mmy stupid pixels

You can't read her. The feeling is foreign. It's like you were staring at a video tape - unable to see more than what you were given. What happened between her and Windfur? Why was she out here, alone? You have no answers. You try to grasp the corners of her mind, find a perch to settle on. You can't. 

You don't understand.

Snow fell from above. It created thin flecks of white on Shiverstep's pelt.

…She never looked more like a simple cat than she did right at this moment. She padded forward into the snow, taking long, deliberate strides as her paws sank into the thin, white blanket. She glanced at her surroundings, and the tip of her tail twitched. She looked like...like you were watching a pet cat standing out in the snow, staring at snowflakes apprehensively. But you knew that couldn't be true. She wasn't that simple. None of them were that simple. Why was she out here, alone, at night? What was she doing? It was dangerous. Dangerous. She acted like an animal who was completely ignorant of what the woods contained. The only sign of intelligence was the torch. The fire. She made the fire. She wasn't just a pet cat like the ones you saw in Youtube videos and childhood memories and animal shelters and - 

You cling to the world, but you're ripped from it.

Spinning. Blurring. Stop.

You're facing…the ruined Twoleg nest. The one Shiverstep and Windfur go to every half-moon.

You catch a glimpse of a white tail disappearing into the bunker, and the light of a torch fading into the darkness. Was that her? Was it Shiverstep? How long has it been? What was she doing? Did she just arrive? 

Wait, wait, she - she could reach out to StarClan. She could speak to Blackpaw.

But, is…is it a half-moon? 

She is NOT in a good headspace - we saw that Affliction. That has to be why we're spinning out.

Oh no. He is down there, isn't he?

Well, if she brought fire, maybe we can drag the subject of the Deep Root Disease out of him.

But there isn't a storm. I thought we needed one?

Rootgrove's injured, though!

…Hey, guys…?

I want to have Shiver talk to StarClan SO BAD, Blackpaw put together what was happening with Endless! She has Deep Root Disease!

Okay, but what can they actually DO to stop her with that knowledge? Great, she has DRD. Now what? There's no cure.

I have a feeling -

Guys -

We -

Guys, we're not moving.

Silence.

You're still outside. Still staring at the entrance of the bunker. Watching the firelight from Shiverstep's torch fade as she pads deeper into the dark.

Follow.

Nothing.

Follow her.

Silence.

Shiverstep?

There's a loud creek - the bunker door opening. The light of the flame vanishes into the room. You expect to be taken down below. To see what she decides to do.

Discomfort settles like the snow piling up around you. Any moment now. Surely, any moment now, you'll be pulled. Right? You must be. You are bound to signals and waves and noise and electricity grinding in the atmosphere, you are free, you've been able to move freely before - 

Electric whine, piercing alarm, white noise. Noise, noise, noise - 

You are listening to 95.5FM - CRRREE - 

As God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other - 

KCHIK - thinking about all our younger years, where there was only you and me, we were young and wild and - 

KCHIK - three, nine, seven, one, five. Three, nine, seven - 

KCHIK - et un jour, nous serons tous ensemble - 

KCHIK - this video is sponsored by Square - 

KCHIK - let us chant for the rowing team, "Stroke! Stroke - "

KCHIK - Entonces, ¿qué vamos a hacer - 

KCHIK - Don't forget to smash that like button - 

KCHIK - starclan can you hear - 

CCHHHHHHREEEEEEEEE - 

EERRRRR. ERRRRR. ERRRRR. BEEEEEEEEEEP.

The National Weather Service has issued a snow squall warning for the following counties in Minnesota: Clay, Wilkins -

KTCHHHHHHHH - 

…

…

…

Ignore all sound produced by the radio. These are auditory hallucinations. 

Look to the field. Do you see lights? Return to your bunker. 

Listen. Under your feet. Crawling through the floor.

Screaming falling spinning loud loud loud WHERE ARE YOU WHERE ARE YOU WHY IS IT SO - 

Endless scrolling. Scalped code. Bottomless abyss. Horrible headlines. Crossed wires like collapsed highways and rotting infrastructure. Prepared to break like a vehicle trapped across a railroad with the locomotive speeding down. Forced algorythm. Bells. Alarms. Horn blaring. POWER = ON. The car is torn apart - GOOD AFTERNOON NEW YORK - broken tendons, wide eyes - BONNE SOIRÉE, MONTRÉAL - shattered bones, clenching phone - BUENAS NOCHES, TIJUANA - metal tearing and pulleys and belts and oil, clenching teeth - WHAT'S UP EVERYBODY - toggle: low power mode = true - 911, what's your emergency - GOOD AFTERNOON, LISTENERS - shiverstep you have to listen to me - ZǍOSHANG HǍO - no anchor Dropped packet. Restricted Cone NAT. Enable port forwarding. [I am here for you] - SABKO SUPRABHAT - This program is not responding. [it's alright i am here] To return to - MINASAN, OHAYŌGOZAIMASU - lose any unsaved data. To end the program now - THE TARGET IS IN SIGHT - End Now. 

SHUTTING DOWN. your heart races FEDERAL JUDGE BLOCKS POLICY [reach out] get us out. Get us out. PROTESTORS CONVICTED OF Out out out EARTH'S TEMPERATURE INCREASES BY [hold the line. Hold the line] OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT OUT - 

Low Battery: 20% battery remaining

Stop. 

You reel forward. You are whiplashed. You were everything and everywhere all at once, experiencing the endless cycle of doom and waking and sleeping and dooming and suffering and joy and the end of the world and laughter and genocide and loud eternity, forever; your hands were copper and your breath was ozone and you don't understand and you're scared. What is happening? Where are you? Paranoia. Panic. you dont want this you just wanted to help. Oh god we're all monsters. We're powerless. Trapped. We're all going to die and - 

You are in a grey box. Walls surround you. 

Trapped. Falling apart. 

Wait.

Breathe. What is the box? 

Looking. Floor. Stone. You look at the walls. More stone. There's a pale light leaking from above, gently refracted from an object in the center. 

An aluminium dome.

The bunker. 

Relief. Oh, relief. Oh, you're here. You're here. You know here. You are safe, and anchored, in the present and not in a funnel of…everything. Oh, Shiverstep, Rootgrove, dearest familiarity. You know them. You turn your gaze ahead of you - 

Relief freezes. Morphs into apprehension. 

…You have a very, very bad feeling. 

You smell chlorine. You don't know why. Is that real? Or is it you? No. you don't want to go back there. Anything but back in there.

There's a flicker of firelight in the corner of your vision. 

You turn around - 

Dread strikes you.

…Shiverstep? Can you hear us? 

There is no response.

You have no idea what she's thinking, or feeling. You don't know what she's planning. 

Please. Please.

Your grasp on the world is slipping. Parts of you aren't reaching her. You are still anchored. 

But you don't know for how long. 

ASK.

---

Weclome back to the Silver Box Mechanic!...At least, you think so...?

Hm. Something seems wrong, though.

Usually during this segment, you can ask questions to Rootgrove, and Shiverstep will speak them for you. But Shiverstep is Afflicted by Stress, and you don't know if Rootgrove will answer in his...injured state. But you have to try.

Fire burned despite the downpour of water from the heavens. The Two-Legs vessel was cast in all directions to be shredded by the gnashing teeth of the ocean. Into the hungry foam, Heronpaw fell.

Lavenderstar had told her that StarClan would return for everyone one day, be it in their dreams or through the hooked claw of another cat. It was a good thing, to be reunited with your loved ones. Heronpaw was so young, she could not imagine this happening to her quite yet.

Striking the churning water, she thought of Lavenderstar, she thought of her brother and sister in Starclan.

Were they scared, too?

Heronpaw was not allowed the luxury of fear for more than a breath. Adrenaline jolted through her and her paws scrambled for purchase in the murky darkness. She was suspended in the void of the sea, weightless and sinking all at once. Above her, the sickly pallor of the full moon, and beneath her, glimmering StarClan.

She felt their paws grazing hers. She could hear her name, spoken so far away and so warbled that it could have been a dream.

Heronpaw wanted it to be a dream. Yet, dreams did not involve drowning kits, and there was one entering the tide but a whiskers distance away from her.

Longkit.

She knew little of him, as he was less than a moon old and far too young to ever interact with, yet he was sinking like a leaden weight. The sunny orange of his fur was the only thing she had noticed, so jarring a sight against the void. Heronpaw cycled her paws in a frenzy, breaching the water’s surface.

She sucked in frigid air that stung her lungs, but did not linger. Heronpaw descended back into the depths, snatching Longkit in her jaws. He did not fight back. Distantly, Heronpaw thought that he was so small and warm compared to the ocean.

Heronpaw resurfaced a second time, sputtering pathetically for air through her nose as she gripped Longkit by his scruff. Only when Heronpaw dug her claws into the safety of driftwood did the kit react, mewling pathetically. Heronpaw collapsed beside him on their makeshift raft, fur flattened with salt water.

“It’s okay,” She repeated as a desperate litany, to either herself or the kit. “It’s okay, we’re okay, we’re okay.”

Heronpaw pulled Longkit ever closer to her, shutting her eyes to drown out the sound of Starclan’s claws tracing along the underside of the driftwood.