immature apprentice, the same sound that Aspenpaw had heard from Rustheart, Flypaw, Acornpaw.
His voice was gargled with blood and mucus as he began to speak, "I understand. I'll leave ya to it, then,"
He laughed again, as if Aspenpaw would get the joke now, but he didn't.
Roco had stopped crying.
Her mouth seemed to have run dry.
The bloody tom, a mad glint in his eyes, inexplicably turned his back from the terrified pair, dragging his paws back towards the death tolls, as if he hadn't had enough yet.
Aspenpaw looked after him, a spark of his own growing out into smokestacks in his eyes, and for just as mad a reason, he shot out.
For just a moment, Aspenpaw found himself in the air, and he wondered, just for that moment, if he would ever reach the ground again.
Aspenpaw crashed down on the tom's back, mounting his claws in his sides as the tom howled in surprise.
Aspenpaw clung tightly as he was whipped from side to side, and he bit down deep in the tom's shoulder, feeling the leg dislocate as he reached bone.
The tom fell defeated to the ground, and Aspenpaw relinquished his grip, puking on the soiled ground all of the blood that had accumulated down his throat in the struggle.
Even when he stood back, horrified by the sight of the rend where his teeth had just dug in, the tom didn't stand up.
He was bleeding from temple to temple, and he seemed not to even feel the pain anymore.
Aspenpaw backed up, and he bumped into the body of the she-cat he had gashed and left to die.
In a wild effort, completely mindnumb, Aspenpaw sunk his teeth into his neck and began to drag her away, praying that she might still be alive, despite the river that flowed from her stomach as he moved her.
As he tripped over his paws again and again, wrenching his legs under her weight, two she-cats appeared and stood over the still-living bloodied tom.
One of them held him down by his back, and the other, with her claws extended, reared up and smashed down on his head until his skull broke in two.
Aspenpaw averted his eyes and kept straining his muscles until he reached the barred room where Roco was still lying, completely still.
He indulged in the shroud of darkness, having gone luckily unnoticed by any cat.
A panting breath escaped from his lungs, and Aspenpaw looked down to see that his paws were completely red.
Roco looked up from her cower, and Aspenpaw nearly shouted at her, "Help her!"
The body was still, and the blood that flowed from her body ran smoothly without pulse,
"She-She's dead," Aspenpaw didn't respond.
He felt his body move in some direction, but he could only hear himself now.
His eyes were flinching uncontrollably, but through the momentary vision he had, Aspenpaw saw a blur run past.
It shocked him back to reality.
It was Deya.
She ran into the open entrance of the building facing where they were and disappeared up some steps inside, leaving only a small trace as most of her blood ebbed back into the edges of the curved, unnatural ground,
"Come on," Aspenpaw didn't waste more than a moment after speaking those words to race through the clearing.
He didn't check to see if Roco was behind him until he made it.
The commune cats had been beaten back, and there were hardly any cats on either side left standing.
Roco smashed into him as he slowed, reaching the steps in the building.
They were much wider than he had seen before, but Aspenpaw didn't have the time to even process the pain or the place he was in.
He had no fear of this place in this moment, just like how Roco didn't have fear of him right now.
Most of the building was a straight shot up, hardly any squared-off rooms to populate the place, just steps and steps, all the way to the night sky.
Aspenpaw landed with a thud, as if he had been falling for ages.
Roco passed him as he laid there, the moon shining into his eyes.
Teeth suddenly fastened around his neck and Aspenpaw was pulled fully onto the roof of the building.
They dropped him and he began to recover himself, adrenaline pumping so hard in his body that he felt like his heart would suddenly combust under the stress.
Aspenpaw propped himself up and took a look around.
There were only four other cats up here who had been saved from the conflict, Roco, who laid with her ears to her head on her own, Rese and Deya, who both wore numerous new scars and hardly had the strength to stay awake, and Apollo, who was watching her dying comrades over the parapet as they continued to fight.
Aspenpaw suddenly wondered if she had called a retreat, or if she had simply fled during the battle.
Not a word was spoken until a sound away from the fighting was heard, heavy steps approaching their position, and Aranyer appeared from the striking darkness.
She wasn't as hurt as Deya or Rese, but she sported a limp and a deep cut from her cheek to her lips, which gushed blood as she opened her mouth,
"We lost," She said it disbelievingly, "We lost," Aranyer hurried over to Roco and repeated the phrase again to her, clearly in shock.
Aspenpaw looked down over the building and saw the few remaining she-cats still fighting, just three in total, turn and run, being pursued by five toms, while the rest of the remaining soldiers shuffled slowly back up to their base, leaving the dead behind for now.
Rese was also looking at them and when Apollo bounded to the another edge of the building to watch their flight, she asked, "Where're they goin'?"
"Back to the commune,"
"They'll get killed if they go an' get cornered there," Deya pointed out, her voice shredded from a wound in her neck.
Apollo called to Roco, who was speaking softly to Aranyer, trying to give her her sense back,
"Are there unspoiled herbs down there?" Roco looked up, her mouth slightly agape, and she shook her head.
They had all either been blown away in the wind, or soaked with blood from the she-cat Aspenpaw brought to her.
Apollo thought for a moment, looking out into the distance where the retreating cats had fled, and she turned back, ordering, "Any soldier able-bodied enough, come with me,"
Both Rese and Deya made a stand to accompany Apollo, but both fell back down as soon as their legs became vertical.
Aranyer was completely out of commission for the time being, and Roco needed to tend to all of the cats present.
Aspenpaw stood up, hardly a thought passing through his mind beyond the logical conclusion that he was the only option left.
Apollo accepted his company with a hard look of understanding, and then she silently descended steps back to the battlegrounds.
Aspenpaw didn't give a second look to his surviving compatriots before following, nearly as much in shock as Aranyer.
His nose was clogged with the scent of blood, but all was silent as they emerged into clearing.
Apollo didn't waste any time grieving over the dead, scattered around like fish on the banks after a flood, waiting for the scavengers to take them away.
Marrow was among them, along with two cats from the commune that Aspenpaw could recognize through their mutilated states.
Apollo broke into a sprint, her injuries hardly slowing her down at all, as she traced the same route that the fleeing and the pursuing had taken.
There was a strange serenity as they ran through the nighttime haze.
It was just a dream, or at least, that was the only explanation that Aspenpaw could give himself.
As the smell of blood grew weaker, the trail became clearer.
They sped by the salvage yard before Aspenpaw had even realized it.
Time didn't exist in a dream, after all.
Aspenpaw couldn't remember a single thing that happened before this moment.
He knew where he was, and why, but those images of slaughter were being hidden from his mind.
All he could see now was Acornpaw,
"Why are you here?" Aspenpaw asked, whether aloud or in silence, it didn't matter,
"Why are you here?"
A body flashed into his vision. Apollo stood in front of him, stopped, and Aspenpaw looked ahead.
They were here, at the commune base.
It was silent, "Over here," Apollo bounded away, hiding in an open entrance on the side of a building in the next narrow-way over from the base.
Aspenpaw crouched beside her in the tight space, trying not to cut himself on the broken rock layer that seemed to cover every building.
It wasn't long until they heard paw steps.
There was no enthusiasm to them, and not a cat spoke a word.
It was obvious that the sounds came from Jean's soldiers, returning slowly, injured, to their camp far away.
It felt like it should have been morning by the time Apollo relinquished their hiding spot.
She crept around the corner and reluctantly sneaked over to the next narrow-way, Aspenpaw in her wake, keeping watch on the direction that the war party had disappeared into.
Together, once they fully cleared the corner, sprinted to the entrance, squeezing past the dumpster with ease, lubricated by blood.
Aspenpaw's mind could drown the sights and sounds of the battle right now, but his eyes could still see, and they saw too much.
There were three bodies in the main room, the room where Aspenpaw had spent all of his time since being in the city.
One of the friend's who had been talking as they had waited for the legions to arrive had her paw nearly severed, and all the veins in her body had been cut.
An unknown soldier to Aspenpaw had so many wounds on her body that there was far more blood on the outside than in.
And the last cat, splayed out by the dark tunnel, was Di'iv.
Her eyes were plucked out,
"Wait outside, keep watch," was the only order that Apollo gave him as she moved through the carnage and into the tunnel, most likely to gather supplies.
Aspenpaw acquiesced quickly, and backed out in between the dumpster and the walls of this building that had been home to so many cats, even him, just for a short time.
Blood soaked into his fur from the previous bodies to walk through this hidden passage.
The stars were bright, the world was silent.
Until I write again,
-Gojira