As they're plunged into darkness, brown eyes flick upwards. Above her, there is nothing. No light, no piercing flickers of the stars to guide her path. This is not like the trees, where shifting gaps reveal the sky above their heads. Is it still crumbling? On top of them inwards, closer and closer until there's nothing? They'd be dead then. Maybe they're already dead, their unfortunate spirits waiting for StarClan's welcome in a place where they cannot reach. She's never been particularly religious, though she believes that differs from faith, but in times like this where she knows she's taken StarClan's relative protection for granted she keenly feels their absence. They'd never return home, never take her place among StarClan's warriors, and she would go down in history as the deputy who died searching in vain for a cure. A lost spirit, never buried by tender paws, never wreathed in lavender and laid to rest among her Clanmates.
Orangeblossom's breath comes quickly now, eyes blown wide against darkness she cannot breach, damp and dusty and suffocating, and she begins to back up. Her whiskers brush something - someone? - and she flinches further back with a panicked hiss, ears flat to her skull. Orangeblossom's side presses against the side of the cave as it stills, the earth finally returning to its slumber. Her tail wraps close to her form, bristling. At least the wall of this little tunnel (their tomb) is still, quiet, unmoving. Her flank heaves, head spinning with choked breaths, no thought coming with ease and running entirely on the instinct of things being wrong. She wants to wail like a kit. To keen, to grieve.
With everything happening around her, Orangeblossom does not register the sting of the cut on her lower back or catch the metallic tang of blood from it, though it throbs in silent answer to Duskpool's question. She can hear Duskpool and Greeneyes, knows that the RiverClanner she'd shoved had been forced in here with them. Dimly, she notes Flamewhisker and another, smaller form. It's not Cherrypaw, she knows that much, but her heart lurches and her eyes sting with the realisation that her daughter is not here with them. Her ears ring, head swaying listlessly as if trying to bring some balance back to her mind.
She went the other way, she wants to tell Greeneyes. To reassure him that Figfeather and Cherrypaw are safe together. But she doesn't know for sure. The thought does bring some lucidity back to her, however, and Orangeblossom squeezes her eyes shut, leaning her head against the tunnel wall. It's cool against her brow, soothing her aching head, but it's still far too cramped for comfort to be found.
