Part One: Anguish

The morning was bright and frosty and the grass crackled underfoot. The air was full of the sounds of birds drifting through the trees and from somewhere the soft sound of a flute could be heard. Among the flowers which were opening for the day, bees buzzed about their work. A fox hurried through the undergrowth on some errand followed by a rabbit a few moments later -coincidence surely.

The trees were discussing something among themselves -you could tell it was just a casual conversation by the way they dreamily whispered. The sky was looking very beautiful dressed in a rich, deep blue and scattered scantily with small, white, puffy clouds. Some distance away from the group of trees -you couldn't really call them a forest for there weren't enough of them -the fields were also a buzzing with bees (I have no idea why for I couldn't see any flowers) and the wind caused ripples to run across grass, much like water. And down in the valley was a small river -or creek rather, a few ducks swimming around in circles and ducking their heads under the water (I do wonder if that’s how they get the name) and some geese stood on the bank honking at them like New York taxi's.

Suddenly a small bird flew into a tree and fell backwards onto the ground, it flew up and off then circle around and flew at the tree again falling back then hurling itself at the tree again then again, and again viciously throwing itself into the trunk. Each time a small flurry of blue and white feathers fell to the ground, again the small bird its feathers spotted with blood, hurled itself at the tree and this time it fell to the ground and flapped around on its back; it had broken its wing.

I had been holding my breath for the last few moments. I approached the bird which was still writhing around on its back, my heart was pounding and I had no idea what to do. It was after all, a small bird and couldn't hurt me so I knelt down and leant over it, I noticed that all sounds had ceased, even the tree's had become still. The bird was lying still now apart from occasionally twitching its wing, I cautiously reach out to touch the bird, it took no notice of me. I wiped the blood off my hand onto the grass and I felt in my pockets and looked around for something to pick it up in when I heard a strange sound. The bird seemed to have moaned, I knelt closer to it and it did it again; A strange high pitched moan unlike anything I had ever heard from a bird before; it was almost human like. This time the bird cried, a spine chilling wail. I jumped up away from it and my blood run cold as the bird started to to scream. A horrible, hideous cry that echoed through the forest. And then the bird became silent and the forest returned to normal.