Chapter 20
You may hurt today, but you are moving along.
The night came, and Aspenpaw continued to wander the dark streets as he became more and more wound.
His mouth was dry and his paws ached so much they burned.
The young tom was disillusioned by thoughts of return and reprieve, and he collapsed finally against the corner between a building and an alley, both words which were so foreign to him not so long ago.
His chest heaved and fell like a tree branch, and fear pricked at his pelt incessantly.
Strangers had been out, roamers of the night, and Aspenpaw had already seen violences being committed just through the streets he had traveled.
He had no inclination to part the docile from the aggressive, and had so far stayed clear of every cat he had seen.
But now he was tired, and his muscles could bend no longer.
A car passed swiftly by, still so strange, and the dust it left in its wake tickled up Aspenpaw's nose, making him cough.
He closed his eyes and imagined himself back that corner, having been accepted to meet the other communes and be just as fully a member as any of them.
Then he imagined he was in the alley where the commune had taken refuge.
They had cleared the dark expanse behind the building and moved in out of view, safe and warm beside each other.
Then he saw the original commune base, where he had first been introduced to Apollo through Jingo.
He thought about Jingo, how he had gone back to that place where he had been taken hostage to find her lying in his cell, awaiting his return, how she had sung him that song and given him her shoulder to rest on, how she brought him, sick and lonely, through the cityscape at so much risk.
He remembered the outskirts, where he had met Di and, regrettably, had hardly tried to change his outlook, and the salvage yard, where he had met Corrina, who took him in on the behest of any sensibility.
He remembered running.
For moons he had run.
He would never forget that.
But he had forgotten one thing, one place he had been.
The rooftop, the alley where so many had lost their lives, and the reek of death which stayed lifted in the sky for all the time that he was there.
He had tried to forget those days, that night, but it came back now in full force.
Aspenpaw could feel his pulse quicken and the muscles on his face distort as he imagined it.
His leg kicked out and he shut his eyelids harder yet, trying to block out the sight of bodies collapsing.
Thankfully, he didn't have to wrestle with these thoughts for long, as an outward force prodded him aware with a nasally voice, "I'd say, it's an odd place to take a nap,"
Aspenpaw couldn't do much more than open his eyes just long enough to see the beige and black tom who had disturbed him.
He just wanted to sleep now, but it always seemed impossible.
He hadn't slept well since he had killed Acornpaw.
Except that he had; he had just forgotten. The night after the battle, when he was so cold, Deya invited him into her nest so they wouldn't have to be alone.
He hadn't been disturbed that night,
"You lookin' for some water? Or some to eat?" The strange, but seemingly peaceful tom was still there, "'Ere, I'll come 'ere right back soon. Gimme one minute,"
The sound of his paw steps pounded on the street, and a phrase from a song Aspenpaw had once heard swamped into his mind.
He couldn't remember who had sung it anymore, but he felt comforted to recognize something familiar in this foreign land.
Aspenpaw didn't think he would ever understand the city, and now was the time when he had to decide whether or not it was even worth staying here.
He didn't want to go further; he still felt attached to the forest.
He wanted to go back there, he wanted to see all his friends again, but he couldn't, and he didn't deserve to.
The tom returned with such a thunderous storm that Aspenpaw first thought a car was going by.
Something was slopped in front of him, and Aspenpaw opened his eyes to see a small dish of water set out before him, slowly running out through the cracks into the markings of the sidewalk, "Drink up, fresh from Marti's river,"
Aspenpaw's ears perked up at the mention of a river. He was still wary of this stranger, but thankful for the water, and began lapping at it while the tom continued speaking, "Ya'd best be thankful I came by and not some o' them savages who live 'round 'ere,"
Aspenpaw tried to ignore him now.
It seemed proven that there were no good toms living in this city; he didn't want to hear him out, "How long have you been out for? Have you said yet yer evenin' prayers?"
Aspenpaw looked up, a scowl of confusion on his face.
The tom suddenly looked very serious, "Yer not a city-dweller, are ya?"
"No,"
"Do you know where yer gonna go when ya die?" The question caught Aspenpaw a bit off guard, and in his weariness, he took several moments to even process it as more than just a thought that he'd spawned.
He took even longer to answer.
The true answer, of course, was, 'no,' but Aspenpaw would never tell this stranger that,
"Yeah, I'm fine," He stumbled over the lie, adding words where there wasn't need, and the tom seemed to pick up on it,
"Let me show ya the truth, pathfinder, for yer own sake. It's a terrible fate to be trapped in Ra'in wi'out havin' the guidance of yer tribune to give you the strength you'll need,"
"Leave me alone," Aspenpaw growled, though he was hardly in the right state to incite violence,
"The longer ya stay in Ra'in, pathfinder, the further ya sink into its sands," The tom too began to exhibit aggressive behaviors, his lips drawing back and his ears flattening, "Did ya know that? Did ya know that there're thousands of toms just like you who're lost forever, suffocating without bein' death?"
Just as Aspenpaw was about to snap completely, a new voice entered the scene from the other side of the street, shouting, "Get outta 'ere, preacher! You know what I'll do! Get!" The tom immediately sprung away, only turning to shout one last thing at Aspenpaw,
"Pray to Revsi tonight, that he may't guide ya to the truth! Else yer soul'll be swallowed by the sands!"
Aspenpaw did feel his body shiver, despite his outward defiance at the tom.
Whoever it was who had shouted made no attempt to make himself known further, leaving Aspenpaw alone, at least now with a dish of slowly depleting water.
Dreams are the place where the mind creeps into those unwanted places, and wretches the most beautiful, the most terrible, and the most mundane of memories.
This night was unkind to Aspenpaw. He recognized where he was just by the rough, grassy surface underneath his paws.
He was standing over the gorge, the most dangerous part of Riverclan territory, its slippery rock walls inviting a single wrong step to plunge into its shallow running waters.
Aspenpaw used to come here sometimes just for the thrill of it, to convince himself that he was cool for putting his life on the line, though he would never get close enough to be in any real danger. He was now.
He had always secretly hoped that one of his clanmates would find him here, and that he might get in trouble, but perhaps be admired by his peers for his daring.
That was always how it was; Aspenpaw would try to seek attention and appreciation through the small things that others would comment on, never anything that he would have the courage to perform openly.
Nobody ever noticed, but why would they? It was a show for one, and Aspenpaw now felt that he should have known that, that he should have done something more to gain the respect of his clanmates.
It was all over anyway. It wouldn't have changed anything.
Aspenpaw shuffled his paws closer to the steep drop of the gorge, his eyes fixed on the moving waters.
It was terrifying to be here now, unlike it had been before, but Aspenpaw was drawn now to the extreme heights unlike in his waking days.
He had contemplated suicide before, but it was always so far out of reach.
It didn't feel possible that the days would ever end, and Aspenpaw didn't have the courage to see out his dire fantasies.
He was too scared of death, too cowardly to face it, too indecisive to ever change.
It was suddenly dark in the world, and so, so lonely.
And he was so, so cold.
There was a time when he moved with confidence, when he looked to the passing days with shimmers in his eyes.
He had only begun to love when it disappeared.
He wondered if Acornpaw understood who had poisoned him as he was dying.
He was so cold.
Aspenpaw had spent his love, torn it apart like bones in the jaw of a dog, but it was all he desired still,
"Daddy!" He wailed out into the soundless breeze like an abandoned kit.
Aspenpaw didn't know what he would do when he woke up. He had failed, in every way possible, "Mama,"
He wondered where Rustheart was now, if he had really rebelled against the clans.
He wondered where Flypaw was. She had always been so happy just to be around.
She had always made Aspenpaw feel like he belonged.
He thought about Browntree, and his mentor, Slateleg, the kindest of clanmates, yet their attention had never fulfilled him in the ways he surged for.
He wondered about Thawfire, who would always pass him tacit glances from across the way.
He wondered about Flameheart, who he didn't know well, yet still felt that he had one of the strongest presences of any of the group, and Gorsepaw and Sandpaw, his shyer friends.
He wondered if they'd gotten their warriors names yet, and Flypaw too.
He thought about Loneheart, but that hurt more than he expected it to.
Those were the hardest nights, the ones he shared with Loneheart.
He had ranted and raved at him, and used his body to quell the loneliness, but it was never comforting.
It was a lie to promise that he would come back.
Aspenpaw had tricked himself into believing there was paradise somewhere out here, lost between the sticky streets and the smell of smoke, hidden from the stars.
There was nothing for him here, Aspenpaw should have known that at the first look at those alluring buildings in the distance, but the rain was heavy, and he was driven to a tattered shelter.
The rain had never stopped; he was still lost in the flood.