The Tormentor's Show - Curlpaws Death SRP

Instructions

The Tormentor's Show - Curlpaws Death SRP - "But he sang louder and louder inside the house, And no I couldn't get him out So I trapped him under a cardboard box Stood on it to make him stop I picked up the bird and above the din I said That's the last song you'll ever sing Held him down, broke his neck, Taught him a lesson he wouldn't forget" - Curlpaws was dead. How? He didn’t take too much damage from the last scuffle with Abalonestar, now Abalonepath, just a few wounds… never treated… did even the littlest scratches eventually get infected, eventually kill? Apparently, they did. And they /hurt/, like no pain he’d never felt, ever before. That was truer than he knew, allowed himself to know. Her eyelids fluttered open. She wasn’t… dead yet? Curlpaws was lying beside the shores, outside camp, he was always outside camp, the wanderer, his paws finally at rest. At rest, yes? But at peace? He didn’t have peace. He shouldn’t have peace. And maybe… he didn’t deserve peace. Where did that come from? Curlpaws wearily remembered he used to have a name for these thoughts, the thoughts that kept Curl/skip/ pathetic and worried and indecisive, but now, he was too delirious with pain to dig information from his brain. It didn’t matter anyway. /Keep telling yourself that./ He stared down at the shores, as if looking for the source of this thought. His reflection smiled back at him, grinning with all her teeth, a horribly cheerful smile. /We meet again. Shall I begin?/ Act l: Curlpaws had told himself that it didn’t matter, none of it mattered, just vengeance against not Abalonepath, really, but himself. He pushed everyone away, Curl/skip/ and Curlpaw and Curlpaws pushed everyone away, all of them, in his mad attempts to avoid something, run from something, someone. He thought gifting the ribbon would get rid of this feeling, he would finally be free, done with it all, free… but it wasn’t the ribbon he was running from, it was himself. Abalonepath didn’t create him. He did. His choices, his paws, his words. This, this pain, was his fault. /What a fool…/ the face in the impeccably still shores sang. /A pathetic fool/ “NO!” She roared, heart pounding, claws unsheathed, life boiling back into her body as he fought the invisible enemy, the one with sense, of all things. “No! I’m not pathetic! Abalonepath is! If they didn’t want trouble, they shouldn’t’ve asked for it! Them, not me! Not me!” He batted at the slow moving tide, to keep it from coming back, tormenting him again, with thoughts, those horrible thoughts, doubting a tearing himself to pieces, destroying him. Why were they so familiar…. /Nice try./ She returned on the next roll of waves, her grin ever so wide. /Thought you could get rid of me?/ the tormentor taunted. /Silly cat. I’m not done yet./ Act ll: A purple cat, a seacat, her eyes blue…. Or was it green? She split in half, became two cats, one dead. Tigereye and Snapdragonpaw, all they wanted to do was love. Their father denied them that will out pettiness, and they went their own ways. Poor cats. Died like minnows. Without their father’s love ever being made known to them. White-lilypaw, the other dead daughter, who hadn’t been spared a thought from him throughout her short, sad, life, followed. The two sons, Aconitecry, who Curlpaws had scared and scarred with a fatal promise, a wound too deep not to hurt, and Tulipsigh, the one who was in no doubt quietly suffering. Not to mention the rest of the clan, who he avoided and hated. And of course, Abalonepath, the scapegoat. /Your fault./ /Your fault/ Then Curlpaws realized who this was. He hadn’t she left, long ago, had he shut her out for years? Why was she back? Why was he letting her? /Silly cat/, cackled Clearthought, Selfloath, Conscience, they were all the same cat, split in pieces, and, somehow, the lost little Curl/skip/. They were all him, a part of him he’d shut out, he’d thought he’d killed, naive Curlskip’s head down, his eyes scarcely looking up at Curlpaws, curled up under Clearthought’s gentle paws and as she faced him, kind but firm, Conscience’s face illuminated with self-righteousness. Selfloath smiled at him wretchedly. /Takes more than that to get rid of me / Curlpaws backed away from the shore, dazed, ignoring his tired, pained body, wondering how she could see this written on sea water. Why, her reflection was scarcely visible. Act lll: /But it’s still there/, whispered the four, and as Selfloath smiled at him again, and they all melted back into one, the tormentor, who blinked innocently, her chin raised. It’s all still there. The tormentor, who kept him from doing anything. He’d hated Abalonepath with all his heart just so he could keep her from returning, her and all four of her forms, Selfloath the worst and strongest of them all. But she was here now, trying to tell him how he’d ripped his life apart with his own paws. But he didn’t believe her (cont below)