short stories ¿?

05 - crow

Boom!

The sudden strike of lightning landed in the most unexpected of places:

over the colorful patchwork plains of eastern China.

The wind, which was previously blowing a warm autumn breeze has now churned into a ferocious gale- the unharvested crops in the area billowed, and held on to their dear lives. The petite nearby windmill was immediately destroyed with a powerful force from the unknown source, simultaneously as the lightning came down.

There must be no witness. No eyes, no ears, and especially no blabbing mouths, not today.

A man appeared out of thin air, as if he had emerged from the earth itself. He was tall, thin, and cold: colder than the north mountains. Battle scars were decorated all around him like prideful tattoos, and an elusive smile of satisfaction was etched across his face, but it was crooked, and all wrong, as if a four year-old toddler had drawn it on with his first packet of crayons. His beady haughty eyes gleamed and his wickedly pointed nose sniffed with eagerness as the tempest roared on: the storm was under his control. He wore a dirty white vest, and a regal purple blazer with long-sleeves. His pants were jet-black, and they squeezed perfectly onto his sickly thin legs.

He was barefooted, and walking at alarming speed- almost floating, towards the demolished windmill. The man took something out from his vest pocket. It seemed to be an ornate silver ring, with a big polished ebony stone in the center. He rubbed on it a couple times and spoke in a language that wasn't human.

Then, a large murder of crows twirled in the air and descended upon them from out of the blue.

"I knew you'd come.", the man laughed. "This was always our special spot."

Each crows had the same razor-like shiny beaks, and sharp, black, ruffled feathers. Then, the impossible happened.

The crows all reached the ground simultaneously, and then they were swiftly absorbed into a spot, as if there was a powerful magnetic field attraction to the crows. And slowly, but surely, and most of all, horrifyingly, the crows have morphed into one tall dark woman. The woman opened her mouth, and the same language was spoken back to the man. She moved confidently yet in weird animal-like movements, slithering and crawling towards him: it was inhumane.

"No, yes, but I've come here to make a bargain.", the man replied. The woman conversed some more in the crow-talk, and the man studied her, amused.

"Then what is it that you want, my darling?", he asked, charmingly. The effect did not work on her. She replied back in her airy, throaty voice; she was mid-sentence, when she slowly dragged her forefinger across her throat.
"Een two days.", she managed in a peculiarly thick accent.

"As you wish, and you will keep your end of the bargain as well.", the man whispered his last words in the inhumane language.

The woman hissed at him.
"Ar' yar crazy? We'd be dead soon if we do zat."

"Keep your word, woman, and we will not have a problem.", the man's stone cold disoriented smile and gleaming eyes flashed dangerously, and intimidatingly.

The woman groaned in frustration, and stormed away, seperating into a hundred crows again, and taking flight for the evening sky. The man's psychotic laugh resounded all over the Chinese plains.

Until, in the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a child, of about 7 years-old, staring, and gaping at him.

He has heard and seen everything, and he shall not walk free.