Post by Shad on Oct 28, 2015 6:19:17 GMT
They were waiting for her to die.
The shekit pushed one uncooperative paw under her, forcing the weak muscles to heed her bidding, then the other paw. She was sitting up now, but she kept going, though sweat broke out across her skin, dampening her short fur. She licked her dry lips, fighting back the dizziness. She wanted to go outside and she was going to get there. Even if she had to crawl.
She took one step, and crumbled. She got up again, her head swimming in the clouds. Another step. Another fall. Again. Again. The shekit's tiny muscles quivered and screamed. Her fur was soaked from sweat and her vision was fuzzing at the edges. She was out of the nest but still so far from her goal. She had only moved mere inches. At the door, at the entrance so close, she could see daylight. She wanted so badly to reach it. She wanted to go out and soak in the sun. She hated this place. She hated this den. She hated the far-too familiar walls. She hated her nest, soft and lovingly crafted though it might be. It was not a home. It was not her home. It was a prison. It was a cage that barred her from her mother and her siblings and Swanstrike and even the mean twins. She was trapped here, alone, isolated from all the cats she had grown up with. Trapped until she died. Flickerkit just wanted to escape from it, just for a few seconds, just long enough to see the sky again. The shecat pushed herself up once more, but this time when she fell, her consciousness was ripped away with it.
Flickerkit woke where she had landed on the dirt beside the nest. She had no idea how long it had been. There was still sunlight outside and her Papa had yet to wake and move her. That was a good sign. At least days had not passed this time. But the late Leafbare air in the den was cold and soaking wet as the kit had been, her teeth chattered and her fur felt icy. Her muscles were locked up and frigid, her ears and nose burned from cold. Dear Star Clan, was she truly this pathetic? Was this what she had become? A kit so weak she was half dead just from getting out of her nest? A cat so damaged and broken she could not even walk out to see the sky without passing out not even half way to the door?
Tears gathered in the corner of the shecat's eyes. She buried her tiny face in the ground, trying to hide her shame as a sob was wrenched from her chest. She tried to hold it all back when her Papa was watching, but he was asleep now and Flickerkit was alone. It was safe to cry. Another kittenish cry bubbled out of her, joining the first. Why? Why was she like this? Why had her body abandoned her? If she was going to die why hadn't Star Clan just done it already! Why were they leaving her here? Why was she being tortured with this half life?! Was it because she had left the camp? Disobeyed her Mama? She had just wanted to prove that she was worth something! She had just wanted to be something more than the slow one, the kit that everyone liked well enough but made jokes about behind her back. She had just wanted to prove she could be just as creative and brave as everyone else was! And now look at her!
No, wait. Don't. Flickerkit curled herself into a tight, brown ball on the Elder's Den floor, her face sopping wet with tears. Her muscles cried out and spasmed at the movement, her heart jackrabbiting in response and her lungs contracting painfully, unable to handle the force of the little kit's sorrow, which only made her cry all the harder. Don't look at her. Flickerkit wished no one would look at her, not ever. Not her friends. Not her family. Most especially not her parents. She was weak, pathetic. She was a failure as a daughter and she had not even been apprenticed yet! She did not want anyone to see her and what she had become, unable to even walk out of her own den. She did not want them to see her... but she also did not want to see them.
Flickerkit's tiny amber eyes shut tightly, but she could not block out the memories that threatened to overwhelm her. The look on Mistlekit's face when she woke up. The look on Shrikekit and Hawkkit's faces when they first tried to play with her and realized she could hardly even stand. The look on Rosekit's face every time she saw him. The looks on her Papa's face when he thought she could not see him.
The looks on her Mama's face.
Flickerkit's voice broke on a sob as this last memory assailed her several times over. She hated it. She hated that look. She hated seeing it every time her Mama came to visit. She hated the dull look in her Mama's eyes. She hated the ghosts that haunted them. She tried to be strong in the face of those looks, she tried to pretend everything was going to be okay and everything would get better -but how could she when her own Mama, the very image of strength in the kit's small world, looked at her as if she was already so far away? How could she believe she would get better when her Mama's voice always sounded like it was already saying goodbye?
How could she live when her Mama looked at her like she was already dead?
Flickerkit sobbed, her face pressed shamefully into the dirt floor, her claws dug into the ground, her tiny tail curled over her ears, as if it would be enough to hide her away from the horrible things cats said to her that raced around in her brain. They did not tease her anymore, oh no. They instead talked to her like she was about to die, they said they loved her every time they left "just in case", just in case the next time she fell asleep she did not wake up. Just in case she stopped breathing. Just in case she never saw them again because she died and they wanted to make sure they got a word in before hand! Just in case of that! Flickerkit found she sorely missed the teasing. It was certainly better than this. Anything was better than this.
The frail brown shekit hiccuped, trying to swallow down her crying. She could prove them wrong though, couldn't she? Maybe... maybe if she just got up now... if she could just force her paws under her and take a few more steps.... if she could just get out into the sunlight... she could prove she wasn't just a body waiting around for death, right? She could do it. She knew she could. She had to. For them. For her.
Flickerkit sniffled and lifted her head to look at the den's entrance. At the bright sunlight just waiting for her a taillength away. She could make it that far, couldn't she? If she just put her mind to it, if she just tried real hard, she could do it. She could be in the sun again. She could feel its warmth against her fur. She could escape from this horrible prison. Suddenly, making it to the entrance meant so much more than just seeing the sun. It meant survival. It meant conquering a body that was trying to beat her. It meant proving all of those looks, all of her Mama's premonitions, to be wrong. If she could just reach that doorway, she could prove to herself that she would still survive. She was still Flickerkit. She was still a Cedar Clan cat. She was still something worth believing in.
One shaking, burning movement at a time, the brown kit pulled her paws under her. She cried out from the pain of unlocking the frozen muscles, but in this at least her weakness became her advantage. Her weak heart dulled her senses, and soon the agony pulsing through her body was forgotten, set aside like a faded memory from a dream she once had. She pushed, pushed, forcing her body to stand. She would stand. She was Flickerkit. She was a 3 moon old kit and she was going to stand on her own paws and walk out of this den!
She stumbled. Her head was swirling. The world was spinning. The entrance... it was that way. No, the other way. It was so hard to focus. So hard to understand. Flickerkit did not care though. She was going! Whatever way it was. She was going to make it! She knew she was going to make it. She could do this. She was still strong enough. She would force herself to be strong enough even if she wasn't! No one would tell her she couldn't. No one would look at her as just a body waiting to die. She was more than that. She needed to be more than that. She was going to walk out of this den and prove that to everyone.
The little brown kit fumbled forward, but the second she unlocked her legs, she crumbled. Her breath was gone. Her fur was soaked in sweat once more, her face soaked in tears. Her vision was like looking through a tunnel, her heart a painful thumping in her ears and her lungs a frantic, constricted butterfly in her chest. Her breathing was nothing more than pained gasps, harried and desperate for air. The shekit's face burned with shame. No. NO! This was not how her life would go! She had to do it. She had to make it. She couldn't... she just couldn't...! NO!
But Flickerkit's body paid no mind to her wishes as it broke down on the Elder Den's floor, mere inches from the nest where she had started. And part of Flickerkit broke down with it. There was blackness rushing up to smother her and Flickerkit fought it frantically, her fear and adrenaline only serving to hasten her demise.
Because the truth was Flickerkit could not do it.
She would never reach her precious sunlight. She could never go back to the life she once had, where her beloved Mama looked at her as anything other than a cat one-pawstep away from death. No amount of willpower would change that.
No amount of wishing either.
