As we step into the rain

Somewhere in a vast labyrinth, there was a pond. The pond lay completely still as mosquitoes swarmed the surface, laying their eggs upon the surface of the foul-smelling sludge. Everything was quiet, except for the incessant crying of a crow from some indistinguishable place that could not be pinpointed. It never ended, and no matter how you hunted for it, you’d never find the lonely bird.

There were some lizards and frogs around the pond, but each was diseased, mutilated, underweight, or otherwise unsightly. Rotting plants speckled the landscape, and every tree was dead and at risk of falling onto the surface of the pond to disturb the ecosystem there. Nothing ever moved here, except for the fog.

But then something did. The surface bubbled, rippled, churned, and then there was a huge gasping yowl as a cat broke the surface of the pond with a violent thrashing of her paws. Tavora choked on the mud in her throat as she desperately tried to inhale, to little success. The she-cat half-paddled and half-bounced across the shallow pond to the edge.

Tavora collapsed upon the ground, heaving and spitting. Every few breaths, she hacked up another ground of toxic, black, earthy muck. Her grey pelt was drenched in dark water, adorned with twigs, rocks, and matted dirt. She tried to shake it out, but she was soaked to her very bones.

When the she-cat looked up, she happened upon the horrible realization that this was not the deep marsh she had fallen into. In comparison to this, ShadowClan was bright, lively, green, and beautiful. She suddenly found herself deeply missing it in this harsh place. It was like it had been trashed by tens of thousands of twolegs, and then abandoned. There were no stars over her head. There was no moon.

Oh. A place of no stars. It’s literal.

Tavora felt a gag in her throat again and rose to her paws, coughing and choking once more. Mud dribbled from her mouth, and when she tried to wipe it, more mud transferred to her face from her paws. There was no grass to roll in, and no sun to dry her off. She walked a few paces from the pond and realized that though she had been out of the water for quite some time, she dripped with every step. So this was death: a reflection of one’s last moments, played in a loop over and over again until the world caved in.

Legend said that this place, this Place of No Stars, was an endless maze of death and silence, where you could see no cat, living or dead. The prey was near-crowfood, and the water grey. You could not stay in one place for very long before madness overcame you. There was only wandering.

Tavora sighed. She could not win a battle with the afterlife. She could not shred it to pieces or taunt it. She could not shoulder her way through her destined resting place. No war she could ever wage would ever release her from this enormous prison. There was no fighting your way out of here. All the molly was capable of doing was submitting to the inevitable. It was a waste of energy to try and find a way out, or to repent, or to beg and plead for mercy. The ancestors had decided her fate, and they were a stubborn boulder in a very light breeze. You couldn’t barter with tyrants.

So she walked. Walked. Walked. Kept walking. Walked some more. Got hungry, ate a rancid frog. Coughed up mud at every step, and continued to walk.

Somewhere in the haze, she felt she had to take a break. The sky never changed, but her sense of time told her it was as if a day had passed. Soon, she was sure, they’d all blur together. Laying down on a nest of thorny twigs, shivering under the weight of her wet pelt, Tavora closed her eyes.

Apparently, there was no sleep in the afterlife, either. Tavora sniffled and choked again on mud. This was forever: wet and dirty and struggling to breathe. She let out one terrible yowl of complete devastation, throwing a stick against a tree in her rage, and then relinquished her strength to the forest she now called home with a stifled sob and a wheeze.

But a meow returned her shout, and Tavora leaped to her paws, extending her claws in preparation.

Out of the darkness came a catlike shape, slithering in their pawsteps. Their tail whipped with precision. They smiled in spite of how Tavora recoiled at the sight of another cat in an eternity of supposed isolation. This wasn’t according to the plan. “What do you want?!” she snapped at the figure, gurgling from the muck rising into her throat.

“You,” said the cat, grinning.