The dark forest- lore

LORE:

The dark forest is where the hopeless souls wander with no peace. Cats who pass on carrying unforgivable sin are condemned to this place and are damned with eternal suffering for their crimes. It is also known as “The place of no stars” because of the endless, dark sky. The only light to guide the damned are the backside of the moon, resting above vast and lifeless land beneath and the small glowing particles floating around aimlessly near the ground and above the water.

The origin of these particles is completely unknown but there are two theories: It is said that remnants of forgotten souls; the damned who have no living cats remembering them have faded into nothingness and are now left to haunt the forest. Another theory goes that they are fragments, consisting of memories of victims the cats of the Dark forest have killed or harmed. It is said that if you listen carefully to these lights you will hear the screams and cries or worse: laughter and joy from the ones you once loved, haunting you for all eternity.

The land itself is a warped and haunted mirage of reality. It’s environment is fragmented and incomplete with no sense of location. Places of a soul’s memories will take shape and appear as a close replica of it. Although instead of life flourishing in a cycle of day and night; all fauna and flora is dead, rotten or completely gone and the night is everlasting. The trait of mirroring the landscapes where each cat lived is the one coherent part of the Dark forest. Mountain areas, deserts, moors or fields for examples can be more or less common depending on each cat’s location during their lifetime.

The darkness within the forest is said to host an evil energy, this darkness blackens the waters, hides the stars and is life source keeping it’s hosts alive. If a cat in the dark forest becomes blinded by evil beyond saving they get consumed by the darkness and can never return to who they once were. As the fraction of light that’s left inside dims their eye whites become blacker than the sky above, their body starts to seep out dark energy, coming off their backs like black smoke and only insanity and chaos drives the host forward.

Cats can still live in the dark forest without ever getting to this stage, only the most corrupt and evil creatures that have lost all of who they once were can turn into these monsters. Crowsong would have met this fate had Ashkit not been there as her mental anchor to reality. A cat’s cause of death shows on their bodies with varying appearances for each possible way of dying.

APPEARANCES:

Cut/slashed: Injuries and scars seep out blood which appear black and tar-like, dripping up towards the sky as without gravitation.

Crushed/torn/impaled: Dark cracks cover their wounds like big dark nets, in severe cases entire body parts can appear as caved in, missing holes and cracks floating just near the injury.

Decapitated/mangled/bludgeoned: Often showcases a mix of both, with blood seeping out of the cracks. If the loss of an entire body part was the cause of death , they’ll float in the position they once belonged.

Age: Ash-like speckles and dark particles emit and rise upwards from their backs.

Drowning/poisoning/illness: Dark tar-like water drips out from their mouths, severe poisoning can also result in it leaking out of their eyes.