Kimarya woke up to her body roughly slamming down onto a branch and heard a crash immediately followed by a loud cracking sound right above her.
She awoke dazed and in shock; she felt such a terrible presence with an intense killing intent that made her body shiver.
But her body kept moving on its own. Sunny had control and was diving headfirst into lower branches. She felt highly disturbed by this feeling and easily regained control. Still, she missed a branch and tumbled down without control.
She looked up and saw six two-foot-long black objects and realized she almost got nailed to that tree as an easy meal for whatever was chasing her.
Kimarya screamed in her mind, “Sunny, what’s chasing me?!?!”
Sunny shouted, “JUMP NOW!”
Her body took control. It wasn’t her nor Sunny, but something mysteriously compelled her body to move. She crouched and sprang forward like a cannonball between two thick branches and into the empty abyss.
Immediately after, she heard a thunderous cracking sound. She sensed a large body crash with significant momentum behind her, pulverizing the branches that she just dived through.
This existence was a hunter, yet not a hunter. This strikingly intelligent and brutal creature had no care if its meal had long stopped breathing with the miasma of rot or if it still labored to breathe as this creature fed on it while it was still alive.
Kimarya had the sinking impression that it was often the latter for this monster.
Her panicked mind and memories of this body told her this was…. a Murder Crow!
The Murder Crow opened its maw and unleashed a terrifying cacophony of sounds that didn’t seem possible to come from a single living creature. It sounded like the death throes of dozens of people and hundreds of creatures. She even heard the thunderous cracking of a tree as it collapsed under its own weight.
All those cries were in the background of its genuine caw that, if the rest raised your goosebumps and hair from the message of fatality within it, this caw would be the final straw that broke the camel’s back. A sound so terrible that it contained a fatal message that said, ‘I am the reaper that caused these noises, and you’ll be the next one to join in my orchestra of death.’
She didn’t notice or couldn’t see the nearby tree branch as she swung through the air, but her instincts did and grabbed it forcefully. Her hands gripped so hard onto the rough bark to counter her incredible momentum that it left her palms bloody with no more skin.
Kimarya didn’t feel any of that.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
All she could focus on was that call, finally making her mind buckle. The innocence of Draeneoy and the past life of Kimarya, whose most dangerous encounters were the smog of her city, nearly being hit by a car a few times, or the several fights she had as a teenager. None of that could compare to this moment of absolute horror.
This was too much for her. A full-blown panic attack was building up where she’d likely let go of the branch and indeed be the next cry added in the crow’s horrifying cacophony.
Maybe her contribution would be a panicked and maniacal laughter that she heard in between the majority governed by screams and cries.
ZZZZZZZT
Electricity ran through her nerves. Tightening her grip on the branch, she instantly pulled herself up and kicked off seconds before the branch she was on was shredded by the fearsome talons of the Murder Crow.
She felt small stabbing pains on her back as the furious splinters reached her. The boiling adrenaline rampaging through her veins swallowed up her full-blown panic attack as she masterfully glided like an Olympic acrobat between branches. Heading deeper into the tree, branches grew thicker and more densely packed.
She crouched as she slid between four massive branches, each as thick as her waist. She looked back again and saw the Murder Crow angrily caw at her before fiercely grabbing the branch with its vicious beak, pulling on it before violently crunching right through it.
It continued towards her, and with every step, it violently bit down and jerked its head. The loud crunching of the branch sounded off as it got closer to her.
Kimarya noticed the space between the thick branches getting smaller and smaller, so she immediately ditched this direction before she eventually got foolishly stuck between these branches and became an easy meal to that monster.
She screamed, “Sunny, what do I do? Where do I go?” before jumping and diving onto a nearby tree.
The Murder Crow’s eyes glinted with intelligence. Its fake outrage didn’t trick its little snack into trapping itself like its other, less exciting meals. It silently jumped into the air once more to continue its chase.
Kimarya swung through branches, kicking off at random times. Her decisions seemed to lack whim or reason, but every time she made those calls, she would hear the thundering crash of the Murder Crow pouncing on where she should have been. This went on six more times, but then she did not hear the resounding crash of the Murder Crow, who began to strike less frequently.
For some reason, this didn’t make her feel any safer. She tried to increase the randomness and directions as Sunny furiously scanned and pointed out all possible paths she could take, looking for the best escape route.
“Kimarya! Right over there, there’s a gorge between those trees! The water might take that path during a storm rush as it cuts through the land!”
Kimarya avoided making a direct beeline towards the gorge. She had a sinking feeling that the Murder Crow was much more intelligent than it appeared.
She kicked off the branch before feeling the intense pressure in her heart. The Murder Crow attacked as she was in mid-air! She heard snapping branches above her as she realized this and swung her arms and roughly caught onto a branch that stopped her mad dive forward. She felt like she nearly popped both arms out of her shoulder sockets. A millisecond later, a massive shadow covering up her entire vision crashed through the area she would be at if she continued her dive forward in the air.
Her heart beat extremely loudly as if she had just seen her own death before she dropped onto the ground and madly rushed towards the gorge less than 30 feet away.
“I'm going to make it!”