[Insidious]

S I L E N T P A W
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For an apprentice without any form of training whatsoever, he was an adequate hunter, having had opportunities to both teach himself and learn from his father at a young age before Riversong had adopted the responsibility of his care, dragging him into the ranks of StoneClan without so much as a word of reluctance on his behalf. He did not find that he mourned the presence of his father; he never saw him, so it was simple enough to pretend that he was dead and that there was no family left for him. He liked to think that he was beginning to adjust to Clan life, and that it would only get easier for him over time as he started training with Blacksmoke - a part of him had been quite pleased to hear that she would be his mentor, for she was the only cat thus far that had witnessed him at work, and had not instantaneously darted in the opposite direction to forewarn of his creepy tendencies. He already felt bad enough about everything as it was, so he was thankful that Blacksmoke had not possessed the need to make him feel even worse.

It did not matter how bad he felt, however, because no matter what he could not seem to stop himself. Even now, stealthily maneuvering along the outskirts of StoneClan camp, a mutilated mouse limp in his jaw, he was doing an excellent job of ignoring the throb of raw guilt that thumped in the place of his heartbeat. Nothing mattered to him more than learning about these creatures, and what was inside of them, so it made no sense why he always had to feel like what he was doing was a bad thing, and that if anybody saw him he would get into trouble. His ears were flat against the top of his head, pale blue eyes wide, fearful, as he made sure nobody was within range before slithering into the apprentices’ den where, he hoped, nobody would think to bother him for the next little while.

He settled into his nest, his body no longer shaking, his tense muscles beginning to relax, as the threat of being spotted, of being discovered, left him more and more with each breath. He placed the mutilated mouse just out of sight, should anybody decide to enter, but he quickly lost interest in keeping his work hidden as, with time wasting away, randomly chosen body parts began to be torn from the mouse’s already destroyed corpse and carefully positioned along the edges of his nest in plain-view. A small paw, still dripping blood, was on the floor of the apprentices’ den just outside of his nest, and directly above it was the poor creature’s tail.

With his back to the entrance, front paws, chest, and mouth coated in blood, his nest painted crimson, nobody could see the smile on his face.

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Tags: Fawn
Word Count: 484.

[Fawn]

SKUNKPAW
Apprentice || She-Cat || 13 Moons || StoneClan

Skunkpaw was the definition of introverted. She hated gatherings with the wheezing passion of an anxiety attack, and already she was partially dreading her warrior ceremony - something that should've been noted with a sense of accomplishment. In the opinion of the undersized black and white she-cat, the Clan would forever know her as the apprentice who had lost to her own brother in the battle competition (thus probably making Fallenleaf look bad), as though they would always know her for her failures, not her successes. Given how social interaction was often draining and unpleasant for the socially inept feline, it was no wonder she enjoyed the solace and the privacy of a nearly empty apprentices' den; there were only three other apprentices, apart from her - and the majority of them were much more extroverted, tackling their chores with gusto.

Skunkpaw? She'd rather sleep. The rainy season made her pelt stick to her as if she'd rolled in sap, and the last thing she wanted to do was spend a whole evening trying to dry out. So Skunkpaw slept, in her cushy nest in the back of the den, shrouded in shadow so that when a pale, furtive shape crept into the apprentices' den carrying its latest plaything, neither of them were aware of each other. When the scent of mouse blood did eventually waft up her pink and black-blotched nose, it brought up some long-buried memories - of flashing claws and red eyes and the maddening frenzy of war. It was with the distressed keening of a kit, her own voice filling up her ears, that Skunkpaw awoke with a gasp, having envisioned herself drowning in StoneClan blood, a helpless kit once again, unable to reach her family. Oh StarClan, when will I stop having that horrible, freakish dream? Her throat felt dry, tongue fused to the roof of her mouth, her heart beating a panicked thump thump thu-thump against her breast as she stirred.

And then she spotted Silentpaw, covered in blood and with animal bits surrounding his nest like he was collecting macabre little toys to play with later. Yellowish green eyes grew wide, the images of her nightmare all too fresh to not link them with this scene before her; it was as if the hellscape had followed her into reality, and Skunkpaw uttered a repulsed, high-pitched keen. Fur standing on end, she pressed her back to the apprentices' den wall, gaping at Silentpaw as though he had gotten too close to the source of her fears, and was doing this to deliberately taunt her.
What is he doing? WHAT is he DOING? Her brain sputtered, and she spat through chattering teeth at the tom with the bloodied mouth.
"What the heck are you?! Some kind of freak?" Why would he do that to a mouse? She knew Silentpaw wasn't from the Clan, wherever his origins lay - they must've been a bunch of strange cats. Strange cats who liked to play with their food in ways Skunkpaw wouldn't have thought to, not in her wildest, most hellish dreams.

Word Count: 500ish Words
Tags: Insidious

[Insidious]

S I L E N T P A W
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It was arguable that he had not noticed the she-cat in the back of the apprentices’ den, curled up tightly, because he simply had not looked hard enough. Anyone else that took up their time with such vile habits as he would never slip up so badly; they would pay attention to their surroundings, a gleam of sharpness in their eye, never caught in the act because they knew how to stay out of sight, not just out of mind like the shy, nervous tom that, even when a she-cat in close proximity screeched in terror, did not look up from the mouse carcass at his bloody paws. Silentpaw was trapped inside of his own world. There was no exit through which he could easily return to reality, nor was there an entrance that permitted outsiders to capture his attention, even when closeby and talking to him as directly, as loudly, as his fellow apprentice, Skunkpaw happened to be. She was pressed up against the wall of the apprentices’ den, eyes wide and bulbous, regarding him like he was an intruder in StoneClan territory that was not welcome this close to her, and posed a threat simply seated there, minding his own business as he was.

Seconds ticked by, and finally Silentpaw lifted his ghostly blue eyes from the plaything at his paws, his sights briskly passing over the top of Skunkpaw’s head before, abruptly, face contorting to reveal surprise, his eyes latched within the depths of her own as if only now was he truly understanding that somebody else was witnessing the ugly thing he was performing upon this dead mammal in his nest. At first, he did not know that it was him she was so afraid of, and so he continued to stare at her in the hopes that she would enlighten him, perhaps share what was on her mind so that he could go back to his business. He recalled hearing something while he had been busy - had it been the word freak? - but, other than that, he was not entirely sure what was happening.

Except for the fact that something was bothering Skunkpaw, and she seemed to be looking nowhere other than directly into his pale eyes, as if within them, for whatever strange reason, she was seeing the source of what frightened her so.

Then it clicked.

His ears folded against the top of his head. His front paws began to shake. The bottom of his jaw wobbled, as if the mute cat wished to say something in his defense but could not. Quickly, he looked down to see the mess he had made in his nest, and his grief only intensified once he realized that the sight of it had scared her. All carcasses bled. Surely she had seen blood before. Was what he had been doing really so wrong? There was nowhere for him to go. There was nowhere that he wanted to go, either. If he stood up, Skunkpaw would likely dart for the exit, thinking that he was going to turn her into his next deceased experiment. Thinking about it, his interest was suddenly piqued. He looked entirely normal again, unphased, for the briefest of moments as he wondered about the insides of a cat, instead of a mouse, before he caught his train of thought and brought it to a screeching halt, disgusted with not only himself, but with her for making him think such terrible, terrible things. Silentpaw ducked his head into his nest, buried it within the red dyed fur of his front paws, as if the monster was glued to the wall and not residing inside of his own head.

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Tags: Fawn
Word Count: 614.

[Fawn]

SKUNKPAW
Apprentice || She-Cat || 13 Moons || StoneClan

Perhaps as a defense mechanism against his potentially contagious strangeness, Silentpaw's faults filled up her thoughts for a few heartbeats and she kept a reasonable distance; what a freak! He rips apart his food, doesn't talk and no one understands him. She wasn't exactly a social butterfly, but she was at the very least, not so insane as to start doing what he was doing; she wasn't the one covered in blood, covering her face and hunkering down into her nest like some kind of guilty cat. Shaken from what she'd seen and the nightmare she'd just lived, Skunkpaw stayed frozen in place, deliberating what to do with him, who to tell, what to even say. In order to leave the den, she had to walk past him, walk closer to that gross pit of mouse bits that he called his nest, and that was out of the question; what if he was dangerous? What if he lashed out at her next? The little feline would have felt more fear if she'd known what he was thinking - but Skunkpaw, as a further defense mechanism against him, had downgraded his existence to 'not worth getting to know', his thoughts, if his actions were anything to go by, must have been strange and worrying.

Should I tell the medicine cat? Or maybe Blacksmoke. It wasn't Skunkpaw's personality to go seeking authority figures to rat someone out, but this was not right. Going to Hawkstar or Wolfclaw was beyond the she-cat's level of bravery, her own emotions were becoming this twisted knot of panic at the idea of having to explain this to anyone; and she hated him for putting her in this situation. How dare he be weird, how dare he play upon her nightmares, whether he knew it or not. Where was she going to sleep now? Sharing a den with this monster seemed ill advised, she didn't want to have to watch him the whole night through with one eye open, in case he brought in another little carcass to mutilate.

"You're blocking the exit." Skunkpaw growled, voice low and defensive, like an animal that might lash out if things didn't go her way. She wasn't the best at fighting, and Silentpaw, in his current state, scared her more than she'd allow herself to admit out loud, but she could channel desperation better than most. Heart throbbing in her throat, she tried very hard not to look at his macabre little collection - it was making her stomach churn. That may have been their food but the way he'd... ripped at it was enough to make anyone feel a little disconcerted. She was about three fox lengths and a rabbit leap away from disconcerted and straight into alarmed.

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Word Count: 451 Words
Tags: Insidious

[Insidious]

S I L E N T P A W
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The perfect time to escape would have been when he ducked his head into his nest, attempting to cover his eyes and his ears with his paws, trying to make the she-cat who had wrongfully judged him for what could not be helped disappear so that she might stop making him feel bad for having a hobby, and for doing something that he liked to do. No matter where he went, no matter what kind of carcass he tried to tear apart, somebody always saw him, and somebody always had something to say about it. Blacksmoke had the decency to be kind in her form of reprimandation, but it had done little to lessen the tom’s anxiety, and the feeling in the pit of his chest that he was abnormal, and maybe even a little terrifying, for simply having a curiousity. Everyday proved a small fact true, time and time again: he did not belong with StoneClan. It was his father who had put him in this mess, and given him to a bunch of cats that couldn’t understand his wordless way of going about his days. Now he lived his life in fear, constantly worrying, constantly sulking, because there was always someone like Skunkpaw to make it seem like he had more worth dead than alive.

He realized, then, in the midst of how incredibly excluded from the world he felt, how true her namesake was to the kind of cat she was turning out to be. He knew enough about skunks, enough to know they could make you smell bad if they wanted, and something about the way she talked, the way she made him feel about himself, was smelly and wrong. It was cats like her, cats like skunks, that made him want to take cover and wait out their leave. He was far too stressed by this situation to have bothered listening to what she had to say to him, finally lifting his head and rising from his nest, but because he needed a way out, a way that was anywhere else but in the same proximity as her. He began to gather the pieces of mouse that littered the floor, collecting them in his jaw until there was no room left for more. His pale blue eyes turned to the she-cat fleetingly, wondering why she was still here, still seeming to panic, when she could simply walk by him without any trouble. It was him who had the right to be afraid, and to feel uncomfortable.

He hadn’t realized it when he took a step closer to her, seeming to be trying to corner her, when really he wanted nothing more than for her to dart passed him and never acknowledge him again. He was truly submissive in nature, and even though he sometimes wanted to hurt the felines that shared his den before he closed his eyes and went to sleep, he never acted upon it, and that meant that he wasn’t a bad cat. Skunkpaw could leave, and he wouldn’t stop her, but a piece of him would always despise her now, would always feel anxious and unnerved when she was around, because of the way she had made him seem like a freak. He didn’t want to be a freak. All he wanted was to understand, but apparently nobody else thought that was okay for him to pursue. He took another step towards her, then, eyes as ghostly as ever, as vulnerable as ever, only able to stop blocking the exit, and to gather his mouse bits in peace, when they switched places. That was along the lines of what she had asked, right?

She wanted him to come closer, to take her place along the wall, so that he would be far away from the exit and she could leave. Then he could watch her as she left, his breathing still heavy, wanting to hurt her, maybe open her up because she was more interesting than a mouse, but decide against it in the end.

Because he wasn’t a bad cat.

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Tags: Fawn
Word Count: 680.

[Fawn]

SKUNKPAW
Apprentice || She-Cat || 13 Moons || StoneClan

Skunkpaw's fur expanded, puffing out in all directions, her tail becoming a shrub-like in bushiness. Chartreuse eyes nothing but liquid fear; great. Just when she had not anticipated it getting any worse, the bizarre, unnervingly quiet apprentice occupying the den along with her had picked up as many of the disgusting little mouse bits as he could, and began to walk towards her. "Stay back!" Not afraid to raise her voice, though it wobbled in time with her heart, Skunkpaw, reacting on desperation, which, for her, often spoke louder than instincts and training memories, struck Silentpaw on the shoulder and bolted for the exit. Somewhere inside her distressed mind, logic and reasoning quibbled amongst themselves before telling her that he couldn't very well bite her with his mouth full of offal as it were.

She saw not the guilt and the remorse on Silentpaw's face, as she fled. She had stopped regarding him as a creature worthy of empathy the moment Skunkpaw had shrugged off the last sands of sleep and awoke to find him red-pawed and red-mouthed, doing what he called experimenting - which, in her eyes, was being a freak. How had he expected her to react, behaving the way that he was, with that mouse - she had more empathy for the creature he'd eviscerated than the silent loner-born would-be-warrior. Skunkpaw shuddered, when she was well enough away from the apprentices' den to finally breathe, the painful tightness in her chest beginning to ease now that her fight-or-flight urges could cool down. Any cat that passed by her was snapped at without remorse, so thinly stretched was her composure, it actually helped to rudely lash out at others, it was weirdly therapeutic, as if by performing an old habit, she was regaining a sense of normalcy to her world.

Silentpaw's behavior had been jarring. Any other cat but herself would have been able to... handle that with more grace than she did, but there were ghosts that flitted across her memories, ghosts soaked in blood that his behaviors had unpleasantly reminded her of. Throat dry, adrenaline making her jittery of limb and paw-step, Skunkpaw cast a weary glance in the direction of the apprentices' den, picturing those vacuous blue eyes piercing the darkness and staring straight at her.

Something is really wrong with that cat. How long would it be before he tried that out on a Clanmate?

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Word Count: 400 Words
Tags: Insidious