Chapter Text
The crows watched her with black marble eyes. She pressed a hand to her desk and turned to the teacher. The crows were creepy, sitting there on the school lawn, but taking notes took priority over considering the normal behavior of birds as compared to those crows. The teacher’s words melted through the air, unintelligible and droning. She propped her head up on a closed fist and gazed back at the crows. They had not moved an inch, only turning their heads this way and that with an accusatory look into her mind.
“🗌🗌🗌🗌🗆🗆, could you answer number 14 on the board?”
“Okay!”
She jumped up. That one was easy. If it had been 15, she would have worried of making a fool of herself, but 14 was a simple quadratic with a leading coefficient of one. She found the zeroes, received a small word of praise, and sat. The crows judged the process.
She could have done better. Others would still have solved it faster; the quadratic was so easy it was almost juvenile. The dozen seconds it took her could have been half that for another. The crows seemed to agree, bobbing their heads up and down, as she doodled aimlessly on her notes and practice problems while pondering her inability to think quickly. 22 minutes til the last bell. She resolved to not look at the clock until 10 minutes were left. Head cupped in her hands, eyes dull, she stared straight ahead. The crows’ gaze settled on her skin. Darn. 12 minutes left. That was six minutes twice, which was three minutes four times, which was hardly any time at all. The minutes passed slower in response to her estimate of their length. At the first note of the bell, she scrambled her papers into her bag while pointedly ignoring the gaze of the crows. They were still there. Didn’t birds have better things to do? Look for seeds or build nests or something?
Walking to her car, the crows remained. Some took flight and circled above. Out of breath, for she had to travel up stairs to her car’s spot, she wished to be stronger. If only she had kept on with that work out routine, not quit to relax more; if only she had continued with sports, with dance, the stairs would be so much easier. Other high schoolers climbed the stairs with ease, all most likely members of the various sports teams.
Crows perched atop her car, their black feathers little pockets of emptiness, watching her.
“Shoo! Get off there! What the hell is up with these weird-ass birds?!”
When her pleas and yells failed, she simply drove off. The crows could fly; they’d be fine. The drive home was short, but provided ample time for reflection. She didn’t study for her quiz today. She prioritized watching videos instead, a large mistake. It haunted her. She needed those perfect grades. And she needed to change lanes to make a left.
“The fuck? A crow on my side-view mirror?”
The crow cocked its head, agreeing with her assessment that she had failed in studying. Studying would only benefit her; she needed to stop with the screens and books and prioritize school, to gain admission to a good college, to gain a good life, to live happily. This failed quiz could have messed that all up. The crow squawked affirmatively as she slowed to a leisurely 15 mph, somehow managing to stay atop the mirror all that time. She needed to be better. This incident was not the first of its time, indicative of a larger problem in her lifestyle. Change was her ultimate goal; to rid herself of these persistent problems haunting her at every moment, inspiring strange feelings. But how to change?
Arriving at home, music blasting, she darted up the stairs and launched herself into bed to watch videos. The crows apparently followed, landing outside her window with judgemental eyes. She really ought to get up and do her homework and study for that test, but it could wait. The crows continued watching, so she opened the window and shooed them off with the aid of a tall floor lamp, stuck outside with its lampshade removed. The hours ran past as the sun raced to the horizon and it was already time for dinner, but she didn’t go down. 11:00. She started her work—she could study this, rush through Spanish, complete math in a flash, then shower, then eat. 12:30. Had she locked her window? Raising the curtains a tad, eyes reflected in the dark. Something primal stirred, and she shivered instinctively. The crows had returned. Her window locked, she turned out her lamp, leaving the closet light on, and slept with a swirling darkness crawling down her skin.
She woke with a strange numbness in her foot. The left one. She felt a fuzziness on her toes. The clock read 4:00, and she stumbled into the lit closet, taking off her sock on the way. A nightmare? A weird dream inspired by the crows? Her pinky toe was gone. In its place, a large black feather. She rubbed her eyes and grabbed the feather. It felt real. She yanked. She winced in pain, like someone had tried to pull out her hair, but it was still a feather and was on her foot and this didn’t feel like a dream. With more desperate tugging, the feather came out with barely a noise. Fascinated, she watched as its true length was revealed, a long feather that had reached all the way to her ankle bone, the shaft of feather seeming to have replaced the entire metatarsal of her pinky toe. Gazing into the space left behind, she felt a dizziness. There was a hole in her foot where her toe should be. Blood began dripping, then pouring, out onto the carpet. The stains would be a pain to get out, but were nothing new.
She felt strangely calm. Perhaps she deserved a painful punishment like this, for failing in her duties as an intelligent student with so much potential and ability to do better, if she could only muster up some self control. The pain reached up, to her heart and brain, and grasped and squeezed with long spiraling tendrils that seemed to tell her that she needed to improve. She bore the pain; she had done far worse to herself. She knew, from dubious sources, what to do next. Rushing into her bathroom, foot bleeding on the cold tile, she took a towel and hand sanitizer. She blotted the blood and applied pressure with the towel, then squeezed a generous helping of sanitizer on the wound. The sting caused a wince of pain, but she grabbed her medical tape and small bandages from their drawer to cover the wound. By now, the bleeding had slowed. It seemed oddly quick for such a severe injury, but a blessing such as this was not to be questioned.
Returning her medical supplies to the bathroom counter’s drawer, she noted her dwindling supplies. She preferred to keep a makeshift first aid kit in her room for the frequent wounds she incurred that should not be mentioned to parents. Nothing else to be done about the wound. Maybe it would remind her of what she needed to do better from now on. Fortunately, the pain dulled to an unnatural degree, feeling more akin to a stubbed toe.
Squeezing the area where her bone once was, ignoring the pain, it felt squishy and disgusting. The flesh and skin had collapsed in to fill the space where bones once were. At the strange feeling, amongst the fog of sleep and the dull pain, she realized the crows likely caused it, her strange and relentless disciples. The window. She thrust open the curtains. Crows. Countless, countless, crows. Black bodies pressed against the window, eyes staring and watching and judging, feathers covering every inch of the glass in a writhing mass of inky darkness interspersed with reflective beaks and eyes and sharp talons. The horrifying bodies were unlike any creature, mashed together as they were, a feathered coat of malice.
Her mind cleared. This was her punishment. Of course. They were nothing to be afraid of; she deserved their judgement and supernatural curse. She had failed in so many ways.
“I hate the way I am. I will improve, or I will die.”
The mass of feathers twitched and melted down the window, accepting her resolution, but with some hesitation. Perhaps they doubted she would succeed. She doubted it herself. So she would die; there was no avoiding it, and she found herself to be not averse to the idea, although not quite accepting of it. She still had the potential to live, she only need apply it. The feathers and eyes swirled as they retreated, separating into innumerable crows fading from view as she closed the curtains and retreated into her bed.
Sleep passed in a haze of waking moments and endless dreams of skies of watching crows. The alarm managed to ring for a minute before she opened her eyes. The pain in her foot had disappeared. However, a quick glance confirmed: the sunken-in skin showed the disappearance of the bone. Throwing off her blanket and trudging to the closet, she nudged the black feather laying on the bloodied carpet. Picking it up after confirming its reality, she traced a finger along the shaft, feeling the individual hair-like strands making up the feather.
She dressed and showered, all the while hoping for a change, any change, although she did not know the change she wanted. The curtain hung above the window as she twirled the feather in her fingers, and with a swift pull of a string she opened the curtain to the sight of trees crowned by an empty morning sky. Only a single crow remained, far away, on the highest branch of the tallest tree, but she still felt its unwavering gaze pierce her mind. No matter—she would arrive late to school if she lingered any longer. She packed bandages and gauze into her bag. By the time she exited the house and reached her car, expertly avoiding her parents parked on the living room sofa, one crow had perched upon the car, atop the roof near the driver side door. Ignoring it, she began the drive.
Arrived and parked, she removed her left shoe and sock in the car, removed the bandages—revealed to be hastily done in the newfound morning light—to an odd revelation: the expected unhealed wound was gone, no blood in sight except lingering brown drops on the bandage. The remaining sign that an injury ever occurred: a dark hole where her toe should be, empty and black as the eyes of the crows. Curious, she felt it. It was, again, like a feather—soft and somehow light. Pressing harder, it gave way with some pain. The feather had regrown.
The first bell was due to ring shortly. She hurried inside, pointedly trying to not be tired by the exertion, yet failing. Another mistake of her life, for which she would shortly pay. She spied a singular crow atop the school, staring, watching, waiting, with eyes of black marbles. All the others had disappeared, leaving a single accusing crow to remind her of her failings.
School was a one-note affair, each class a dull event judging her for her wasted potential, tests completed with a lingering thought of should-have-been-different. Of her classes, most had windows. The lonely crow, dark and magical, watched through the dusty glass, observing with a passionless beady eye. Each moment she felt the gaze cover her further, baring every inch of her inner mind as classes passed while she failed. The feelings overwhelmed her and stuck to her shoes, her legs, her back, her arms, her head, weighing them down with thoughts of past mistakes and future errors and wasted opportunity and life-ruining decisions. The greatest weight of all, laying upon her shoulders, was loathing.