3 Menacing Red

The rabbit's nose twitched.

How long had it been since it had a proper meal? A day? A couple of days? A week? A month? No matter. All it knew was that right now, it was starving.

Its nose twitched again. Following its nose, the rabbit's red eyes started glowing...

It smelled something; something really good, at that. What was it? A rat? Some big insect? A dead carcass of some other creature?

It sprinted back off into the bushes, twisting its body all sorts of ways it shouldn't be able to, through the thorns and branches, and towards the strong scent of meat.

It moved like a noisy, looming shadow.

Suddenly, the rabbit stopped and swallowed its saliva.

Right behind the bush ten meters away from where it stood, there lay the shore of a river with endlessly gushing water. The shore where a shivering wet newborn bird lay pitifully on the ground. It made a perfect target for an easy meal.

It salivated viciously; scanning the area for any nearby dangers, its eyes glowed a brighter red.

It took out its sharp claws, and with one step forward, launched itself in the direction of its prey with bursting killing intent!

After so long, the rabbit would finally have a good meal. It couldn't wait to sink its teeth into the bird and feast upon its flesh, but before it could fantasize any further, it felt two sharp teeth pierce its skin.

A flash of red caught the rabbit mid-air and landed on the ground a couple of feet away.

After gracefully landing on the ground with the twitching rabbit in its mouth, the red figure was revealed—it was a fox, but instead of being orange, it was red. It had a longer snout and a large yellow horn in the middle of its forehead. Its eyes shone a similar red to the black rabbit's and excluded the same feeling of menace.

The red fox-like creature didn't seem to notice the shivering bird on the shore; it might've been too caught up with the bigger catch in its mouth to spot it.

The black rabbit was paralyzed with fear. It knew that the beast was stronger than itself. It was going to die today.

The fox sneered and threw the rabbit up in the air.

It watched as the rabbit fell to the ground, and opened its sharp jaws. The black rabbit stared in horror as it helplessly fell to its doom, and into the mouth of the fox.

With a big, loud crunch, the fox ate the upper half of the rabbit in one bite, bones and all. The lower half of it fell off somewhere, still twitching even as it rolled away from the fox; dying the snow with red blood.

The fox licked its lips in satisfaction, and retreated with soundless footsteps—back into the white forest.

The newborn bird was unintentionally saved.

...

I felt a small speck of cold land on my forehead, and my eyelids slowly opened. They revealed the scenery of a snowy forest.

I mindlessly stared off into the forest's white fog which seemed almost surreal. Like binding me with a spell, I couldn't take my eyes off it. The wood of the trees were a brownish-blue, and under the white coats of snow, lush, green leaves grew, even though it appeared to be the middle of winter.

I felt like I could get lost in the endless nothingness of the forest fog. Just then, a merciless cold breeze woke me from my daze. My body shivered uncontrollably, 'Cold. It's so cold.'

I started to become aware of my current condition. I was soaked with water; it made a deadly combination with the cold weather. Without direction of where to seek shelter, I was in a tough situation. I felt like I was going to die if I didn't dry myself off.

'So I escaped from those organ traffickers?' I breathed a sigh of relief, 'Well, I guess that's all that matters.'

I shifted my back a little. I felt very uncomfortable in the place where I was lying.

Cold, hard, and bumpy.

...I concluded that I was lying on some large rocks.

They felt unbearable as they were digging into my back in a painful way. It felt like my spine was about to break.

Come to think of it, everything around me seemed larger than before... or was it just me? Does this place just have abnormally large things?

I stared at the towering trees and the bushes half the size of a house. 'Forests shouldn't usually be this size, right?'

'Oh, whatever.' I shook my head and threw what I was thinking about out of the back of my mind, 'I should just focus on getting warmer.'

'How did I get here and become this wet?'

I closed my eyes and tried recalling what happened before I woke up in this strange place.

I remembered falling from high up somewhere and into what I think was a river. It felt like I slammed into a wall, then water engulfed me. Then... I blacked out.

I opened my eyes.

'A river?'

'I guess that explains why I'm like this.'

I turned my head to look at the running water beside me.

I stared at it for a while longer. Maybe it was just to take my mind off of my freezing body, but it helped calm me down a bit.

'Even the river looks so big.'

I looked down at the rocks under me which were ruining my back, 'Seriously, why is everything so large here?'

I looked further down my shoulders, expecting to see my arm nubs.

That's when I saw something.

Something unbelievable.

'Huh?'

I had something attached to my shoulders.

'Ah?'

But they weren't arms.

'Wings?'

I was so shocked that I completely forgot about my bitterly cold body.

'What the fuck?!'

"Chirp chirp peep?!"

That sound.

It was coming from me.

I could feel the vibrations of my vocal cords in my throat.

'That was me. I said that.'

"Chirp chirp chirp. Peep peep chirp."

'Hahahahaha... holy crap, am I going insane?'

I was the one who was making those noises all along. I knew it deep down, but I just didn't want to admit it.

I shakily tried to lift my 'arm'.

It moved upwards.

I tried bending it.

...It bent.

'This arm, it belongs to me.'

"Chirp peep, peep chirp peep peep."

'This voice, it also belongs to me. Not to some other bird that's lining up its chirps with my thoughts.'

'These noises... I'm the one making them.'

I guess, somehow...

I became a bird?

...