All was empty. Everything was over. Nothing mattered.

Odors of the battle seemed to hover around the tom. Screeches lingered around the warrior. They avoided him like they knew what was happening. Like they understood what was going on.

All was empty.

The tawny figure did not move. It did not lift its skull to try and say something. It did not twitch its tail and its muzzle certainly did not open. It was a still stone; a stone dropped into water and buried deep within the river's rushing current, forgotten, disguised among other stones, all the same in the eyes of death.

He wanted to get up and race to the tom. But he couldn't. Because there was a battle. Because his paw still wouldn't do what it was meant to. Because now that tears were mixing with blood and all was growing faster and faster, as if it had been spun off-center, all spiraling out of control.

Struggling, he dragged himself over, allowing his paw to lag behind. It didn't matter if it hurt after the battle. Because after the battle, it would all be over anyway. It would all be empty.

Blood easily flitted around his figure, staining his originally creamy-brown fur a deep, saturated shade. He continued to attempt to surge forward, yet every attempt he made failed. Toppling to the ground, he struggled up as he tried to avoid getting in the way of all the cats fighting.

It took a long time to get over to his pelt. And by the time he got there, the warmth had drained and left only a vessel of who he loved. A trace of heat seemed present yet it was mostly cold, like a stone. A stone long forgotten, dropped in the river—

As he got over, he hoped and he prayed that it wasn't him. Tawn. It could be her. Right? She had been fighting for a long time. And if it wasn't, maybe he was just sleeping. He got too tired so he stopped battling and decided to sleep.

Gently, he allowed his figure to rise as he hopped upon his front paw, trying to balance himself before he slumped to the ground, shutting his eyes tight. If they're closed— then I never— never have to see.

But just because his gaze was shut didn't mean he forgot about the cat in front of him. It took up every portion of his brain, full and cluttered and never to be empty; that was for afterward. Empty was for after the battle.

Eyes opening, he immediately slammed his skull against the ground, shutting them closed again. I can't—

The figure held a pair of two dark green eyes, two twin leaves that were shadowed and glazed over. Terror and fear were frozen within his eyes; ice, unable to be melted, never leaving their position.

The figure's pelt was stained with blood and beneath his skull, laid limply on the ground, lay a scratch that edged itself straight across his throat. That was what had caused the blood to surround him. That was what had caused the crimson liquid to seep into his pelt.

The figure's features were slumped, limp and powerless to anything that happened. Wind battered against their frames in unison, hurting them both equally despite one being gone, and the other still present.

Adderheart pressed his head into his paws, clamping his maw shut. If he didn't do anything, maybe he would come back. Maybe the warrior wouldn't be where he was. Maybe he would be okay.

Yet his eyes edged open again and there Pantherleap was, still as a stone, dropped in a river to be—

All was over. All was empty.

Tears flooded from Adderheart's gaze as he tried to get away, scrambling as his paw sharply protested beneath him. Its pain couldn't compare to the one tearing through his figure, ripping up his head as though it was a cat with a pair of claws.

It was as though there was a sludge that surrounded him and froze him in place. Breathing in was like trying to sort through the thick substance and so he gasped and hiccuped for air through his tears, control quickly running from him. Adderheart slammed his head on the ground, squeezing his eyes shut, breathing ragged.

It was hard to breathe. Nothing was right. Alone. Alone. Gone. He's gone. Gone. You're alone. His brain focused on only a few words. But it didn't matter. They didn't matter. Nothing did. It was empty. All was over. Pantherleap was gone. Gone.

Alone.

Puffing for air now, he continued to hit his skull against the ground, not caring that everything was spinning. Why would he? Pantherleap was gone. Gone. And he would never come back. Dots danced at the edges of his vision; they were bright, compared to the darkness of his shut eyes.

Yet, he couldn't get things under control. Usually, with help from someone else, he could breathe normally once more and the dots would go away. His head would stop spinning and he could move normally.

Someone else. That someone else was gone. So not now. Not now that he was alone.

His head continued to whip in circles. The dots continued to grow and breathing seemed impossible. Now, he survived off simple gasps, his own eyes wide as the speckles turned dark. Pantherleap's body danced in the edges of his vision and he thumped his skull on the ground again.

And then a cat sprung to him and sunk their claws into his shoulder.

Spluttering as he struggled in their grip, he could barely feel or see as the cat slashed at his pelt. He didn't know who it was. But that didn't matter. He knew what was going to happen as all spiraled away from him.

Still trying to breathe, he gasped and panted and huffed as he blinked rapidly, but the dots stayed, happily taking over his vision. A leopard-spotted pelt flashed and he nearly vomited, head shaking rapidly as he tried to get out of their grip.

The cat appeared to have noticed his paw and yanked harshly on it and a horrible, broken, crackly yowl came from his maw, and he continued to scream after. He didn't have to say anything. His chest hurt, blood was everywhere, he couldn't breathe, tears were flowing too quickly—

Alone.

All over again did he scream and cry and slam his head to the ground and try to breathe through his quickly fading focus, but this time he noticed that the cat wasn't hurting him. The cat was gone. His pelt was littered with injuries. But none of them were fresh; none of them had happened within the past few moments.

Alone.

As time continued to tick by, he heard a voice that seemed to break through the wall he'd built up.

"...are you crying?"

It didn't come through as a full sentence but that didn't matter. Adderheart knew who it was now. But he couldn't say anything. His throat felt as though it was closed around a rock within itself, and he clenched his paws before pain flared within the right one.

"...hear me?"

He lifted his head, looking to Nova, and the she-cat was also littered with injuries. Her eyes were sharp with confusion and yet they, too, were rimmed with mild redness. Adderheart's lip easily trembled and she sighed, looking at him, appearing to have made the connection.

"...wasn't...so?"

Adderheart didn't know if he could say anything. He didn't know if he wanted to. And if he did, would she hurt him? All felt further away and all was slowly growing cold around him, as though everything was fading.

"Hello?"

That time it came through full and powerful, and she took a step toward him. Immediately shifting backward, his eyes flashed with worry but she didn't seem to notice. He struggled but managed to open his maw and get a few words out.

"M-my m-mate— is g-gone—" Saying it made his throat constrict for half a moment more. Hot tears burned at the edges of his gray eyes.

"Gone?" She stared at him. "This is your fault for being in this Clan," she commented, venom woven in all of her undertones. "If you wouldn't have been so bad then maybe she'd be alive."

"N-no—!" Panic rose easily. It wasn't a she-cat, it was a tom, and he tried to convey this by pointing harshly at the figure of his mate. "That's— th-that's h-him—"

Nova's eyes widened and Adderheart couldn't help but feel dizzier. "Your mate's a tom? I thought they didn't allow that...? That's the entire reason why Tawn l—" She stopped immediately and stepped backward but he lurched awkwardly forward, shaking his skull.

"No— nobody kn-knew... Cougars-s-st-star would've— w-would've k-killed us. Not s-safe... not s-safe."

"Tawn is Cougarstar's brother, you know that, right? They have a third brother, Pantherleap—"

"Th-that's h-him—! Pantherleap w-w-was my m-mate. We ha-had to h-h-hide and... and— n-now he's g-gone and I-I—" He cut her off accidentally, immediately beginning to try to speak again before he grew very dizzy and weak once more, figure swaying as his vision blurred.

"...really? Tawn's my mate... two of the..." Now her words were fading in and out. Her pelt seemed easily to blend with the bloody ground behind it. No. The ground was pale white. Was it?

"H-help—" he whispered, words taken easily by the cries of mourning cats nearby. The battle's sounds appeared to have faded away; yet, was it due to the tom's fading vision and focus or the battle's end, he did not know.

The leopard-spotted pelt lurched forward and he could feel a figure beneath him, with a pelt as soft as a blanket and a figure slim as his. But it was all fading away, the dots easily taking over his view.

As he seemed to be lifted from the ground below, he could feel the slight stickiness of blood flutter beneath him as he was moved. His sight had faded and left simple splashes of light and dark, a mixture of both plastering itself across his view.

He could almost tell that something else was going on. Air and something else moved around him; a pelt? It felt soft. But said feeling seemed also to be dissipating. Was it even there? Mind slowing, his figure went slack.

And yet, he seemed immediately to jerk back to the waking world as movements sped up, air rushed around him. All was a hurricane and it was all moving too swiftly around him; whatever had been beneath him disappeared, now replaced with a hard, painful object.

Then he slammed upon the ground and everything vanished.

—

Theoretically, he wouldn't have wanted to wake up.

In a world in which his mate was not around, Adderheart preferred to be in a place where his mate was. And if that was not in the waking world, that was okay with him. It would've been better to be with him than without.

Within the conscious realm, everything that the two shared had to be hidden. None of it was allowed to be shown at all. Punishments were dealt for not abiding by rules that had been ingrained into the walls, into the floor, onto the sky; scrawled upon trees and scribbled into leaves. Everyone knew them. And in turn, nobody broke the rules. Except a few.

Being part of a pair that had broken said rules, the tom didn't want to live within a world without Pantherleap. It was too lonely. Too many problems could come from what had happened. And Cougarstar's promise for suffering still lingered within his senses.

Senses.

As soon as such a thought seemed to enter his skull — a thought. Within his skull. His skull?

Feeling seemed to rush back and instantly he was aware of everything around him. There was moss beneath him. Moss within a shape similar to a nest's. A moss nest— he was laying on a moss nest. The air around him was crisp and cold. It moved slowly around his figure, lifting only a few bloodied tufts from his pelt every few moments.

Blood.

Only then was he aware of the next scent within the air; blood. And on his pelt, the same crimson substance crusted over portions of his fur. As feeling slowly flooded back to his figure, he was suddenly aware of the total and complete white-hot pain that sloshed onto him.

Immediately withering backward into the nest and wanting to disappear right then and right there, the tom's maw stretched as if to ask for help from anyone around. It was all too much; the thoughts seemed to dim as pain overtook him easily, clamping down on his frame as easily as he'd realized it was there.

He wanted to curl up into a ball and scream for hours and hours, each time only repeating that it hurt, it hurt. Someone had to help him. It hurt. Why hadn't anyone helped him? It hurts. Hurts. His breathing easily became choppy and his maw slammed down to clamp tighter, squeezing his eyes shut.

But before he had done so, he'd caught half a glimpse of his injuries.

His legs were all torn up, with seemingly millions of gashes and cuts littering their surfaces, but nothing could compare to his paw. The front right one seemed to simply be a mess of cobwebs and tufts of fur, and it hurt the most. Everything right around it hurt the most.

Compressing his gaze so tightly that flashing white dots seemed to pattern themselves across it, a breathy exhale escaped his lips as he gritted his teeth. If I stay, then they will heal me. But it was unsafe. Wasn't it?

As he exhaled, blood seemed to bubble in his throat and he coughed violently, soon turning to vomit as he leaned and was sick. A strong sense of shame surged up and his ears pinned as he spat onto the ground once more, trying to move away, but finding that such was impossible.

From all the sudden movement, pain seemed to suddenly grasp on him and he gritted his teeth harsher before he struggled up. His head spun in response but he couldn't stop now. It was unsafe. And with Pantherleap somewhere around here, he had to find him, right?

Alone.

Struggling not to throw up again, he seemed to sway and immediately went crashing against the wall — of the den, now that he knew as the medicine cat's den — at this new thought that seemed to remind him of all that had happened. Bile threatened to spill from his maw and he coughed once, blood spilling up and tinting the ground below him blood.

But it was already tinted the same crimson shade. He lifted his head with great difficulty to attempt to observe the area around and saw his back, all slashed and covered in cobwebs and poultices. Struggling still, the tom pulled himself before looking down at his paw.

Jerking his head to avoid looking at it, he set his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut. Again he seemed to realize the total and awful ending of the battle; Pantherleap was gone and his figure and his pelt and everything was ruined. Cougarstar would punish him and Willowdapple and it would all be over. Bile pressed at his maw but he simply spat it to the side, hacking soon after.

Eventually, he stood in front of the herb wall, head spinning.

He could hear some form of faint breathing nearby. It was a wheeze more so but it, too, was fading, and so he peered to the herbs, huffing. He had to take something, didn't he? He couldn't be punished or face Cougarstar like this.

As soon as he lifted his front paw, he couldn't help but immediately plummet to the ground. His balance easily escaped him and so he looked up from the ground, squinting as though to ensure he could see what he was looking at. I have to take something. Something. This hurts—

But what if he picked something wrong? Or something that would hurt him? He knew not to pick berries. They would hurt if they were deathberries. But there had to be other poisonous herbs, right?

It didn't matter.

If he picked something that would kill him, who would care?

Willowdapple popped into his skull as he lifted his paw to pick something from the herbs. Yet, the thing that followed caused him to crash forward, quickly sending herbs scattering all over the space nearby him.

She's gone—

Her limp figure popped into his head and then so did a second tawny pelt. The pelt, atop such a sculpted and such a powerful figure, now unmoving and still. It had seemed to have been there for a while. At least a bit.

Cougarstar.

He grabbed the first three herbs in front of him — the first was a small, green plant with seemingly millions of small white clusters of flowers, whereas the second was a bunch of tiny red berries, and the third was just a strange fluffy plant — and shoved them in his mouth.

Yet immediately he seemed to regret it, realizing that he had eaten red berries, and he instantly slammed his skull onto the ground nearby. Stumbling up to his paws and shoving his way out of the den, the warrior looked around at the bloody camp and wanted to—

Quickly he made his way to the entrance and pushed his way through. It wasn't safe. He couldn't die in camp. He couldn't. He couldn't do anything. His heart seemed to instantly speed up as panic easily took over and he pushed further and further.

Go. Go—

If he kept moving, it would be fine. If he kept going, it would be okay. If he kept walking, it would be alright. But walking grew more and more difficult. His paws turned to liquid. His legs dissipated. His head was a rock and it was thrown easily around.

Easily, he slumped to the ground after what seemed to be a moon of walking. He huffed quietly, panting as he slouched further, eyes seemingly glazing as he laid his head down. Everything was too much, moving too swift, moving... moving? Maybe if the herbs did kill him, it wouldn't be that bad after all.

And then the world blinked away. Again.