private BRITTLE BONES [GROUP #5] losing hope

[FIGFEATHER]

FIGFEATHER ♀​ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥​

//TW; panic attack and hopeless thoughts Without the guidance of the sun and the moon she's lost track of the time that's passed. Night was dark and starless. The day would remain that same dark void, it was impossible to tell the difference. Her eyes have adjusted to the shadows the best they could. She's spent days with her group looking through passageways, narrow tunnels, scraping at rock walls, the marmalde tabby isn't sure they've made anything for progress. The air is stiff and heavy, she doesn't feel like she can breathe as her throat seems to coil and tighten. Dizzy and lightheaded she is forced to sit down, feeling weightless she leans into the rock wall, it's cool surface would've perhaps comforted her in the state she was in if it wasn't a reminder of her rocky imprisonment. Heavy breaths turn into wheezes, her eyes water and brim with tears. Figfeather hates that she has responded this way as her mind chants anxieties, 'We're never getting out of here. I'm going to choke. I'm never going to get home. They rest of the others have left without us by now- or they're already dead... No one is coming to save us, and I'm going to die in here...'

♡ INFO BATTLE

• 
  » Figfeather
  » SkyClan Warrior
  » She/her . AMAB
  » A red tabby she-cat with a mangled leg.
  » ”Speech”․ thoughts ․ attack
  
• 
  » A foe in battle whose ability to strategize can shift tides.
  » Excels in strategizing and pre-planning her battles.
  » Fights defensively and aid her clan to victory.
  » May powerplay minor harm. Can powerplay healing

​

 

[Cherryblossom]

Cherrypaw feels like her fur is going to rot off. If—when!, she tries to remind herself—they got out of here, she'd flop into the freshest, sunniest patch of grass she could find and groom herself from ear to tail. Her thick fur meant the stagnant chill of the caves didn't bother her, but everything else absolutely did. She tried her best to be grateful for the salamanders and other cave-dwellers the ShadowClanner, whose name she'd learned was Sharp-paw, caught for them, but each mouthful of sticky, chewy "flesh" made her almost gag it all back up onto the floor again. The only thing stopping her from starving herself to death in this wretched system of caves was the actual feeling of starvation itself, a pain far worse than any conjuration of it in her mind.

Perhaps this, too, is a blessing in disguise from the unseen stars. The constant stream of mundane complaints, almost intolerable to the soul that has never experienced them before, keeps her distracted from the deeper crisis of their existence here. Would they be cursed to forever wander this darkness, until the stone closed around their bodies, and they were forgotten in time by those outside the walls? She doesn't think about it.

The group has reached a silent lull. Only their breaths and the rasp of fur against stone accompany whatever thoughts have sprung into their minds, made only more vivid by the dullness of their surroundings. Figfeather is behind her; Scorchpaw ahead of her. She only knows this from their scents, getting harder and harder to discern with each passing sunrise.

It's only after a minute or two that she notices the quality of the breathing behind her: pale, shallow, skittering across her vocal chords. "Figfeather?" Cherrypaw meows, trying to turn around but finding that the space is too narrow. Instead she narrows her eyes into the darkness ahead, letting a frown no one would see seep into her face. "Figfeather, what's wrong?"

Figfeather reminds of her Lupinepaw right now, gentle green eyes flung wide and frenzied, slender jaws painting and forced open as though propped up by an invisible stick. Cherrypaw could deal with Lu, but she was her friend. Another apprentice. Trying to help the warrior through whatever this was felt...embarrassing. The warrior had helped her when she had been frozen though, helpless beneath the rain of boulders. "Hey, stop," she calls to the front of the line. Cherrypaw longs to glance backwards, but she only has the golden tabby's tight breaths to go off of as she shuffles back towards her, trying to find her body with her swishing tail. "Where'd you go?"​

 

[CHALK]

⭒✧ The reverb of every sign of life was slowly whittling Chalk’s confidence into a sharp spindle, one that bit at his mind more and more often. He was not an optimist, but in a helpless situation like theirs he rationalised it was better if he was. Sightless eyes and stone-worn paws moved faster if escape was assumed fact, an inevitability. It was hard though. The syncopated shuffle of the daylight warrior’s pace, stilted by his injured shoulder, had began as almost a comfort. It fell into the overall rattle of their group, reflecting their locations at all times and grafting a rough map of their surroundings. Hours- days, who knew- in however, it was corrosive. He yearned for fresh air, space from other cats, the natural static of the pine forest. Even the blare of a sudden flick of the light switch onto too-bright twoleg nests was something he craved.

Sounds grew stale as they came to a pause, Figfeather’s breath filling the void. An ever-pricked ear swept to check in on the red tabby and Chalk grew worried as it surpassed overexertion. Cherrypaw’s voice pinged down the tunnel, closer than he thought.

Was she afraid for herself? Of the dark? For the others they left behind? Chalk’s pelt ruffled in discomfort, consideration of such questions like laying trap after trap. As Cherrypaw sought out the warrior physically, he spoke up. "The amount of these tunnels makes it likely there’s a way out." His throat rasped slightly, the close quarters not requiring volume as often. It was an empty statement really, and the tom had no evidence for it, but Chalk tried to keep his tone imbued with his usual neutrality. Stoicism meant confidence to some, didn’t it?

"We'll get out." Flat, in the wrong way this time. He hoped Cherrypaw or one of the others was better at reassurance than he was. The marble tom tucked himself against the rough wall, allowing those ahead to pass by easily if needed. Silent, bar the scratch of his breath, Chalk concluded despair was just as contagious as the sickness they sought to cure.​

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