Why is this happening to me? I'm not a bad person! I've never hurt anyone; hell, I've never even cheated on a math test! So, why is it here? Why did it choose me?
I'm in the hall closet on the second floor, while that "thing" wanders around my home, searching for me! It's the only place I can hide, the only place I feel safe! I don't plan on staying here long, just long enough for it to pass me by. Then, I'll make a run for the front door downstairs!
I'd only heard bits and pieces of this thing! This killer! I heard about it on the news, but never thought I'd ever come face to face with it! But here I am, sitting in a closet, hiding from it! But why? I didn't do anything! It's not fair!
Oh God, I hear it coming up the stairs! Heavy footsteps followed by a loud echoing thud! It's upstairs, at the end of the hall! Please, I don't deserve this! I hear slow footsteps and something dragging against the hard wood floor, heading in my direction.
My heart feels like it's going to pound out of my chest! My breathing is so heavy that I have to cover my mouth to keep from making a sound. I can't let it hear me! I'm not going to die here tonight! It's getting closer! God help me! It's stopped.
It's at the door! My heart skips a beat. It knows. It has to know. I've never felt more terrified in my entire life. I see the shadow of its feet peering underneath the door. I can't breathe. I can't move. I'm completely frozen in fear.
My heart nearly stops as I hear a splintering thud against the door. I almost scream, but I manage to stop myself. Another thud harder and louder than before. It's trying to break down the door! It's trying to get to me!
No!
No, this isn't happening! This has to be a nightmare! Or someone is playing a cruel joke at my expense! Maybe I fell asleep on the couch watching the news! Yeah, that's it! I'm dreaming! This isn't real!
I almost scream when yet another gut-wrenching, wood-splintering thud echoes in my ear. I'm not dreaming! This is all too real! I'm trapped in a closet, with a killer trying to break its way in! Trying to get to me! Trying to kill me!
I'm cornered! I'm helpless! I'm afraid! No, I'm terrified! It's hammering against the wooden door with all its might, trying so desperately to get through to me. The flimsy wooden door; the only thing separating me from what I can only imagine is a painful and gruesome demise.
But with each eardrum-splitting, trauma-inducing crack against the door, my fear dissolves into hate! Every bit of terror that consumed my very being is now drifting into my subconscious. And from the shadowy blackness, comes a flood of ungodly rage that's seeping from every pore of my body!
Why did it choose me? Why has God abandoned me? Why am I not worthy of living?
No! I'm not going to die! Not like this! Not like a coward! I won't be just another victim to this abomination! I'll be the one that fights back!
I stand to my feet, glaring daggers into the flimsy wood that separates the closet from the rest of the house. The intruder continuing his vicious wailing on the door, small slivers of light shining through the wood, ever so slightly piercing the darkness that surrounds me.
My heart is racing! The adrenaline courses through my veins. My breathing quickens, and seems more like animalistic snarls! My fists clench! My teeth grind together! Sweat pours down my face! There's no turning back now!
With one last strike from the intruder, I make my move! I slam all my weight into the door, shoulder first! The door tears from its hinges and I crash to the floor on top of it!
Where's the light? What the fuck happened to the light? It's pitch black! Nothing around me but darkness! My eyes struggle to make visible what lurks in the blackness that has swallowed me!
No.
No, this isn't my home! This isn't my small two story suburban home! It's not where I live!
It's a warehouse or a factory. It's some kind of building with cement walls and floors.
Every bit of the adrenaline filled rage that controlled my very being is gone. The will to fight back against this murderous monster has drifted away. Just like my surroundings, my perspective of the situation has drastically altered for the worse. All I feel now is pure unadulterated fear.
I stagger to my feet, still alert of the danger that could be lurking in the shadows. The only real thoughts I am able to process are questions. Questions that I want - No, that I need answers to! "Why am I here? How did I get here? And where exactly is "here"? Will I go back? Can I go back? Am I alive? Am I dead?" But there came no answers.
My eyes frantically search the room, hoping to find something that could answer my questions! Anything! I find a row of industrial windows along the walls, with moonlight from the outside shining in. Maybe there's something outside, a sign or something like that. Anything that will tell me where I am! I rush to the window.
What I hoped was salvation from this nightmare swiftly dissolves into horror, as I scream at what I see before me. What should have been a visible look into the outside world was instead replaced with the mangled, bludgeoned body of what was once a human being; barely even recognizable.
From its body structure, I can only assume it was male. A Caucasian male maybe early teens, lying in a dark, concrete room, under a dim spotlight. Its blood and brain matter scrambled across the floor, its skull completely caved in. Every inch of exposed skin covered in black and blue bruising and spattered droplets of blood.
The sight is so gruesome and sickening, but I can't bring myself to look away. I feel sick to my stomach with each passing second that my eyes remain glued to the body. But then I notice it.
By the limp, lifeless and mangled body is a feather. A black feather; a crow feather.
With every bit of strength in me, I pry my eyes away from the body and back away from the window. My eyes dart all around me, searching for anything that could be lurking in the darkness. But there's nothing!
At least, that's what I think. It always feels like I'm being watched!
Realizing that the windows are against me, I rush through the darkness, trying to find any kind of escape route out of this nightmare. All I can hear is my rushing footsteps against the cement floor, echoing off the walls of the building. I think my mind is playing tricks on me, though. It almost sounds like there are two sets of footst-
Fuck!
I tripped over something! A pipe or-
A wooden baseball bat; its weapon of choice. It's caked in a thick layer of what was once crimson red blood. Fragments of teeth and bone are embedded in it, with small traces of human hair and what I can only assume is brain matter. But why is it here? Why is it just lying on the concrete floor, alone? And where is its wielder?
I honestly don't wanna know the answer to any of those questions. I just wanna get out of here! But now, I have a means of defense, and it has no means of attack. At least, I think. In every case I've heard of, the causes of death were always linked back to this bat. Never anything else.
I slowly pick up the bat. Ugh, its texture is sickening! But I'll have to get over that for now, this is for survival! This is all I have to defend myself! I can't be like the others! I'm the hunter, and he's the hunted!
I stand to my feet, but my right knee's a bit fucked up. I landed on it when I tripped. I can barely put weight on it, but I can't let that slow me down. I have to get away, I have to live! I start to limp more through the blackness, my senses only heightened by my will to survive.
Oh God. Oh God, please. If you exist, I'm begging you for a way out of this! Please, I'll do anything, just let me live! I'm too young to die! Please, help me kill this thing! Let me-
What's that sound?
It sounds like cawing.
As I draw closer, I find the source of the noise. A murder of crows hovering over the rotting corpse of one of their own. The crow seems to have been crushed or bludgeoned to death, and partially eaten. White masses of squirming maggots cover the mangled bird, slowly devouring it.
And while the fly larvae devour the lifeless crow, its brethren feasts on them. Oh God, this is making me sick to my stomach.
Actually it's not nausea I'm feeling. It's pain! Oh my God, it feels like something's stabbing me from the inside! No, clawing! Clawing at the inner lining of my stomach! Oh God, it hurts! Oh my God! I'm on my knees, with tears in my eyes! My agonizing weeps echo throughout the facility, as I can't hold them back! Oh my God, there's something inside of me!
While I'm curled up in agony, I can feel their eyes glued to me. The crows, they stand and stare, as if they understand my torture! I look up at them with teary eyes, and they just stare back with blank expressions. But I can see it in their eyes, they're laughing at me! Mocking me! No longer consuming the maggots, but gorging themselves on my pain and turmoil!
I want to scream at them, but for reasons unknown to me, I can't. All I can do is push myself forward. Find salvation! That's what I have to do, find salvation from this hell! I can't be distracted by these birds, or this unrelenting pain! I just have to get out of here before it can get me!
I'm on my feet again, and the pain is even more intense. No distractions! Have to survive! I venture deep into the darkness, leaving the ebony fowls to return to their feasting. The pain in my knee no longer concerns me, as I can barely feel anything other than the literal gut wrenching agony that I am experiencing at this moment.
Oh God, what the hell is happening to me? What am I feeling? What is going on inside of me? I just wanna go home! Please, someone! Just take me away from this nightmare! Just-
Oh my God! Oh my God! I can hear it! I can hear it murmuring in the darkness around me! It's here! But I don't know where! My eyes dart around every which way, trying desperately to pinpoint the location of the murmurs. The words are hard to make out, though. They're very incoherent. Something about numbers and feathers-
I found it!
I found him!
He's right in front of me!
After all the running and searching, I'm staring eye to eye with this madman of legend! This psychotic killer! This monster! Some call him the "Birdman", others have just called him the "Fowl"! But law enforcement officials and media outlets have given him one title in particular. The Fowl Faced Killer. Responsible for over a hundred murders all over the country.
His whole body is clad in blackness, from his black jeans, to the black electrical tape that wrapped tightly around his blood-caked hands, to his black leather jacket, to the black hood that shrouded his head. But not his face, oh no!
That was hidden behind the mask. The black leather bird mask. With that elongated beak that stretched nearly a foot in front of him; open, as if waiting to ensnare something within it. And in each corner of the forehead and placed just under the chin were silver studded straps. The only thing that shows any kind of humanity in this monstrosity is the eyes that peer through the jagged holes of the mask. The brown eyes of a human being that leer back into mine and fill me with great disdain.
It's hard to describe the kind of feeling I'm experiencing right at this very moment. It's sort of a mixture of absolute fear and pure excitement. I'm not sure if I'm terrified or possibly overjoyed at the moment. All I know is that he's there and he's unarmed! I have the upper hand! The odds are in my favor! Survival is within my grasp! Without a moment's hesitation, I rear back the baseball bat I'm wielding, and as I go to swing I hear the Killer mumble one final phrase.
"I'm sorry."
The bat connects dead center with his face and he shatters to the floor into tiny miniature versions of himself! I act fast and begin to rain down blow after blow on each of the miniatures, but it only keeps producing more small miniature versions of the miniatures! Desperately, I slam the bat down as hard as I can, over and over and over and over. Bits and pieces of them flying past my head with each blow! But they just keep coming! Why won't you all just di-
No.
Oh God, no.
It was a mirror.
All this time, it was just a mirror.
Oh dear God. It all makes sense now. This place, the body, the feather, the crows, the pain, the denial, the anger, the bargaining, and now the depression of it all. This whole time I've been trying to escape a monster. When I was only trying to escape myself; I'm the Birdman. I'm the Fowl. I'm the Fowl Faced Killer. I'm the Killer of Fowl.
What's happened to me, and how long have I been this way? Was I getting better? Or am I experiencing a Jekyll and Hyde complex?
No. It was them. It was them all along. They love to play tricks on me. Making me suffer through a sick and twisted delusion, all for their own maniacal pleasures. The physical misery is not as satisfying anymore; they've moved on to psychological. And until every last feather is gone, this nightmare will never end.
Weeps in the darkness pierce my ears. A woman crying, and the pain is back. There is no escaping this hell, only appeasing the cause will treat the symptoms. And I have no other choice than to accept it. I clutch my weapon tightly in my hands. It is my lifeline, and it is the only thing that will relieve this agony. I turn. There is a young woman curled up in a corner, sobbing hysterically and bleeding from a wound in her head.
"I'm sorry."
I slowly move towards her. Her sobs become even more hysterical, as she desperately tries to crawl for some kind of cover that does not exist.
"I'm sorry."
I raise the bat over my head. She pleads for her life. I can no longer see a woman. Only a worm. And the crow within me needs to feed.
"I'm sorry."
I bring the bat down with all my might. A familiar, sickening, meaty thud echoes throughout the building, and a warm crimson fluid splatters on my body. The worm falls silent. I raise the bat again and bring it down. More blood sprays on my body, but I persist in my act of bludgeoning.
"I'm sorry."
Please, forgive me! It's the only way!
"I'm sorry."
But there may be hope! You're dying for a noble cause!
"I'm sorry."
When they're all gone, the world will be safe!
"I'm sorry."
Just a few more, I know it!
"I'm sorry."
One hundred and seventy-five should be the end of it!
"I'm sorry."
No more feathers!
"I'm sorry."
No more pain!
"I'm sorry."