BLACK FEATHERS AND SHADOWY INTENTIONS, spellcraft and a pocketful of cards—Trey had options, this he knew, but none that he so wished to employ.

There were no golems, no ignorant and accepting souls to influence with the flashcards, only his personal taboo—himself.

Trey suddenly found himself in a world of flighted fuckery, a frenzied mindstorm of Oh shoot(!) Oh Lord(!) Why me(?) Why now(?). He'd gotten swiftly and embarrassingly snatched. He hadn't put up a fight. He couldn't. A curtain of shadows suddenly enveloped him—Whoosh(!)—and his feet left the ground. He tried to scream for Swishy but nasty wings gagged his mouth with town-flavored plumage. He wriggled, he writhed, he twisted, he thrashed—efforts he ceased once the falling fear set in. He was flying now—high, high, high—detained and doomed and dead-on-drop.

He ascended within dark, feathery walls, as a tremendous flock of snitchtalons encased him. Sharp claws viciously dug into his collarbones, his shoulders, his arms. Trey braced himself against the speed, the gut-wrenching shock of sudden motion slamming him into harsh air currents. His face and lips and temples hurt from the blistering nighttime frost. The potent chill seeped through him and crackled around his bones. He lay within the clutches of pain and noise and darkness, caged by a shadowy orb of personal hell.

Trey's heart jackhammered through him. As the boy dreaded his uncertain future, one matter passed through his psyche:

Does Ruby even know about this? If I'm supposed to bring Swishy, why the heck am I up here?

The ah-ha(!) moment smacked him right then: the snitchtalons were acting of their own spiteful, envious accord. Every time he shot a glance at them they simply turned their heads in contempt, straining their necks towards the sky. The clear message was that they were better than him. And they'd gotten the best of him this time, absolutely so, and now the ensnared Trey was losing precious time. His hopes in thwarting Ruby's act of MIDNIGHT were diminishing by the second.

The hurt and hopelessness closed in then, and he succumbed to the midair mania. He screamed, he kicked, and he bit at the bird legs. He even barked once, and a snitchtalon flinched.

Trey laughed a little, mildly calming, until glimpsing their eyes: red beads of feral madness.

Blackwheat! You've got to be kidding me...

The wrathful birds were physically enhanced in every way. Beneath the feathered legs, their muscles visibly bulged. Their back muscles formed round protrusions. The bones in their wings thickened into Promethean clubs. Even their feathers were longer and more numerous. The dark steroids had transformed simple shadowclaws into a fleet of monsters.

The regrets unearthed themselves within Trey. He'd seen the air-nappings and had even grown used to them. He felt stupid for asking himself the why-now-why-me questions. The obvious answer: he was unprepared. He was arrogant. Anyone with half a brain would've filled their pockets full of stones. Or purchased a cat, a dog, a possum. Maybe he would've been friendlier to the birds instead of sneering at them all the time. Trey, as much as he hated to admit it, got caught slipping.

The adversaries were worthy and strong. They were tenacious. They thought little about soul-play and murder games. These snitchtalons used to be people—used to be. Those days were long over, and they behaved as if they never were in the first place. They were birds of prey, through and through, unbound to the conscientious limitations of written laws and keep-your-wings-and-talons-to-yourself doctrine. Enemies(?)—oppress them, suppress them, take their soul.

This shouldn't be an epiphany. This shouldn't end because I'm stupid...

Inside, Trey crumbled. The distressing flight shaved him down by degrees, his normally strong will reducing into a shadow, a shade, a wisp of soot. The dark hand of destiny brushed the Trey crumbs off the table, casting him to nothingness. The dread took over as the high altitude dizzied and weakened him. His arms were outstretched, and his neck lolled to the side.

I'm no scarecrow, I'm no Jesus, but Swishy would say otherwise.

Trey managed another laugh but inside he wailed.

Moments later, he fainted.

(...)

But passing out was no respite from his disastrous deliberations. Once his consciousness slipped away, a single horrible thought burst into his headspace like a Molotov through a window: Swishy!

He cycled through images of Swishy's Trey-less life. The townsfolk praised him, touched him, and picked straw off his person as if grazing berries in the wild. Ruby's hand invaded his chest, grasping, squeezing, and taking. What a thing to do to a person...Not a bird—a person. The altar, the magic and curses and magnificent turns of shadow had transformed Swishy into somebody. The boy had worth. The boy was entitled to his own beating life. How and why the city claimed entitlement over Swishy? Trey already knew. The town benefits were obvious. But he was galled that they'd do it anyway.

The dark possibilities cruelly settled within Trey. Before entering Straw City, he always assumed that souls remained within their original vessels. But then came Swishy, Bristles, and the legions of kidnapped humans returning with bird souls. He wondered where the human souls went. Were they eviscerated? Were they stored? And if they were stored, towards what end was Ruby collecting them? He imagined himself as a miniature charm on Ruby's keychain of souls.

The cruelty of it corkscrewed through him as his horrid soul math continued.

If his soul remained on Cearth, or somehow caged in a Ruby-bound purgatory, could he ascend to heaven? Trey mourned for his moment of stepping into the clouds, dapping up his ancestors. Real fear manifested within him. For the past month it'd been all about Swishy, all about the general wrongs of using a living being. But now that he was captive, he at last began to fear for himself. He could die. He could be soul-reaped. He could be deposited into the dark.

He always knew that Swishy was done dirty. The justice in him glowed with that realization. And it was an easy realization to come to, the morality of soul-pulls straightforward and uncomplicated at its base. Leave that all to God, more or less.

But the reality of the Cearth was complicated. The Curse should've been a wake-up call, a non-apocalyptic message encouraging humans to change their ways. Yet the non-carnage still left people wondering how to proceed forward from there. Facing the altars was scary business. The common thought was that if you'd ever had the chance to hit the altar, you had to make it worth it. The risks were already high at their baseline. So embrace the risk. Be true to yourself and the level of benefit you really want.

Are they wrong? Can I really say that to Ruby, to the long-starved sugar wraiths? Actually...yes—two-thousand percent yes.

But the world was a big place, far bigger than his morals. Trey knew this—in his head—but he didn't know for real. He didn't feel it. Swishy—that was just the start. The scarecrow quickly learned that existence was costly. Upon first recognition of light, the loss begins.

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It was Trey's turn now. His initiation into the darkness began with his air-napping, this dark and cold and doom-filled flight. The beginnings of dread, the beginnings of a sickening turmoil. The skies were not his friend. His escape would cost him.

He aimed his intent towards the flashcards, sifting through for a favorable spell. One word warmed, glowed, and burned pleasurably against his outer thigh. Trey called to one card, one spell, one carefully calculated sacrifice. The chosen word dissolved into its enchanted dust and infiltrated Trey, crackling through his muscles and nerves and blood. His insides fizzled like a shaken seltzer. No pain, just pure magic. Once the tingling sensation settled, his body settled into the instant change.

Trey awakened—not in body—but strictly SOUL.

(...)

Astral projection: soul-play 101.

Trey stared at his hands and discovered the same ethereal blues which set Swishy's jack-O-lantern aglow. He flew along with the snitchtalons, effortlessly keeping pace. If Swishy knew I was flying, he'd be so jealous! Trey savored the moment of gliding, the taste of flight, before returning to the serious business.

He studied his own physical body, a limp T, scarecrowing but without the scarecrowing effect of repelling the birds that carried him. He slapped his dozing face—and his hand fazed through.

I'm nothing...ish. Alright, I see, I see...

He swiped at his face again—once, twice, and then full boxing combinations. He played a drumbeat through his skull, confirming that yes, he was all soul now. Next, he flew beyond the bird bodies and gazed at the settlement—he expected rooftops and chimney smokestacks—but encountered dismay.

Trey couldn't believe it(!), the shocking bird's-eye view, the astonishing doomscape stretched before him as the snitchtalons unceremoniously ushered him off.

The city was dark and ghostly. The buildings and roads and people were overlaid in smokiness, and the luminous wheat planters lost their glow within the haze. Each shape was reduced to a wavy, barely distinguishable silhouette, all of which combined into a unified but nebulous blur. Darkness reigned, the shadows and curses consuming all.

A fog forcefully swept across the entire settlement, a living being patrolling its territory—especially thick within the risen Curseworks. The buildings had shadows glued to their surfaces, and the tree roots were encased. Everything was blackened by the crawling, exploratory darkness. Trey imagined a legion of shadow hands gripping and grabbing and snatching. The greedy darknesses competed, brethren in avarice. They were one. A selfish, cannibalizing oneness.

When Trey went through grounded life, he remained ignorant of the umbral realm laid atop his physical one. The dual dimensions co-existed within the perimeter of Straw City. He felt contaminated on the inside, his soul slicked with cursed ooze.

I need a blessed oil bath, good Lord!

Swishy's world further opened to Trey: the scenes, the darkness, the mysterious (and now sensible) eye rolls. Trey began to hear disembodied voices, the grievances of the agonized shadows. Where is a friend? Where is life? Will there ever be fun? Is blindness all there is to the world? Can I exit? Where is an exit? How can I make that happen? How can I make this...stop?

And there was the same dark response to the barrage of laments-requests-pleas-prayers: without a SHADOW of a doubt, that will never happen, hehe...good one, right?

He gazed onwards, carrying on with his tour of horror. An odd sight lay in the distance, a curious glitch in his expected view. The city map was seared to his memory, its locations and paths and specifically shaped landmarks. He matched the known cartography with his current perception. The altar, T-shaped stone structure...was gone. His soul choked on the gravelly stress.

The altar—or its supposed location—was now patch of dirt. There was no grass or straw or even soil. The absence was a rootless crater, wholly abyssal.

Trey felt the slugs inside, the black nausea of a city that'd lost its soul. The world went wrong-wrong-wrong as its nightmares thickened into a mire of spiritual psychosis. The curse-play, the soul-play, the creation and siphoning of hearts—starkly immoral decisions. Straw City ran about God's toes, making light of this world of contracts, this world of unforgivingly collected dues. The Cearth demanded its payment and the altar thieves said No.

Trey sensed it then: the prickling reds of snitchtalon eyes. They clearly saw him, the spirit version. Whatever expression Trey wore amused the birds—they laughed and laughed, a disgusting and contemptuous song of hate. Once the cawed harmony stopped, the plainspoken threats commenced.

About time he noticed us! The baby magician took the soul-play leap! The black boy has gone blue—will you look at that! Trey, give it up, just return to your body. You know we'll kill you like this, right? We've been souls for longer than you've been alive. So let us tell you: you'll never escape the city's darkness without a body to protect you. If you die outside your body, you'll be a ghost. And ghosts don't exist—not for long around here. You're a spectral bum, destined for the dark.

Trey stared down at the undulating shadows of the city and tuned into its whimpering, doom-saying laments. He couldn't hear them over the snitchtalons' laughter but he felt the cursed emotions as his own. For the first time, he'd seen the curses for what they were: individuals—intelligible nodes of hurt.

And he could be one. The snitchtalon threats weren't threats but promises. Death, soul damnation—they'd deliver it all.

The CACAW symphony returned then, the snitchtalon beaks twisting into sadistic and ridiculous guffaws. It was as if they were waiting for this exact day, for their enemy to understand them truly, and to enter their realm—entirely at the mercy of their unscrupulous natures.

And to punctuate their point, they pecked once at his face. No response, no grunt, no pain—just blood and a scar.

"What the hell are you doing?"

Get back in your body or we'll keep going. Don't test us. We only let you slide because you're helpful to Ruby. But up here, your clout is nothing.

The pecking continued, widening the gash on his cheek.

"When you die, I'll cook you!"

Whatever. We've been dead, half-dead. We've been hurricane, and we've been birds too. We've done it all. But when YOU die, you'll be nothing. And your family in Clayhearth will never know what happened...until of course, we decide to fly and get them.

"If you want to catch an arrow to the neck, go ahead."

The birds spread their wings apart in their oh-we-got-shot drama, fake-dying, dropping Trey's body. The soul Trey held out his hand, wanting to intervene but knowing he couldn't. He could only hope the birds decided to catch him—they swooped down and did.

"An arrow is too quick a death for ya'll," Trey said, maintaining his façade. He couldn't let these birds see him sweat. But make no mistake, the anger stabbed him—and the worry, too—because the Straw City madness was leaking outwards. The flighted creatures had designs on the greater Cearth. And on his family, too. Mom. Dad. Home...He clearly pictured it: the snitchtalons raiding Clayhearth, perched on the buildings as they wore crowns of gold, prancing across roof ledges with glimmering toe-rings.

Don't be so SOAR about it...oh why the frown. Soaring is a pleasure. The first time we flew, we were joyous. What about you? How're you liking it?

The hot-potato continued as Trey's soul visibly bubbled in agitation. The birds played hot-potato with his body. One would drop him and then another swooped down and caught him, tossing him back up, only for another to catch him. They were athletes, acrobatics, and most of all—assholes.

Trey needed to do something. Astral-projecting—or Going Blue as he decided to call it—had somehow made him more vulnerable. But soul-play was powerful. He'd willed himself to this point. And the way was within him—he knew it, he felt it, it had to be so.

He ignored the snitchtalons playing catch with his body and searched the skies for a clue. The sky, the darkness—it felt as if there were a ceiling above him—as if the curses clawed at the boundaries of the Cearth's atmosphere. The voices of the city were one thing, a sorrowful affair of complaints, but he could hear grumbling from the clouds as well. Trey couldn't make out the words but he could've sworn he recognized a human cadence in the accursed wind-howls.

The tones were casual, conversational, and mysteriously comfortable.

He figured he'd give communication a proper try. Why not? It's not like he'd have a repeat visit to the heavens—or ascended hell—whichever one.

"Help me, please," Trey told the darkness. "Let's make a deal."

The darkness stirred but made no real move.

Meanwhile, the snitchtalons dismissed the comment as a useless prayer. They continued their game of human catch, a worrisome game as Trey noticed their old friend, the zeppelin. Up close, it was gigantic. Two city blocks long and two apartments high, the blimp was a wood-colored beast. He immediately pictured himself crash-landing onto the vessel, breaking against the sturdy frame.

The aircraft's lit message was no more reassuring: RAISE STRAW! RAISE OUR HOPES! The blinding letters were annoying and insulting—but also a blessing. Trey finally had an idea.

The snitchtalons tossed his body once more—and Trey zoomed into it, rejoining it in midair. The sudden rush of air pressure pounded against his face and ribs, bringing tears to his eyes. He dug into his pocket and spilled the cards. "Payment!" he screamed. "Put me on the zeppelin!" The words were swallowed by the cold wind. Chunks of ice cut through the inside of his mouth. But the communication was heard.

The black skies opened, swirling and swirling, at last taking the form of a smile. The darkness vacuumed the loose cards upwards, alerting the now alarmed snitchtalons.

The darkness chuckled. The darkness snickered. And then, having charged up its mischief, the darkness full-on cackled.