Loam alone theory (+fanart)

Instructions

First of all is a shout out to scratch for ruining the quality of my art- Okay, so, I’ve tried to make theories before, but I always lose motivation, so uhhh let’s hope I actually finish this one :P Right. This chapter is v e r y interesting, because we theorisers get to rub our greedy little paws together and devour all of the implied lore. Okay, so, the mud, right? Well, that’s almost certainly what turned loampaw grey (or, almost turned), and I originally thought that the birds had something to do with this, but then I reread the chapter, and saw that the birds had something shown dripping in mud had fallen into it. Something that I’ve noticed is that, while the clan appears to depend on loampaw for survival, they are also expendable - shown by the way that the mentor dude (forgot their name) said that they should’ve just ‘left them to the mud’, and how Fadedstar replied that that was a ‘last resort’. Weird. I’ve seen several theories that they are living in the dark forest and such things, but I’m not sure - one thing I think is that the grey cat with pink eyes is NOT LOAMPAW. I think that that cat is loampaw’s sibling - reinforced by the fact that the missing letters in the n+cs say ‘I am with you always. I am here’. What I think is that something happened, something that the rest of the clan is trying to hide from loampaw, and that the mud is the key to finding out what it is. My theory is that the mud is only dangerous to all the cats/creatures who are grey, so not loampaw, and that’s why none of the other cats hunt. The thing is, they claim that they rely on loampaw for food, but I don’t think they eat. This could be because they are, as many people believe, ghosts, and don’t need to eat, but then, why are they forcing loampaw to hunt? Maybe it’s a distraction, to keep them from realising something, something to do with the grey cat, and the mud. And then there’s Frankie - the only other cat who isn’t gray. I believe that her role in this story is to help loampaw realise what is happening/has happened. She either knows about the ‘event’ that may have occurred/be occurring, and is using the monster story to try and help them realise, or doesn’t, and is helping them accidentally. The ‘monster’ referenced in her story is most likely referring to Loampaw, as all it does is hunt, but another possibility is that it could be referring to the grey cat. Maybe, but constantly hunting, loampaw is distracted, and will, eventually, meet the same fate as the grey cat. Maybe Frankie and the grey cat have to try and stop them, before it’s too late. As for the question of where they are, the dark forest does seem like a likely solution, as the kits don’t seem to be getting older, but what would that make loampaw and Frankie? The only living cats? How? Okay, I feel like I have more questions than answers at this point, but that’s all! Hope you like my poor massacred fanart too (grrrr scratch the quality thieves) ;-;