Ray walked along the mountain path for a long time. She wasn’t sure how long, but it was long enough for the sun to drift behind the looming mountain peaks, while long shadows encroached across the grassy plains.

It didn’t feel like she had traveled that far, because the distant stone walls behind her were so tall that she could still barely see them in the distance. Even so, crossing an entire grassy plain was probably enough to consider herself safe.

“Where am I, anyway? There’s nothing out here,” she muttered to herself as she took in her surroundings.

The mountains looked almost devoid of life. The occasional patch of snow that dotted the rocky slopes accented the still, gray landscape.

She crested another hill and looked down at the winding path ahead of her. The new slope had a few creepy, leafless trees.

The shadows surrounding her shifted as something flew by overhead. Ray flinched and glanced, finding a large bird-like silhouette soaring through the sky.

Unlike the humans who looked nice but felt dangerous, she felt relief when she saw it. The bird looked scary but... maybe it was actually friendly?

She slowed to a stop and waved, trying to get its attention.

The creature screeched in response, twisting in the air as it dived toward her.

Ray felt that something was wrong and slowly dropped her arms. Trusting her instincts over her feelings, she turned around and kicked off the ground as hard as she could. She willed herself to move even faster than before as she sprinted down the hill. Her eyes stung and her hair billowed in the wind, but she pressed on.

A heavy force slammed into her from behind and she tumbled across the hard ground. She smashed against a tree and cried out in shock as her body cracked painfully.

The tree bent in a permanent bow of honor towards the respectable impact. A small torrent of snow covered her as its branches released their heavy burdens.

She rolled over and groaned as she examined herself. Her white cloak was dotted with splotches of mud and had accumulated some random twigs and dead leaves but it was otherwise okay. She had several cuts on her hands and knuckles and her back was slowly shifting back into its normal position.

She stumbled to her feet as the shadow turned in the sky and prepared to come in for a second strike.

It definitely wasn’t friendly.

The creature was some kind of giant predatory bird. She searched her fragmented and blurry memories for any information that might help her, but all that came to her mind were the things that she could already see. That information wasn’t helpful at all in this situation.

Ray scanned her surroundings for anything she could use to defend herself but all she saw were trees, snow, dirt, and rocks.

“What am I supposed to do?!”

She stamped her feet against the ground to let out her building frustration and then flinched when she noticed the creature turn towards her.

The flying predator dived, and Ray grabbed a rock in desperation. As the bird approached, she threw the rock with all of her strength. The rock drew a beautiful arc and pierced the bird’s massive body. Blood dripped from the sky and stained the snow on the mountainside.

The creature emitted an angry screech but continued its dive undeterred. It lashed out with a claw and struck her in the shoulder as it passed by.

She crashed to the ground and gnashed her teeth. Her dislocated shoulder promptly snapped itself back into place and she picked up another rock while keeping her furious gaze focused on her flying opponent.

A tinge of fear ran through her chest, but she suppressed it with the knowledge that the bird couldn’t do anything worse to her than what she had already experienced. As the bird initiated its second dive, she met its glowing, intelligent red eyes and shivered at the almost oppressive aura that the scary creature emitted.

She stumbled and almost tripped on the rocky ground as she tried to get away. With a furious shriek, the bird passed overhead, and Ray screamed as its piercing claws drew furrows in her back before latching into her shoulder and neck. One talon severed her spine and her body went limp.

She panicked as the ground started to rapidly move away. She tried to move but all she felt from her arms and legs was a numb pressure. The pain was gone, along with all feeling and sensation below her head.

Ray tried to scream again but her lungs failed to respond properly, and she choked on the blood that rose up into her mouth. It didn’t matter though because, as the bird carried her away into the night, there was nobody to hear her.

A tear ran down her cheek and mixed in with the drool of blood spilling out of her mouth. In the darkest hour of the night, pain abandoned her to numbness and fear was her only companion.

Ray yearned for the darkness to come and free her, as it had when she suffered on the mountaintop.

But even that peaceful darkness had abandoned her.

Where had she gone wrong?

She left the town because she felt like she was in danger and ended up in this situation.

The bird carried her for a long time. Ray noticed that her body was trying to restore itself around the claws, but it seemed unable to restore the damage with the claws in the way.

The bird approached a nest high up in a mountainous tree. It released her near the center and then landed smoothly beside her. As she looked around, she saw eggs half as tall as she was and small birds that were a little larger than the eggs.

Then her body jolted, her limbs spasming as she regained the sensation in her lower body. With the offending claws removed, her spine finished recovering and her wounds closed themselves.

Despite the most difficult issue resolving itself, she continued to lay on the ground. She wanted to scream and curse at the world for trying to make her life miserable, though she didn’t for fear of triggering the birds.

Why did the bird feel safe, and the humans feel dangerous?

Granted, she had escaped from the humans as soon as she could, but Max and Kelsey both seemed friendly enough. What could they possibly have done that was worse than this? She was about to be eaten!

She put that thought aside for later and decided that she should find a way out of this situation first.

Luckily, the baby birds already seemed to be asleep, or she was sure that she would have already been turned into bird feed. Mama bird, not realizing that Ray’s injuries had healed, curled in on itself with one wing drooped over its babies. Though it had only been moments since it settled down, the monster was quietly drifting off to sleep.

Ever so slowly, so as not to wake the birds, she wobbled to her feet. She reached out an arm to steady herself on one of the nearby eggs. As she balanced carefully on the matted nest, she shuffled forward while keeping her eye on the big mama bird.

As if sensing the motion, its red eyes shot open, and it glared at her. She froze, unsure of what to do as the bird shrieked. It quickly rose to its feet while carefully avoiding the large mound of eggs.

Ray heard smaller, more shrill cries and noticed that the young birds had awoken at the cry of their mother. She turned and searched for a way to escape. She ran over to the edge of the nest and looked out, but she only had a moment to process the view. It was beautiful, yet disheartening.

She was exceedingly high up in a tree.

A claw latched onto her back and dragged her back into the nest. The bird pinned her and examined her with a strange look in its eyes.

Mama bird was hungry.

It opened its beak and Ray noticed for the first time that the edges were serrated. The inside of the beak was lined with small, sharp protrusions that looked similar to teeth. Its long, barbed tongue snaked out of its mouth briefly as the bird leaned towards her left arm.

Ray felt a tinge of fear, but her emotions were so overwhelmed that they just couldn’t catch up in time.

She whimpered in pain as the bird of prey latched onto her arm and bit. She tried to pull away, but she was stuck. The bird whipped its neck, and her arm was gone, blood spilling into the nest as the bird chomped away on its dinner.

Ray, for her part, had gone into shock.

Her face was white, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a soundless screech. Ever so slowly, her brain processed that it was missing input and then the sharp agony rolled through her body.

She screamed. It was a blood-curdling scream that pierced the ears of the bird and it grimaced in discomfort as it softened the food in its mouth. It stomped down on Ray in a vain effort to make the sound stop but she only cried louder. In a moment of inspiration, the bird reached down and slashed the woman’s neck with a deft swipe of its claws.

Ray prayed fervently that she could lose consciousness again. She saw the mama bird lean over and regurgitate the remains of her arm into the mouths of its waiting children.

Unfortunately for Ray, her limbs would grow back faster than the birds could eat them. Until they were full, she would function as an infinite food supply.

She lashed out in desperation with her remaining arm and punched the claw that had her pinned. The creature’s leg bent at an unnatural angle and the pressure holding her down eased. The bird cried out in torment while Ray grabbed the injured leg and applied more pressure to it.

Mama bird lashed out and raked its claws across her face. Ray flinched when the vision in her left eye went dark, but the pain felt distant as if it were happening to someone else. Applying even more pressure, she yanked as hard as she could. She felt the resistance suddenly decrease and the bird whimpered. She released the claw which she had just ripped from the bird’s body and scrambled backward away from the creature.

Scanning the nest again, she noted that the baby birds had hidden themselves near the eggs behind the mama bird.

The creature that had just moments ago pinned her and ripped off her arm now inched away from her with obvious terror in its eyes. Her left eye finished regenerating and her vision returned to normal.

With a single punch, she had snapped its leg.

Ray smiled menacingly as she stalked forward. Mama bird shuffled away from her and she noted that even as the bird moved away, it kept itself between her and its babies.

She felt an idea tug at the edge of her mind and her feral grin widened. Baring her fangs, she leapt forward.

Mama bird lashed out with a wing, but Ray slapped the appendage away. Before the bird had time to register the pain, she barreled into its body and pushed it aside.

The bird tumbled through the nest while Ray reached down and picked up one of the eggs. The baby birds chirped in protest but she ignored them as she walked over to the edge of the nest and held the egg out over the large drop.

She peered over the lip into the darkness below. The azure light of the moon lit up the ground below, revealing the dizzying height.

If she had to venture a guess, they were at least fifty Ray’s high.

Mama bird cried out in desperation but Ray simply laughed as she released the egg and let it drop.

Ray stepped aside to avoid the incoming storm as the mama bird propelled herself over the edge and down towards the egg. She took a moment to look back at the terrified baby birds behind her, a wide grin on her face.

“Bye!” she called out.

With a quick little wave goodbye, she took a step back into the open air.

She shifted her attention below to the bird that was about to catch up to the egg. It was far too late for it to both catch the egg and recover from the fall, but Ray wanted to make sure the accursed creature died. This method ensured that the bird would suffer for what it did to her, but it would be pointless if the monster survived in the end.

Mama bird caught up to the egg and curled around it in a vain effort as she crashed into the ground. Ray didn’t even bother checking if the egg survived the fall because it didn’t matter. A moment later, she smashed feet first through the egg and crushed the mama bird against the mountain.

She heard a loud, unpleasant crack and then suppressed a scream as agony filled her entire body. She gritted her teeth to endure the pain, groaning as she crawled up out of the bird’s ribcage and rolled down the side of its body.

After settling a short distance away from the corpse, she sat up and brushed off some of the sticky egg white and yolk that had mixed in with the dirt and blood stains on her white cloak. Then she ran her fingers through her matted hair to pull the twigs, feathers, and bone fragments out while she waited for her shattered legs to finish restoring themselves back to their original condition.

Looking back on the entire event from beginning to end, she sighed in relief that it was finally over.

The questions that she had been suppressing returned to her mind.

Why did the bird feel safe when it obviously was not?

Why did the humans feel dangerous when they were being nice?

It was probably a bad idea for her to trust the fragmented memories. She decided that she wouldn’t listen to them anymore unless she understood the reason for the negative feelings.

Having reached that conclusion, she examined the bloody corpse behind her and then looked off in the distance towards the human town she fled from. If she was going to ignore her impressions, then it was probably a good idea to go back. At the very least, the people there didn’t try to eat her like a certain nest of giant birds. It was possible that they might know something about her and why she woke up with no memories.

Besides, what was the worst they could do? There was no way they could ever do anything worse than what had already happened to her.

With this new direction in mind, she pushed herself to her feet.

As her healing reached its final stages, she started to run as fast as she could towards the town full of people. She didn’t even spare a single glance back for the dead bird that had dared to offend her.