And Each Step I Take is Haunting Me [Open to bloodsmoke kids]

Smokefeather drifted, aimless, restless. No starry landscape had greeted her when claws had ripped through her throat, and truthfully, she didn't know how to feel about that. She'd seen Starclan as an apprentice, she'd been raised on tales of their perfect, star-studded lands. What she'd been met with instead was darkness, a strange sort of hollow emptiness.

After everything, it was almost a relief. She wandered, but felt no pain. The occasional stab of bitter loneliness she felt was strangely muted, as it would've never been in life. Things were quiet, almost tranquil despite the knowledge of how she had died. She was a silent, invisible shadow, the living just as unaware of her presence as she was of theirs.

Until she wasn't. At some point in recent times, awareness had slowly crept in. Something a bit more clearer than the blissful nothingness she'd been subjected to. Skyclan's camp lay before her, steeped in shadow, outlines hazy. At first so faint Smokefeather had hardly noticed the difference. It was as if trying to look through cataracts, dark latticed her vision, making her blink and shake her head in an attempt to clear it. Things seemed a little clearer, the sunlight that filtered into the grassy clearing was almost blinding in contrast to the darkness she had found herself in. Painful, almost, but welcome.

Smokefeather was hardly aware of moving, but after a moment she stood in the middle of camp. Her form was only just visible to the cats there, a pale, fuzzy outline. She turned her head, eyes searching. She could see cats, she realized with a start, a group of her clanmates... Her kin. Her daughters. They faced each other, moving... And it was with confusion clouding her gaze that she realized she couldn't hear them speak, despite her vision clearing a little more. Enough to tell that they were talking.

Why couldn't she hear them?

Ashstorm... She tried to speak, ...Ravenclaw? No sound escaped her lips. The cats she'd named seemed not to even notice she'd spoken at all. Prim...? Beech? She tried again, gaze shifting between her daughters uneasily.

Why weren't they hearing her?

Ravenclaw was speaking with her kin, though their tones were muted, downcast. Things were not good, ever since the Dark Forest took over and Beechfang had been forced to kill their mom. Ravenclaw was torn, angry at Beechfang for doing it, but knowing that she hadn't had a choice. It was those torn emotions that frustrated her the most. If only it could be so black and white...

Something shimmered in the middle of the camp. It was like a cat, but it kept slipping in and out of reality, making it too hard to tell. Ravenclaw fell silent, staring at the spot where the shimmering was. Was she going crazy? She stepped away from Ashstorm, taking a few pawsteps to the center of the clearing. She kept looking, as if her continued stares would make things clearer. It was too fuzzy, though. Ravenclaw shook her head, trying to focus, but it was as if she wasn't allowed to. "Hello?" she whispered, her voice barely audible.

Ashstorm was in a constant state of not knowing what to do.  She was the closest thing the clan had to a real leader (as she did not count Morningstar as one), but she still was not one.  Nor did she even want to be one at that moment, the thought of making a bad decision was an overwhelming feeling, and yet it seemed to be the only thing she was doing.  Had she not protested enough?  This was likely the case, but what was she supposed to do?  She had one life, and even those with more only really had one at the moment.  This is what she kept reminding herself every time she thought of trying to find a way to destroy Dawnhawk once and for all.

While talking with her sisters, she noticed that Ravenclaw silently was moving towards the center of the clearing.  Her littermate appeared to say something, which Ashstorm simply tilted her head at.  "Ravenclaw?" She questioned.  But then she noticed what Ravenclaw was looking at.  A cat.  Wait no.  It was... a weird outline of a cat?  It was like a strange, see-through, barely visible cat.  She carefully strode towards the shimmering thing.

"What is this?" She whispered.  She knew this was not just her since Ravenclaw was there as well.  There was something that felt almost... familiar?  No, that is weird.  It was probably just Ashstorm overthinking it.  "What- who are you?"

One by one, everyone slipped out of Primroselight's grasp. Her siblings, her kits, her mate. Smokefeather. She had tried to not drift away like she had before when dealing with grief, but spending time with her son only reminded her of all the kin she'd lost over the moons. Muddythorn had certainly tried to keep her out of her own head, but as a medicine cat he couldn't spend all day caring for his mourning mother. So she continued alone. Her and her sisters - so few compared to what had once been - gathered, and although she wanted to be closer with Ravenclaw and Ashstorm, she said nothing, only lay on the ground, listening.

Her head lifted quickly. There was something near by, something unfamiliar. the feeling was almost unexplainable, as if she knew it was there but could not hear or touch it. Like air, except it felt like it didn't quite belong here. Ravenclaw began to pace away, and Primroselight called after her, "What's wrong?" She knew something was off, of course, but from her sister's sudden movement, she expected that she'd seen something the blind warrior couldn't.

The conversation with her siblings felt stilted, disjointed. Try as she might, Beechfang was sure it was obvious that she was distracted by her own thoughts, though she could tell her sisters were, too. Not that she could blame them, things seemed well and truly hopeless this time. Dawnhawk had everything he wanted, he'd made her kill Smokefeather and had killed Bloodstar. At least their leader maybe had a chance at resurrecting, but so far he hadn't. If Beechfang angled her head up and to the right, she'd have a perfect view of the bulky tabby strung up in the branches for the whole clan to look at.

Wrapped up in her own thoughts, it took her a moment to realize that Ravenclaw was focused on something else. She'd moved tentatively toward the center of camp, and it had caught Ashstorm's attention too. "What's-" She began, echoing Primroselight's question, but her voice broke off as she found the wispy shadow Ashstorm and Ravenclaw had focused on. It was barely there, more translucent than opaque. Through faint mottled fur she could see clearly the rest of camp, though some patches seemed lighter. A white chest and paws, maybe?

"I don't know, Prim. I think I'm finally losing it." Beechfang muttered. "It's a shadow of a cat standing in front of us, I can see the camp behind her, though." Her. The markings were just distinct enough to be recognizable as tortoiseshell, perhaps with bits of tabby striping thrown in along the shoulders and tail. The shadow truly was too faint to make out clearly, but Beechfang thought the body build was more like a she-cat's than a muscular tom.

The shadow stepped forward, gait odd and limping, drawing the eye to it. Despite the movements, Beechfang couldn't sense any hostility from it like she would've with the dark forest cats. It almost seemed like her lips were moving, though Beechfang wasn't skilled in reading lips to make out the silent words. There was something almost plaintive in that face, even marked with confusion as it was. "...Tell me I'm not the only one seeing this." She mewed to Ashstorm and Ravenclaw, tone slightly higher in pitch than it normally was and just a little shaky. No. Smokefeather wouldn't be so cruel to haunt her in the waking world, Beechfang's dreams were bad enough.

Beechfang blinked.

Still there. "Foxdung." Beechfang breathed out, hardly noticing the step backward she took, a stark contrast to Ashstorm and Ravenclaw padding forward. "Mom... No."


I can't hear you, why can't I hear you? Can you see me? Ravenclaw had spoken, Smokefeather glanced behind her, but nobody was there. Her gaze turned back towards her kits, the brief happiness at being in their presence fading at the lack of recognition and still being unable to hear their words as Ravenclaw and Ashstorm came to stand in front of her. Smokefeather suddenly felt as if she were lost. Beechfang looked like she'd... well, seen a ghost. A moment of thought led Smokefeather to realize that that was perhaps accurate. She'd taken a step back, rather than join her sisters. Beechfang had never quite been as fearless and sure as she tried to project. A failure on Smokefeather's end, just as she'd failed to raise Dawnhawk. Oh, my kits... I'm sorry.

Ravenclaw heard her siblings questioning what she was doing, but she paid it no mind at first. With Ashstorm now next to her, she was convinced that she wasn't crazy. Either that or they both were. There was definitely a shadowy, wispy figure standing before them, but it wasn't saying anything. It didn't move, as if it couldn't, or couldn't hear them speaking. Then she heard something that did make her pay attention: something that made her stop in her tracks. Beechfang said 'Mom', and that made Ravenclaw look a lot closer. That was a tortoiseshell... Could it actually be their mom? Could it be Smokefeather? "Mom?" she whispered, leaning in as close as she could without actually trying to press her nose to the fur of her ghostly mother.