Chapter 12

His eyes are sane, and his speech is plain, but he longs to be far, far away.

Two cats passed by the empty, dark pathways.

Thin traces of blood still clung in the air like burrs.

There was a blistering chill in the night, as if it too had seen the dues that had been torn and scattered in its sheath.

Aspenpaw walked like a kit, unsure of his movements and hardly being able to keep up with the speed at which he moved.

In his jaws, and in the jaws of his sole comrade in this trek, Apollo, were the life-saving supplies they had set out for; herbs of all sorts and a couple scrawny pieces of fresh-kill, an overwhelming sensation in Aspenpaw's mouth.

They were nearly back to the place where the receivers of these supplies had been left, and Aspenpaw had felt none of it. His mind was completely blank.

They still hadn't set in, the sights from the battle. He had seen death before, but never carnage.

Apollo stopped.

They were here.

She turned to him and placed her mouthful down to whisper in his ear, "When I make a break, you will be less than a step behind me,"

Aspenpaw nodded, suddenly afraid of the red and white she-cat, or perhaps, afraid of what was behind the corner that she was pressed up against.

The surviving commune cats were at the top of the next closest building, but further down, behind the heaps of flesh and bones, was the camp of the cats who had put them in this position.

The leader grabbed her load and edged closer to face the narrow-way until her face was pressed sharply against the angles of the out-most building.

Aspenpaw watched her pelt attentively, but in his delirium, was caught off guard when it vanished from his view.

He sprinted after her, certainly further than a step away, and nearly slipped on a channel of blood, barreling into the nearest entryway, all in a single breath.

His lungs were not relaxed by the time he painted the building floor red, as Apollo had already begun the climb up the multitude of steps to reach the others.

Aspenpaw rifled up behind her, overtaking the injured she-cat by the time the sky opened up to them once more.

They hadn't been followed, yet even as Aspenpaw felt his whole body return to a horizontal position, he felt as if any blind spot in his vision could house his death.

At the pop of a stretching bone his ears were shot.

The duo were greeted with a similar scene to the one they had abandoned.

Aranyer was asleep now, resting with her head nestled in Roco's shaky legs.

Rese and Deya were still awake, with only a few cobwebs that Roco had found around to contract the bleeding,

"Apollo," Deya addressed her leader, her voice still strong despite her injuries, "They've all gone. Rese been counting and every tom vacated,"

"Since when?" Apollo inquired,

"Only a few minutes after you both left. Nobody's come back," Aspenpaw found himself half sitting and half leaning as he listened to the conversation between long blinks, one eye at a time.

He saw, vaguely, Roco swoop in to gather the herbs that he and Apollo had dropped, having abandoned her position by Aranyer, though Aspenpaw couldn't tell whether or not it woke the she-cat,

"Will he be of any more service to me tonight?" He heard Apollo's voice and was still conscious enough to put together that she was talking about him.

He then heard Roco, her voice muffled and panicked,

"N-No, h-he-he needs to s-sleep," Apollo offered no rebuttal, and Aspenpaw, as if having been given permission, fully shut his eyes, embracing the moments of darkness before sleep racked and sacked his body and mind, images nearly instantly appearing to haunt his uneasy slumber.

When he awoke, somewhere far from his body, Aspenpaw was in the ocean again.

The waves collided over one another, but somehow, never over him; his eyes were completely dry.

The cloudless day created no difference between looking up and looking down.

There was no sun either, just the blue of the water, and the blue of the sky.

The voice that had been here last time refused to initiate a dialogue, and Aspenpaw no longer felt connected to it, unable to tell whether or not he was alone in this endless stretch.

He just floated there, and that was all.

"No! I-I don't want you eating anything!"

"I'm not in shock anymore, Roco, it's all fine. I need the strength," Aspenpaw raised his head and opened tiny slits for his eyes to begin adjusting.

It had been a long time since he had awoken with his head to the sun, since he would sneak out and sleep under the open air as an apprentice.

It wasn't early, but Aspenpaw was still surprised to see everybody alive and awake,

"Just, share it with someone. Please?" That was Roco, who had been arguing with Aranyer, who carried just a small mouse in her jaw now.

Aspenpaw was shocked that she seemed like herself again,

"Hey, tom! Wanna share?" She called to him, however quietly, as if still afraid that the retreated toms would return.

Aspenpaw nodded quickly and tried to speak, but his throat got caught on a stench.

The smell of rot came from down below, a sickening reminder of the battle that had occurred there only a short while ago.

It felt like it had been years. Aranyer plopped down.

Her wounds were few and far between in comparison to Deya and Rese, who were covered completely in scars with the necessary amount of herbs to treat them,

"Where's Apollo?" Aspenpaw finally got out, noticing that the leader was missing from the group,

"Gone huntin'," Aranyer replied, her mouth already full.

Aspenpaw would never be able to eat with the smell of death rising up behind him.

He refused to look at it, not letting it exist while he still had control. Instead, his eyes followed Roco, and landed on a certain body.

One that he didn't recognize, "Who's that?"

"Her name's Ledivier. Apollo found her still breathin'. Don't know if she still is," As Aranyer spoke, Aspenpaw suddenly placed the body in his mind.

It was the she-cat who had commented on the coyote howls before they marched to their deaths,

"How are we alive?" Aspenpaw asked without really knowing what he meant.

His mind was a blur, and that was the only question he could think of now.

Luckily, Aranyer had an answer,

"Well, I reckon Rese took off after Apollo when she dipped and Deya stayed close by; then I assume you saw 'er runnin' in and Roco followed, and I came after her, I think,"

She looked straight ahead at Ledivier, "And she just got luckier than every cat still down there,"

"Why were we the only ones?"

"We all had a reason to go when we did, that's how I like to think of it. I guess no one else did, or they just chose the wrong cats to follow,"

Aspenpaw knew well that Aranyer didn't like him, but that didn't seem to matter much right now.

There was an openness coming from her, her usual character fully offset by the battle.

Aspenpaw was the same. He was scared now, and he spoke without want.

The mouse had nearly been completely devoured, and Aspenpaw realized that Aranyer really never meant to share it with him.

He wasn't hungry though, and, in fact, he felt very few urges at all.

He didn't want water, he didn't want to sleep, he didn't want to talk anymore.

Apollo appeared, sneaking up the steps on light paws,

"How long?" Roco got startled by the voice when she realized it was addressing her,

"Uh, a couple, a couple of days, at-at least,"

"How long, Roco?" Apollo repeated harder. The medic looked down, then to her patients,

"Four probably, and if-if she survives, I don't know,"

"Will you need more resources?"

"Y-Yeah,"

"Aranyer! Come with me," The she-cat stood instantly, spitting her bite of meat out over the parapet rather than waste time chewing.

Roco looked from one to the other disapproving and anxious.

Apollo, though her mind seemed restless, her body simply couldn't sustain the stress and effort she had put upon it.

She hadn't seemed to have stopped working since the previous night, and she had nobody to help her through most of it.

Her eyelids flickered like light through the swinging branches of wind-blown trees, and her tail half dragged behind her, resting on the ground whenever she stood still.

Neither of them stuck around, vanishing down into the depths of the building and out into the outskirts of the city.

Aspenpaw watched the opening, paranoid that nobody else was doing the same.

Occasionally he glanced at Ledivier, just beyond the threshold, still as the night.

Aspenpaw could hardly believe she was alive.

With his gaze so narrowed in, the confused tom nearly jumped over the edge of the building when a paw stepped into view beside him.

Roco stiffened in response to his movement, but bent down, much to Aspenpaw's surprise, and asked shakily, "Ca-Can I, can I c-check you over?"

Aspenpaw tried to look in her eyes, but they would never meet with his,

"Yeah," He breathed a noteless answer.

A paw pressed against his chest where a wound had once been, now only a memory, tiny scars hidden by a forest of fur.

As she touched him, Aspenpaw suddenly longed for company.

He had forgotten the comforting feeling of somebody's pelt against his own.

He had never been able to enjoy the feeling with Jingo, as he had been so sick at the time.

The last cat he had shared his body with was Loneheart, only a night before he left.

It really felt like it had been a long time since then,

Get on with it, Maria!" A voice disturbed Aspenpaw's thoughts, coming from Rese, whose voice cracked as she yelled, attributing to a deep claw wound in her throat.

Aspenpaw hadn't even noticed how slowly Roco had been going, but she pulled back now in distress, "If ya can't even feel up some mangy tom, then ya might's well to go join the corpses down there!"

A whimper came from Roco.

Aspenpaw couldn't control his emotions.

He was so angry at everything, and he was afraid of the future.

He stood up,

"Shut up! Shut up!" Aspenpaw screamed from the rooftop.

Deya jerked awake, having missed the affair. Both Roco and Rese were quiet.

Aspenpaw's legs shook,

"What's goin' on?" Deya questioned the crew, but none of them made a move to answer,

"As?" She called to him, and Aspenpaw took a step forward, and then a step back.

Something hot made contact with the top of his paw, and though he momentarily hoped that Deya had reached her paw out to him, when he looked down, Aspenpaw only saw his paw, empty.

Then a tear passed by his vision, landing against his spastic leg, "I don't wanna cry anymore,"

The tears streamed down his face and combed his fur the wrong way, "I don't wanna cry anymore,"

Another paw step turned his body, and Aspenpaw looked over the parapet.

He saw them then, but more than any bloody remains down below he saw Acornpaw once again.

He saw his brother's eyes rolled into the back of his head, blood and berry juice regurgitating from his mouth even after the breath left his body,

"They're dead," Aspenpaw realized now, finally being forced to see the outcome of the battle for what it was.

His brother didn't respond, and neither did anybody else.

Everything was silent, and nobody moved an inch, paralyzed, as still as the bodies that Aspenpaw would never break his gaze from.

Aspenpaw was alone in a trench of lubricious mud, hardly able to move an inch without being splashed.

There were trees all around, oak trees, creating a web of growth that covered nearly the entire sky.

The bark was as black as night, and what little of the sky could be seen was blindingly white.

Aspenpaw moved as slow as a caterpillar, but without the hope of ever being somewhere else, or someone else.

The sliding was slow and methodical, forcing him to feel every drop of mud as if sunk into his freezing pelt.

It was so cold now.

There was no sun, no breeze, just the icy liquid that surrounded his every movement,

"Stop being lazy. You know it's not real, just get on with it,"

But it was so hard.

Aspenpaw knew that it was just a dream, that it was possible to simply will his way through the sea, but he couldn't do it; he didn't know how, and it was too hard to learn.

He had already given up before his eyes had closed, all of this trial was only in attempt to trick himself, to make himself feel like he had given it all he had.

There was no end to the mud trench, and nothing beyond his vision really existed.

An impending heartbeat arose in his ears, the sound of his own adrenaline as the days raced by and by, the trees and the sky swapping colors rapidly, and yet, the sun never came, and Aspenpaw never felt any warmer.

He felt sick, and began to lash out at the stream that never seemed to allow him progress.

He sliced at the liquid and forged slits, real wounds that bled with freshwater, and it all proved that Aspenpaw truly wasn't moving anywhere, as no matter how hard he moved, he could never escape from that spot.

He threw his claws out more, shattering them against rock and rock, and the anger in his heart only quelled as his eyes began to flicker, and Aspenpaw was finally still, sinking into the sea and back to his waking body.

It was late into the night when Aspenpaw blinked his eyes open.

It felt like leaf-bare up on the naked plateau, a sweeping wind whispering ambient words, gone too fast for an ear to sire.

He could no longer smell the rot, and though he knew the reason why, he had steeped in its sensation for so long that the rancid air seemed no different that a clear blue sea, Aspenpaw imagined instead that the wind had blown it away to some dark forest somewhere so far away that his paws would never be able to carry him to reach it again.

In the moment of actualizing the world from that of his just prior experience, Aspenpaw suddenly knew why it was that he was so cold.

His face and his legs were soaked in sweat and tears, and the liquid had drained the heat from his body until he felt like just a skeleton, lying face-down in his grave.

There was no warmth for the dead,

"Dark was the night, cold was the ground where they laid my body," The first phrase of Jingo's poem rang true now, and it made Aspenpaw think of all the bodies down below who would never be laid to rest.

He saw it all so vividly, but everything was small in his vision, like it was at the edge of the horizon.

But that blood had still been spilt, those bodies had still been broken, no matter how he remembered it.

Aspenpaw had to force himself to breathe but his heart was racing painfully fast and no matter how much he tried to calm himself, his blood wouldn't let,

"You cold?" A small whisper lifted in the wind.

Aspenpaw turned his head, hoping that his mind had played no tricks on him.

It was Deya, her body on her side and her head lying on two outstretched legs.

She only looked at him with one eye, as the right half of her face was buried in her fur.

Aspenpaw opened his mouth, but nothing came.

He was shivering, and he was desperate for company, but he shied away now.

A fear struck him, fueled by thoughts of conflict and death, and he couldn't bring himself to give even the simplest of response.

He didn't even look at her anymore.

Aspenpaw's eyes were red against the dark, spectral lights.

The skin beneath his eyes was wrinkled, and there were visible lines down his face where the fur parted and clung in clumps.

There was no change from night to night, but it seemed especially desolate now.

Aspenpaw heard Deya shifting in her spot, but kept looking into the open abyss before him, wishing both to escape from other cats, but never wanting to be away from them.

It was no different now from when he had killed Acornpaw.

He never wanted to be without his brother.

He didn't know anymore who he loved and who he hated.

They were all just memories now. He could put faces to personalities and reenact things in his head, telling the tale he wished he could have had, but they would never respond to him.

It was only he, talking to himself,

"I-" Aspenpaw tried to speak, but his throat was clogged and he simply didn't know what to say.

But Deya understood, "I-I don't wanna spend the night alone either,"

Finally, Aspenpaw turned his head and looked the white she-cat in her sunken eyes.

She had said the words that Aspenpaw wasn't able to, too afraid of being vulnerable.

It obviously hadn't been easy for her to do, but the night was too lonesome to brave it alone,

"I-Yeah," Aspenpaw had no voice, just a small whimper, like the last drops of a great storm,

"Do you, do you want to come here?"

The invitation wretched Aspenpaw.

This was the final step into getting some small comfort, even if he didn't believe he deserved it.

His paws moved, his body shifted, but his weight wasn't leased.

It was so hard to stand up now, to show himself in his full form for all that he was.

Acornpaw didn't leave his mind, even as he bent his knee and heaved.

He was only getting further away.

Deya was just a step away, and despite the sloth at which Aspenpaw moved, there was no judgment in her eyes.

Aspenpaw finally laid now, and slowly shuffled in until their pelts met, where he placed his head down on his paws.

Deya moved silently ever closer, her wounds not seeming to bother her, and she cradled her head in the crux of Aspenpaw's neck.

It was warm here; the freeze and the fear quickly ebbed away, leaving only two soft breaths, and two entwining bodies,

"Thank you, Deya" Aspenpaw had to say, speaking with truth, his eyes already shut, welling with emotion, but slowing his heart so much that it hardly mattered right now.

For a moment, he was sure that she hadn't heard him, but as the wind halted, and left the night as silent as the city could ever be, he heard her in the smallest whisper,

"Thank you, As,"

Until I write again,

-Gojira