Chapter 1: The Screaming Sky

Chapter 1: The Screaming Sky

The cursor blinked, a patient, rhythmic pulse in the sea of digital blue. Elias Thorne stared at it, his reflection a ghostly smear on the monitor's dark screen. The man staring back looked like a faded photograph of himself: dark, bruised-looking circles under his eyes, a few days' worth of stubble clinging to a jawline that had lost its definition. He was a creature of the indoors, a digital artisan whose world was confined to the twenty-seven inches of his screen and the four walls of his quiet, suburban house.

His fingers, poised over the keyboard, finally moved, executing a series of commands with muscle memory that had long since replaced conscious thought. The logo for a mid-range organic dog food brand sharpened, the gradient on the paw print smoothed to perfection. It was mind-numbing work, the kind he preferred. It paid the bills and, more importantly, it kept the silence at bay.

At his feet, a small, scruffy terrier mix named Milo twitched in his sleep, his paws paddling through some dream-chase. The quiet sigh of the dog was the only other sound in the house. This was Elias’s life now. A fortress of solitude built from pixels and silence, with Milo as its sole, furry guardsman.

He reached up, his thumb and forefinger finding the cool, worn silver of the locket tucked beneath his t-shirt. It was a nervous habit, a connection to a life that felt as unreal as the fantasy landscapes he sometimes designed. It was the only piece of his old life he allowed himself to touch.

A sudden, jarring electronic tone ripped through the house, making Elias jump and Milo snap awake with a startled yelp. The sound didn't come from his computer or phone; it came from the television in the corner, which had been off. Its screen was now a blazing red, stamped with the stark white emblem of the Emergency Broadcast System.

…all residents of Grimwood and surrounding counties are to shelter-in-place, effective immediately…

A robotic female voice, devoid of any human inflection, spoke over the incessant tone.

…An unidentified airborne chemical contaminant has been detected. This is not a drill. Seal all windows and doors. Do not, under any circumstances, venture outside. Repeat: This is not a drill…

Elias’s first reaction was a familiar, cynical annoyance. Probably a chemical spill from the old industrial park. Some bureaucrat had likely panicked and triggered the city-wide alert. Still, the insistent, piercing tone scraped at his nerves. Milo, sensing his owner's tension, let out a low, guttural growl, his eyes fixed on the front window.

"Easy, boy," Elias murmured, his voice raspy from disuse. He pushed back from his desk, the old chair groaning in protest. He went through the motions, a quiet dance of compliance. The click of the deadbolt on the front door. The twist of the lock on the back. He moved through the small house, checking the latches on the windows, the silence outside feeling heavier, more oppressive, than it had just moments before. The sky through the glass was a bruised purple of late evening, unremarkable.

His desire for a quiet, numb night was evaporating, replaced by a low thrum of anxiety. He hated disruptions. He hated the outside world intruding on his carefully constructed peace.

He returned to the living room just as the broadcast ended, the screen snapping back to black. The silence it left behind was somehow worse than the alarm. It was a listening silence, pregnant with anticipation.

That’s when he heard the first one.

It wasn't a caw. It was a scream. A high, thin, unnervingly human shriek that was then cut short. Elias froze, his hand hovering over Milo's bristled back. Another one followed, then another, a chorus of strangled cries that seemed to be coming from the sky itself.

He crept to the large picture window in the living room, Milo glued to his leg, a continuous, rumbling growl vibrating through the floorboards. Elias peered through the blinds.

What he saw made the air in his lungs turn to ice.

The sky was boiling with crows. Not a flock, but a plague of them. Hundreds, maybe thousands, swirled in a frantic, unnatural vortex above his neighborhood. They weren't flying; they were spasming, careening into one another with sickening thuds, their movements jerky and convulsive. And the sound… it was a cacophony of agony, the sound of a thousand creatures being tortured at once. It wasn't the sound of birds. It was the sound of pain.

His graphic designer's eye, trained to see detail, caught something that made his stomach clench. They weren't just hitting each other. They were diving, kamikaze-style, into roofs, against walls, onto the street below. He saw a dark shape plummet and shatter against his neighbor’s car with a wet crunch that was audible even through the thick glass.

This wasn't a chemical spill. This was something else. Something fundamentally wrong.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the screaming symphony outside. He backed away from the window, pulling the blinds shut. It did nothing to muffle the sound. He could feel the impacts now, a series of dull thumps against the roof and walls of his own house. Like a hailstorm of living bodies.

Milo’s growl escalated into a frantic, high-pitched bark, directed at the window Elias had just left.

"It's okay, boy, it's okay," Elias lied, his voice trembling.

Then, one sound cut through the chaos. A sharp, distinct tap… tap… tap… on the glass of the picture window.

It was different from the suicidal dives. It was deliberate.

Against every screaming instinct in his body, Elias was drawn back to the window. He slowly parted the blinds by a fraction of an inch.

A single crow was perched on the windowsill outside, its head cocked. It was unnaturally still amidst the swirling pandemonium. Its feathers were matted and slick, as if dipped in oil, but that wasn't what held him paralyzed.

It was its face.

Where a beak and simple black eyes should have been, the creature's features were twisted into a horrifying, human-like visage. The beak was gone, replaced by a puckered, lipless mouth, frozen in a silent ‘o’ of surprise. Its eyes were not the glossy beads of a bird, but wide, milky, doll-like orbs set in fleshy sockets. They stared directly at him.

Elias felt a primal revulsion, a deep, cellular rejection of what he was seeing. This thing was a perversion, a grotesque parody of life. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He could only stare into those blank, white eyes.

The crow’s head tilted, a slow, unnatural motion. A single, thick, black tear of oily liquid welled up in its doll-eye and rolled down its feathered cheek.

Then, with a shriek that tore through the glass and straight into his soul, it launched itself forward.

The world exploded in a shower of glass and a blast of frigid, chemical-tinged air. Elias threw himself backward, shielding his face with his arms as the window imploded. Milo shrieked, a sound of pure terror, and scrambled under the couch.

Elias landed hard on the floor, shards of glass skittering around him. The screaming from the sky poured into the room, a physical weight of sound. He looked up, his ears ringing.

The crow lay twitching on his living room rug, its neck bent at an impossible angle. Its broken body was a heap of shattered bone and ruined feathers. But it wasn't dead. Its grotesque, human-like face was still turned towards him, its mouth opening and closing silently.

From the wound in its side, a thick, black, iridescent ooze was pooling on the beige carpet. It didn't look like blood. It looked like ink, like tar, smelling of ozone and something rotten, something ancient. The corruption was no longer outside. It was here, in his home, a spreading black stain in the heart of his sanctuary.