Painted Paradise

A snap erupted in the sky, sending piercing light through the forest so bright that the only thing that could be seen was a yellow-white glow. Silver was immediately on his feet, fur on end and eyes wide. A heavy cloud of humidity smothered the air around him, misting his fur. The slow breathing of Nisa told him the sharp crack hadn’t woken her, but another eruption split the air startled her. Her head shot up, her eyes pinned on the neon lights splitting through the dense clouds like a long crack in concrete.
Rain was pouring; the wind whipping the rain drops like a tornado and tossing them against the water-logged trees before they had the chance to hit the ground. Wind threw the rain in almost a complete horizontal direction, whipping to and fro like a deranged rhino wondering which way to charge.
A faint mew mumbled beside him and then died back down. “Silver?” Nisa’s voice was anxious. “Huddle close to the kit; we need to keep him warm.” Silver obeyed, pressing his fur so close to his kitten that it touched Nisa’s on the other side. Silver himself shivered with the hazy chill drifting lazily into the hollow, he knew he had soft thin fur. But his body build was designed for battle, despite his Lassitudia, and long hair was a no-go, seeing that claws could easily snag any thick fur in a fight.
An eternity seemed to pass, the moon giving no sign of what time it was do to the clouds laying in thick layers above his head, but eventually Nisa’s breath slowed into a troubled sleep. He rested his head, letting the closeness of Nisa’s body warm him back into drowsiness when he heard a loud cry of alarm. He lifted his head, was he imaging things now? He closed his eyes, trying to keep the dizzy patterns of the rain from confusing his thoughts. Then the cry came again, but muffled this time.
This time he stood on his paws, the sound was definitely Meowth. Another loud cry of horror called through the rain, but this time a loud crackle of lightning made the call fall silent afterwards. Silvers fur stood on end as fear and horror crept down his back, almost forcing Silver to believe that the icy rain had found its way into the hollow and poured on him. The scream was calling his name, in fact pleading his name. He got to his paws, watching to see if his sudden movement had awoken Nisa again. He knew what the sound was most likely belonging too, but he forced the horror out of his body before they stopped him from moving. He had to save Nala! There was no way she would be found by anyone else in time with the heavy rain pouring down. He stepped forward, weighing his options in his paws.
He stuck his face out of the hollow and immediately ducked his head back in alarm as 100 mile winds bashed into him, stinging his face. He hesitated, blinking his eyes painfully at the stinging wind. Rubbing his paws over his face to warm himself again, he took a deep breath and prepared to plunge back in. This time he decided to make a dart for the nearest tree. He looked back to Nisa and briefly pondered what she would do if she found him gone again. Then he remembered Nala, and knew he couldn’t just leave her alone defenseless.
He barreled into the wind, the powerful rain soaking through his fur in seconds like tiny grenades of water. Wind like punches to the face swayed him back and forth, threatening to throw him off his paws. He stumbled desperately to the tree only a stride away from the nest and struggled to press his body against the scared bark for what little protection it offered from the wind. The wind was prickly with indecision, changing direction constantly and proving the tree a painfully bad refuse to use. He continued on, hopelessly trying to smell for Nala but the wind and rain offered only the scent of humidity and pummeled leaf-mush.
A particularly sharp wind whipped through the forest as if it had carried a cactus full of needles with it, throwing his balance off entirely and throwing him against a sorry-looking oak. Getting to his paws again, he managed to scramble forward only to be rewarded with more wind pushing his feeble frame into the mud. Frost growing like tiny crystals accumulating in the mud stung his paws numb and clogged his sense of smell that lay under his pads. Could he really make it? He didn’t have much of a choice, he decided, he was already too wet and too far away from his nest to turn back now.
Briefly a faint wisp of scent glided on a sharp wind current, only lasting a split second until the wind changed direction, but that was all he needed. Charging forward again, Silver desperately battled the wind and smelled for even the slightest scent on the winds. “Nala!” he called in the air, hoping maybe she would hear, but a crackle of lightning cut the call into a whisper. Suddenly Silver felt pain sting in his paws as his foot grazed a wet stone hidden under the mud. He shot forward, slipping on the slippery wet surface of the black granite and tumbled down a small hill. Pain stung his paw further as frosty mud slipped into the cut and grinded against the skin inside the wound.
He managed to land on his paws, but the fall had taken its toll on him. “Silver!” a shrill cry shot through the air, making Silvers ears shoot straight up. A sour coppery smell tainted the air, despite the rain and the wind buffeting almost any and every scent. Silver’s heart throbbed like a worm struggling in a bowl of salt. Blood stained almost every inch of the land. Dried blood floated at the surface of the pools of rain, staining everything Raw Umber. Streaks of chalky ash powdered the trees and stripes of charcoal-colored scars ran across the bark. The ground was turned up and destroyed, laying in patches that drank and absorbed the blood. Scratches ran across the Earth like small channels where milky vermillion blended with the rain and blood streamed deeper into the forest.
There was something even more horrifying than the pools of auburn. Cold bodies peppered the land, some even piled on others. Sour smells of puke ran through the streams, thick with saliva and mucus. Deep gashes, enough to force death on a victim, ran across some of the bodies. Others seemed to be damaged beyond repair, others trodden to death, others eyes where glazed over with milky white or dark bistre. Silver shuddered as his eyes lay on a frosty blue heap. The articuno from earlier still had its neck wrenched in an unforgiving angle; clearly its neck had been broken. Its left wing was bent backward and its frosty blue feathers where muddied into a brown dark taupe color. The warm sick scent of the giant birds’ urine seeped into the mud toward its hind quarters, the scent of death riddling under its feathers.
Silver closed his eyes, trying to calm his swirling stomach that threatened to bubble up to his throat. Was he prepared to see what Nala looked like, if this is what had become of her team? Was she just as bad, would he find her on the brink of death? Pushing his crimson paws forward, Silver braced himself and struggled toward the calls he had heard earlier. Was she still in the battle field area or had she managed to flee quickly enough?
Silver felt his chest squeeze blood from his heart like a lemon being squeezed of juice. Nala was standing behind a bundle of pines, bathed in blood with fear and horror flying off her in massive waves like a tsunami. Her tail was plastered with rain and mud and she was shivering like a rippling lake. A shatter crackled through the air, and a split of light rained down to Earth, making Silvers ears ring. Lightning had hit the tree. Wisps of flame cried for life faintly in the air before dying out like a dead whisper in the wind. The tree, burned rusty umber at its top, began trembling and hunching to the side before falling down to the Earth. A tight gasp burned in Silvers throat. If Nala didn’t run, the tree would fall on her!
“Nala!” he screamed as his legs took off for her. Nala seemed only faintly conscious of the upcoming tree, her fur rising straight into the air, but she made no move to avoid it. Ignoring every pleading scream from his brain to run away from the tree, he pelted forward, colliding his body into Nala’s just as the tree was within pouncing distance. He felt the hot breath of the tree, angry at its miss of the two Meowths as it slapped sickenly into the pools of blood and water soaking the mud. Its twisted leaf-less branches cracked and bent as it collided into the mass of trees on the other side, the hands of the opposing trees scratching its branches bare of bark.
Silver was too numb with horror to get up, but Nala was already on her paws. She ran in the other direction, fear bathing her fur in the same way as Silver’s pray often did right before being killed. He got to his paws shakily and followed pursuit, twisting under braches and upturned roots to get to her. “Nala, stop!” he gasped, and this time she turned, her eyes like full moons. “Silver!” she screamed, turning and rushing back. She jumped on him, rolling both of them over the mud and buried her muzzle into his chest fur. “Silver, I thought you were dead!” she cried, rasping her tongue over his face. “I couldn’t find you and then… and then Max.” Tears flooded from her eyes and shivers ran through her body uncontrollably.
Silver pushed himself off of her, “we need to get out of this rain and find shelter,” he choked out. Nala nodded, her head bent in exhaustion. Silver ran to her side and kept one eye on her as he led her through the forest. Terror seized Silver’s senses, Nala was freezing cold, and he felt only the faintest flame of warmth on her fur. A tumble of rocks, most likely brought down from the rain, lay battered and broken over a steep hill. He hurried his pacing, guiding Nala to the rocks before slipping into the side and shivering in the corner. Nala stumbled inside and then collapsed, panting and shivering.
Horror slipped through Silver as he really got a look at Nala’s state. He crawled to her side and rubbed his paws over her fur, but it was like trying to warm an ice cube. He changed his approach, pressing close to her and licking away the blood that soaked her fur. The salty metallic taste made Silver shudder and almost swallow the foul stuff. He forced himself to continue, licking up the thick sticky liquid laced with crunchy rocks and pebbles before turning and spitting it out on the far side of the make-shift shelter.
He felt his heart stop beating so fiercely for a bit when he recognized several tastes to the blood, but none of them being a Meowths blood. The blood wasn’t really hers, he realized, but from the battle field! The small flicker of comfort lasted only a moment when he remembered how cold she was. There was obviously something extremely wrong, and he knew it wouldn’t cure itself. He pressed his body against hers as exhaustion rained down on him, his last thoughts worrying about Nisa and their one kitten who would awaken without a father once more.