consumed [closed/solo]

Fishstar awoke in the darkness, spluttering.

She'd tried to hide it from most of the Clan as best as she could - save for Cloudstone and Bouncepaw, of course, who had been treating her - but it was becoming increasingly harder with each passing day. Every time she breathed in, her chest felt as if it were filled with embers from the bottom of a fire. Every day for the past moon, it had been getting worse and worse, and tonight, it was unbearable.

Her fur was matted with sickly sweat, and with every cough, her entire frame shook, and her bones ached and creaked as if made of the fragile ice that lined the river bank.. And she was so.. Cold. It wasn't the sort of cold that was creeping in from her den's entrance, it was an internal cold, seeping out of her core and running just below her skin. She couldn't shake it off, no matter what herbs she tried. She'd had greencough before, and she knew what that felt like. This was not greencough. This was something worse. She had never felt so drained before.. So weak, and spent.

The RiverClan leader struggled to push herself up into a sitting position, and as soon as she was up, another violent fit of coughing overtook her, making her entire body seize up. She could feel warm liquid coming up with her coughs, seeping out the sides of her jaw and dribbling messily down onto her moss bedding, but she was almost too afraid to peer down at it. Her mouth was coated with a sharp, metallic tang. She knew what it was but, she refused to look at it. Before she could even catch a breath, she was hit with it again. This time, her vision doubled. Then tripled. When she shook her head in an attempt to clear it of her dizziness, the world became an unrecognizable, blurry splash of black, green, and blue, and she toppled over, gasping.

Her throat was clogged.

She couldn't breathe.

Panic swept through her, swift as a stream. Fishstar clawed at the ground, desperately trying to get herself back up, but her body was working furiously against her in every way possible. Her limbs felt like jelly. The sickness was sucking all of the energy out of her. The she-cat hadn't felt this terrified since she'd nearly drowned in the river countless moons back as a kit.. So helpless to the forces she was up against, whether that be the current or a terrible illness. It was a truly horrifying thing, to feel one's body shutting down and having no control over it. In one instant, Fishstar was hot. In the next, she was cold. Blood bubbled up though her mouth, steaming in the frigid night air. No breaths could get in or go out. She was trapped in a scarlet limbo.

Slowly, her struggles became weaker - more desperate, but weaker. The sickness was leaving her no time to lie back an recuperate - be ready for the next quivering fit, or to pick herself up and cough up the blood that was preventing her from breathing. It was all happening too fast. She could sense a familiar feeling creeping in.. One that she'd known only three times before, and one that she was straining to fight against before it consumed her.

Suddenly, she could see faces dancing around in front of her - faces she'd known long ago, and faces she'd never witnessed before. Starlight filled their eyes.

No. No. Not again. Not like this.

It was too late. Her vision began to fade, and her legs grew still beside her. At first, it was gradual, and then, everything went black.

---

". . F i s h s t a r . ."

". . F i s h s t a r . ."

She was in a forest.

For a moment, confusion and fear gripped her like talons. Where was she? How had she gotten here from her den? Who was calling to her?

"H.. Hello?" she called out, her fur prickling with unease. "I-I was.. I was dying, and I.."

She froze.

Dying. That's what happened. She'd died, right there in her den, choking on her own blood.

". . Y o u     h a v e    l o s t    f i v e    l i v e s . ."

The RiverClan leader cast her gaze upward, searching for the course of the voice, but there was no cat in sight.. Despite that, it was as if she could feel thousands of pairs of eyes trained on her. From where, she did not know, but someone was watching. Four, now? It felt like it'd only been a sunrise since her leader ceremony, and yet, so much time had passed, and this was her fourth death. She couldn't even remember what the last three had felt like, now that she thoughts about it.

Before she could ponder any longer, another voice sounded out.

". . U s e    y o u r    l i v e s    w i s e l y . ."

And in the blink of an eye, the scenery washed away in a sweep of white light.

---

Fishstar was back in her den.

With a mighty heave, clean, crisp air filled her lungs. All the blockage in her throat had disappeared. She could feel strength flowing back into her veins. The tabby continued to lie there on her soiled bedding, trying to wrap her head around the flurry of events that had just occurred. Nothing ever prepared a leader for dying. It was a terrifying - yet mesmerizing - experience, an it would probably be a few days before she got over it.

Finally pushing herself back up onto her paws, Fishstar shook her pelt and swiveled her head back to look at herself. She was a mess. Her fur was dappled with blood and moss, and was sticking out at every angle possible. She couldn't leave her den in the morning looking like this.. She would frighten all of her Clanmates half to death.

In fact, she wouldn't tell them at all.

She'd just go wash off the evidence and pretend it'd never happened. No one really needed to know, because it would just make them nervous. There was a secret exit that led out to the river behind her den that only Fishstar knew about. She'd just sneak through that and avoid whichever warrior was guarding the entrance. Yes, that was a good plan.

No one needed to know.

She would just push it all behind her and focus on her Clan, as she'd done with Otterfur's death, and her kits' deaths, and Breezeleaf's death, and her mother's death.

None of it needed to matter anymore.