Shadow Ditch

The **Shadow Ditch** is the opposite of the Fortune Meadow. It is a place where outsiders that have committed great crimes go when they die.

## **DESCRIPTION**

### **General**

Similarly to the Dark Forest, in the Shadow Ditch, there is no prey and cats can feel no hunger. Instead of walking the skies with friends and family, like in the Fortune Meadow, cats here are banished to walk through the cave system in solitude, although most Shadow Ditch cats band together.

Several cats can walk in the dreams of living cats. Usually in the dream, the cat finds themselves in the Shadow Ditch, with the deceased cat(s) (although this is not always the case). There seems to be no limitations on who the Shadow Ditch cats can visit. Upon waking up from the dream, they will retain all characteristics acquired (for example, if they get wounded in the Dark Forest, they will have the same wound in reality as well. This also applies to fatigue, and skills practiced in the dream).

Fortune Meadow cats are able to pass into the Shadow Ditch if they need to, but by doing so, they risk the chance of becoming lost and never finding their way out again. From the Fortune Meadow, there is a slope that progressively gets steeper that eventually leads to the Shadow Ditch.

### **Life in the Shadow Ditch**

Cats that go to the Shadow Ditch are doomed to suffer eternally, unable to starve and with their open death wound constantly plaguing them. Once a cat goes to the Shadow Ditch, their death wound stays open, unlike in the Fortune Meadow, where the wound heals (If the cat died from respiratory problems, like Greencough, they occasionally cough up blood. If they died from heart related problems or old age, there is a gaping wound where their heart should be. If they drowned, their fur is constantly soaked. If they were poisoned, they have bits of foam at the edges of their mouth.).

Cats who go to the Shadow Ditch typically show no remorse, and as such are unable to cross into or sometimes even see the Fortune Meadow, doomed to get lost in the tunnels eternally.

## **TERRITORY**

The Shadow Ditch is composed of pitch-black tunnels, only barely lit by small gemstones that glow amber on the floor and walls of some of the tunnel systems. It is mentioned to be a dull, vast empty place and overwhelmingly hot, the complete opposite of the Fortune Meadow's hunting grounds, which are pleasantly warm, sunny and bright. The air is thick and stuffy, and it has an unsettling silence only broken by the occasional echoes of other cats in the tunnel systems. The tunnels are so long that it's impossible to find any exit whatsoever, so many Shadow Ditch cats never get to "breathe" fresh air or see light that isn't the artificial glow of the gemstones in their entire afterlife. Sometimes, certain tunnels end in fire that seems to burn from nothing and attempts to catch up to whichever cat is nearest to it.

The border between the Shadow Ditch and the Fortune Meadow is a steep slope, almost impossible to scale. Here the grass is thin, and it eventually disappears altogether. At this point the air becomes so stuffy that any cat there finds themselves having trouble breathing.

## **KNOWN MEMBERS**

### **Kittypets**

* Shrimper
* Willow

### **Rogues**

* Hare
* Mack
* Madclaw
* Maverick
* Trent
* Tuff
* Twinkle

### **FireClan**

* Ryestep
* Void

### **EarthClan**

* Brookstar
* Sweetheart