Princess

Connie

The bird pecked at Princess's eyes, pulling it out of its socket. The monster gulped it down. Then it pecked at the other eye and ate it too, her eye muscles snapping in a squishy plop. Blood pooled where Princess lay, most of the blood gushing out from her abdomen and her chest where the talons sank into her body.

Princess stared at him with dark hollow sockets, blood tears smearing her innocent face. You failed me, she seemed to say. You never really intended to save me.

Her shriek reverberated inside his ears that even when he covered them, he could still hear her last words. It was an unintelligible scream. But at the end of her desperate slur she said his name clearly. Connie!

Connie! He heard it again.

In the forest, where alien trees grew, he swept his eyes around. There was no one else. Only him and his breathing. And the sound the red bird made as it plucked off more flesh from Princess's body. It turned its attention to the child's stomach. It was adept and it worked fast, like a surgeon with his scalpel. Princess's abdomen was ripped open in seconds. Then it pulled out her intestines.

At this point all of Connie's tears had run out. He felt so thirsty, his throat itching for water.

He did not know why or how he got here. One second he was on the bridge, then he was on a patch of soil the next. But the red bird stayed with him while the others dispersed in every direction. It was a puzzle that it was not attacking him. Maybe it was too busy eating to pay him any attention.

He had not spoken a word since, not even to call for Molly. He was afraid that if he did, the birds would come back for him.

He could not watch anymore. He buried his head in his palms and tried to stop thinking.

"You are sad," a voice said.

He looked up to find the bird looking intently at him.

"Did-"

You can understand me because you had held my crest feathers, it cawed.

Her feathers that had the sheen of a blood ruby lay at his feet. He remembered tearing it off of the bird. Was he supposed to say sorry?

A flicker of senseless bravery fluttered in his heart. He yelled at it, "Suits you! You killed my sister!"

I can kill you right here, the bird said. But I won't because you are now my master and your life and mine are intertwined now and until the end of time.

The bird's words tasted like bile. He wanted to vomit. "Me? Your master?" What an astonishing turn of events. "Go fuck yourself!" He spat.

Is that an order?

Connie laughed in disbelief. 'If I told it to kill itself, will it really do it?' He thought to himself.

Yes. The bird replied, Princess's blood dripping from its beak.

What he felt after hearing it answer his thoughts was not anger nor awe. It was horror. He was suddenly afraid of it again. It had infiltrated into his head. What can it not do?

"You can hear my thoughts?"

No. But I can feel it. The same way that I can feel your emotions. And understand it.

"What are you?"

I am now your legs and your wings.

Then the bird came back to its meal, drinking Princess's blood right from the holes on her body.

He could not understand it. He was still stricken by everything. By the storm, the flood, the winds, the giants, the birds and Princess's death.

"I don't want you!" He declared.

Do you think that I want you, human? We share the same sentiment here. But in spite of that, I must obey you. But if you tell me to leave, I must deny it. Monsters roam these woods day and night. You will not last an hour alone. Especially that you cannot climb nor run.

As if it weren't a monster itself.

Evening fell upon the landscape; what little light filtered in through the canopy extinguished, leaving Connie in stark darkness.

He felt hungry. Breakfast had been his last meal and even then he had not enjoyed it. The storm had perturbed his appetite. All he had were a few spoonfuls and his daily glass of milk. It obviously could not last him the whole day.

By this time in the night, he would be driving his wheelchair to the dining room. And all the other kids would be there. "A family that dines together stays together," Sister Josephine once told them. If that were true, Connie would not be sitting in this place God knows where, they would not have been separated from the others and Princess would still be alive, smiling naively up at him.

He missed them. He missed the orphanage and its walls. He missed his room and its security. He missed his window where he could glimpse everything without getting involved and hurt. He missed yesterday and the mundaneness of it. He missed Molly.

In the dark, the most visible thing was the red bird. The color of its plumage was easily discernible under the starlight, its feathers catching the pale light and reflecting it as if they were leaves. It looked like a stunted tree when it stood and could be mistaken for a bush when it lay. A rodent-like creature scuttled nearby, attracted to the smell of Princess's open flesh. It crawled towards the corpse, unsuspecting that a huge predator was on guard. Connie watched in still silence. As soon as it came within reach, the bird's head jerked like a rubber band snapping, so fast that the rodent disappeared into its mouth in a blink.

It was impressive for a burly bird like its kind.

Flies - at least they buzzed like flies - began to swarm the body. Unfortunately for Connie, the cadaver attracted more than just flies and rodents.

From the dark, a snarl sounded. It was a message of threat. What followed was a chorus of rough snarling.

The red bird bolted upright in alarm. Sensing the menace, it turned its earholes around, locating the enemies.

It cawed once. It was a different call this time. A reply. A declaration of war.

Connie frantically crawled over to a tree, his hand scratching at dirt and soil. He was tired of being at the face of danger and not being able to do anything but depend on others.

The snarling approached, coming from every direction. The bird stepped over to him, slender legs covering the distance between them in two strides.

It seemed it was protecting him. He was its master after all and his life was its life.

The bird's eyes glowed blood red - a display of power. It cawed again, more furiously.

Under the red glow, dark shadows emerged from the dark, flashing deep black eyes glinting with stars that seem to move and flicker. Their black fur stirred with the night breeze. They had the shape of dogs, their ears long and broad. They bared long red canines and sharp orange teeth. There was a pack of them and they surrounded Connie with no escape.

They growled rabidly, trying to bully the bird in giving up its prey.

They stalked forward, nearer. Connie felt like the walls caving in on him. He was suddenly claustrophobic in a jungle with unknown ends.

The feral beasts were almost ready to pounce when the cadaver sat up.

The dogs started, bouncing backwards, scared. Princess - with caked blood and organs spilling out of her body, with her eyes gone - got up to her feet in an awkward way. She seemed to find it hard to maintain her balance as she tried to stand. She fell several times before she securely planted both feet on the ground. Her body bent forward in a rather sharp angle. Connie was almost fooled that she was still alive. But whoever and whatever that moving corpse was, it wasn't dear little P.

The jungle was still for a moment as both parties watched. Then the corpse lunged.

Some of the dogs backed up in sprints but they did not totally run off. The body chased after them as they soundlessly glided in the dark, vanishing and appearing back. It was impossible to follow them with his eyes. Connie noticed that wherever the bird's head pointed, that was where the body run to like a fool.

It was cruel. She was now a mere puppet.

The dogs were startled at the start but they learned. They were bound to. It was only a child's body - nothing else. It could not do them any harm. And they saw through the trick faster than would have favored Connie.

They began to advance once again. When the bird sent the body to scare them, they pounced on it and hungrily tore it to shreds.

However, they did not come just for the dead cadaver. It could not feed the entire pack.

The other dogs continued their assault, and with the bird losing its ace, they barreled for them.

Connie was sure then that he was going to die. After surviving the storm, he just ended up as prey to alien dogs. It was not how he imagined to perish.

Sharp fingers clamped onto both his shoulders. The bird had flapped to the air. It lifted him up effortlessly. Fangs missed him by inches as the dogs leapt up for him and nearly caught him by the toes.

"Why didn't you think of this before?" He said as it carried him up high the tree.

Why didn't you? It cawed back.

Then it indignantly dropped him onto a nest. He met twigs and leaves in a soft thud, their sharp ends grazing him. "Fuck you!"

Carefully lest he tip the nest over and fall off, he looked over the edge, down at the ground. But he was far high up and it was dark. He could not glimpse them, not even their movements. Yet he could still hear them snarling and howling and squabbling over what they had been left with. The last pieces of Princess. Come morning he knew, there would not be a trace of her left.