sunken secrets :: a stars 3000 tryout form. (dnp)

[crexmii]

𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐬 𝐠𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
and we’ll try anything, just to be a kid once again…
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“how was your vigil, helios? I’m so proud of you. you’re a fully-grown warrior now.” petalpatch purred, patting his shoulder with a paw. helios smiled a small, sad smile back, but petalpatch didn’t seem to notice how numb he was feeling inside right now.

he was congratulated by glowpaw, which made his heart just a little bit lighter. “congrats, helios! you’re a warrior now! you better catch the best prey for me!” glowpaw teasingly mrrowed, batting helios’s tail playfully.
the duo play-fought for a while before helios was called to go on dawn patrol.

whilst he was on patrol, none of his other clanmates seemed to notice the rustlings and moving of leaves and the snapping of twigs around them. they also didn’t notice the set of green eyes watching them through the undergrowth. (or maybe helios’s mind was seeing things and being paranoid, playing mental tricks on his vision once again. but somehow he didn’t think so.)

and he certainly was the only one who felt a chilly breeze. it made his fur stand on end, but when he looked back at the others, they seemed unfazed, unaware that spirits were possibly among them.
helios knew exactly which spirit was following him right now. and she clearly wanted to torture helios.

“why are you doing this?” he whispered angrily, trailing behind the other cats to make sure nobody accidentally heard him whispering to “himself” and thinking he was crazy.

the only response was the loud crunch of leaves behind him being crushed by invisible pawsteps.
helios couldn’t wait to get back to camp.

—————————————

“hey, helios! it’s your first day of being a warrior, why do you look so sad?” glowpaw called out to his friend. helios froze in his tracks. is it really that obvious I’m sad? he shook the lingering thought away and plodded over to the entrance of the medicine den with heavy pawsteps. he glimpsed at sundrop busy making a poultice for brownpelt, stirring, chewing and mixing hurriedly.

“can I tell you outside?” helios asked, his orange eyes turning to glowpaw. the medicine trainee shrugged and mewed, “alright, if that’s what you want.” helios could feel the intensity of glowpaw’s curious look on him. it made his eye twitch slightly.

it took a lot of energy and explaining, and the mention of what happened that night made helios want to break down so bad. he resisted the increasing urge to cry in front of his best friend and continued on, ignoring any wavers in his voice. by the end of it, glowpaw was sitting down and glancing at helios with a sympathetic look on his face. “wow. I’m so sorry. that must be so hard for you, to find out your own mother was the one who tried to get rid of you. I…never actually knew my mother, so I don’t actually know what that feels like.”

“it’s alright,” helios meowed ruefully. “it’s better you never have to experience this feeling. I seriously wanna beat calythea up, however.”

“oh. it’s almost night.” glowpaw pointed out, lifting a paw up to point at the darkening sky. from clear and azure, shades of indigo and navy blue took over, signifying the night had come. small stars were already appearing as they started dotting the sky, tiny glowing flecks in the night sky.

“fox-dung!” helios hissed. if it was night already, he would have to go to sleep. he went to sleep, it meant he had a high chance of seeing calythea instead of xeneth again. not like he had a choice anyway.

sigh.

—————————————

“welcome back, helios. i was hoping you’d end up here. let me just tell you that xeneth is the liar here. another me. i’m the right one here. i saved your life! xeneth would’ve let you drown in a heartbeat. believe me, I know. I’ve been tricked before.”

helios tried not to bristle indignantly. no. I don’t believe he’s a liar. I believe he’s better than you. he thought silently to himself. he knew if he said the unspoken words out loud, he’d be doomed.

so let me just say this. if you come back to me, I promise, no more manipulation. I apologise for that. I’ll take care of you better than your own mother ever did. calythea’s voice echoed around the realm. helios honestly felt tempted to go back to her. he remembered all the times she had praised him and encouraged him.

should he? maybe he could just play along for now and tell xeneth about her…right?

“very well. whilst you have time to make a decision, I’d like you to meet someone.”
someone? she never said…anything about a visitor…
“huh?! w..who? one of the other deities?” helios squeaked, jumping to his paws.

correct! you’re smarter than you think you are, you know. calythea patted helios’s head gently with one
of her large paws, and wrapped her right wing around his back.
as he blinked, the same pale blue figure he saw the other time with calythea appeared out of thin air, right beside her.

“aah!” he squealed, shrinking. two giant deities and him? he probably wouldn’t be able to escape…

the newcomer was the same pale blue of ice and the glittering white glow around them reminded him of shooting stars. their ear shape was similar to calythea’s, but unlike her, they had four wings. not to mention another two (if they could be called wings) floating underneath each ear. they blinked and a third eye on their forehead suddenly opened, along with millions of other eyes opening on their wings when they spread them.

“wait…aerienn?” helios blurted, blinking several times to resist the glare coming from the brightness of their starry fur.

“looks like someone knows who I am. impressive.” aerienn mewed, showing almost no reaction except for the twitch of an ear. surprisingly, they spoke normally like xeneth. not like calythea, whose voice was more telepathic. helios found it creepy that she could speak without actually moving her mouth.

hmm. calythea hummed, glancing back and forth from aerienn to helios.
you know…I feel bored. why not I tell you about the fate scripts?

“I don’t think that is necessary.” aerienn mewed, once again emotionlessly. the only change in expression was a warning gaze at the forest spirit, and nothing more.

nonsense, aerienn. trust me, he’ll need to know eventually. let’s get on with it. this time, aerienn didn’t bother to try and stop calythea. they just closed their third eye and continued examining (or reading, it looked more like it) a long roll of something like paper.

so, the fate scripts are long rolls of paper — you know what that is right? helios nodded.
good. anyway, their purpose is to define a cat’s fate. which means, your fate is already in aerienn’s paws.
even moons before a cat is born, aerienn has already finished planning, plotting and writing out your fate. sometimes, it’s twisted, but most of the time it is normal, with some tragedy here and there to spice their life up.

“…what do you mean by ‘spice their life up?’” he asked warily, raising an eyebrow.

oh, you know. being gods, it gets boring up here. so we like…to enjoy ourselves by seeing dramas of thr other cats unfold, of course. but don’t worry. your life is pretty much alright.

“I can’t trust you, CAN I?! I BET YOU ENJOYED SEEING MY MOTHER DROWN ME!” helios burst out into a fit of rage and yowled before he could stop himself from voicing out his inner thoughts. he dug his paws into the grass, unsheathing his claws, scratching and destroying some of the grass blades with them.

oh, child. “I’m not a child!” he protested again, all his fur now spiked and standing on end.
no,no, no. you can’t be such ill-behaved with our guest here. looks like I’ll have to step in and stop this.

aerienn watched helios with a disapproving look on their face whilst reading somecat’s fate script. (no doubt it might as well be his own.)

“no!—”

something yanked him back into cool reality and calmness. everywhere was tranquil.
“thank goodness. I can’t believe she tried to brainwash you again.” meowed xeneth in annoyance, shaking his head. he fixated his unusual glowing eyes on helios.

“they’re lying to you, you know? in fact, I found something out about you.”

helios suddenly felt nervous. am I sure I want to know? yes. every bit of information is important.
“i overheard them saying what they should make you do next. they called you their little entertaining puppet. I eavesdropped on them some more, and apparently, you were created for the sole purpose to entertain the gods. how sad. now they’re making cats solely as entertainment to watch from above—” xeneth continued to drone on.

helios zoned out. he didn’t want to hear anything more.

I’m not even normal. I’m just supposed to be a puppet for them. they don’t care how I feel or what happens to me. they only want to watch me suffer. I….I’m not real.

“does this mean I’m not real?” he choked out, every word feeling like a thorn in his throat.

“nonsense, of course you’re real. but of course, you were supposed to be their puppet, their toy. I seriously have got to confront those two about how mortals have feelings too, I…”

the chimera couldn’t listen any more. all their thoughts travelled around in a circle endlessly. all helios could think about was how he was never supposed to amount to anything, and how calythea and aerienn were just using him. was he just a toy?

“it should work now.” aerienn’s voice mewed one last time in his head.

when he woke up, helios had a weird feeling. it felt like he was in a play, and he was the main character and everyone was just a supporting character. (even glowpaw…) with a fixed script and no free will to choose anything. because all his choices would lead to the same result anyway. his story had been written out already, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

“glowpaw? are you there?”

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[crexmii]

𝐢 𝐥𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐟𝐚𝐤𝐞 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐥𝐝
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
now I know what’s real, what’s fake!
═══════════════════════
nothing is real. no. everything is real except me.
everybody is real—
no. they’re all robots and they’re not real—
my mother was —

helios had just woken up. and he had a huge headache.
“glowpaw? are you there?”
but what good was waking up when he immediately fell back into sleep again? it was a terrible feeling.
how— who’s DOING THIS?! he wants to scream but he can’t. helios is sent into—
WHO’S NARRATING WHAT I’M DOING FOR ME?! WHO IS IT?!
“WHO’S DOING IT?!” a scream finally escaped his throat.

“I’m so sorry. i can’t do anything now. I tried so hard, i really did. but they’ve got you under their control now.”
xeneth’s voice echoed in the tom’s head. it seemed huskier than usual. was he crying?

tears fell down his face like little droplets of opals when they captured the light in a certain way.
reality felt fractured for some reason. the clan seemed so quiet. it all was so—

he cannot move. he is helpless, and there is nothing he can do to stop the tears falling down his face. he cannot lift a single paw to wipe them off his cheeks. they will let him cry. they—

all we want is his body. he’s the perfect little puppet to use! she sang out in a singsong voice.
“yes. our perfect little toy. i will say he was quite stubborn before we took over him, but he’ll work like a charm.”
they purred.

i still don’t get why you had to specifically mark him out. i mean, seriously? purple and black?
“hush, calythea. the mark served its purpose. he definitely can’t run away now. instead of making him look like any ordinary cat, i decided to make his pelt with a rather unusual pattern in mind, that way we won’t get mixed up. besides, i like funky colours.”

let me try. i want to play with him!
“sure, go ahead. test him out.”

helios slowly lifted up a paw. there is panic and horror in his eyes. he is trying hard to will his entire body to move and run.
this is working quite well. i think he’ll be a source of great amusement to us.
“I’m sure he will.”

kind of annoying. he’s still half-sentient. oh well, you fix that later. for now, I’m rather bored of all this, so why not we let him hunt down his mother?! ooh, that would be FUN! and of course I’ll make him win. oh, and it’ll be a battle to the death, and—
“mhm. you do you. i need to continue writing in his script. have fun, i guess.”

helios can hear them speaking in his mind. his expression is one of terror, one of desperation. he wishes to break free, but he knows he cannot. another salty droplet drips down his cheek. they’re going to make him kill his mother. using his body, they are going to control him.

and there is nothing he can do about it.
he noticed the whole clan looks frozen.

is it true? is he really just in a fake reality?
all he can do is cry while he waits for calythea’s commands. he still can’t move. without calythea there, he is frozen to the spot, stiff and rigid. like a statue.

but even if calythea made him hurt his mother, would it even matter? would he even feel any remorse or guilt or sadness?
after all, isn’t every other cat just fake?
isn’t—

she is back.

[b]great! it’s time for the moment I’ve been waiting for for SO long. beguile me, helios. maybe I should imprison you with vines after that. hmm, what do you think? good idea? oh, right, you can’t talk or think for yourself, silly! [/ b] calythea bursts out laughing while aerienn pokes their head up to see what the fuss is about.

helios has never felt worse than this in his entire “life.”



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[crexmii]

boop (idk whether it’s temporary so better watch quick)
original scrapped animation lmao it’s older so….

hello hello since I provided so little art I decided to just…combine helios’s story into one animation! woohoo
and also why not view an og vers of it because I feel like it :)

[crexmii]

to make sure that no edits will happen after I post this!!

woo. it’s been a wild ride. whoever wins this baby boy, congrats <33 developing him was so fun, teehee! note tho:: the end chapter, I hope it’s not too creepy or unnerving for you all <\3 aadaddadsdsds im so sorry I might’ve went overboard, hah.

I hope whoever gets this lil guy has as fun developing him as I did! toodles and goodnight!

ps hello canadian lmao