🌑

The swarm covers the violet sky, eclipsing the Sun, falling upon you like rain. A strange stream of thought rushes to your mind, as if by practiced instinct--a shell command? You close your eyes and, somehow, enter it.

Quiet. The storm of wings, the wind rushing at you, all falls silent. You open your eyes, staring right up at the creatures, their talons bearing down on you--but frozen in mid-air, eerily still.

You dare to move, and the swarm stays still. All around, everything stays still--the clouds above, the snow falling around, the waters of the river below. You look down into the still water, reflecting the white and purple above. But it isn’t your reflection that looks back at you. It looks like a girl, but white as the snow, distorted with visual snow, no features to her face but eyes devoid of light. You hear a sound like white noise, encroaching from the edges of your senses.

Unsure how long your safety will last, you move--you hurry across the bridge and toward the gate, clinging to the fence. With each step, the strain is greater, like holding your breath. You can’t hold this strain of thought longer. The wind rushes from wherever you hid it away, and the sound of it through the trees is all you hear. You see no sign of the flock.

“Aydan!” You turn back and see Zeta, emerging from behind the gate.

“Zeta...” You walk up to it on uncertain steps. You poke its forehead.

“Weh?” It stims in response with its hands.

“You’re real?” you say.

“I guess?”

You feel your own face, your hair, your clothes. “Am I?”

“As far as I can tell,” Zeta says. “You okay?”

“I was just, I, it just, how could I even explain...”