THE GOLD CURE, he had it in him.

He'd bent over the kid-crow after kid-crow, enlivening their brittle brown wheat into the gold that their parents so wished for them. Straw is the way. Straw is the cure. Or so these stupid citizens said.

Swishy's patients were excited at regaining easy movement. They, too, mashed their faces into his stomach, the drifting straw encasing them in a snow globe of love.

And as Swishy went from one kid-crow to fix them up, that child then followed him to watch the salvation of another, ooh-ing, aah-ing, clapping and flapping and jumping. They posed as full-body crosses, a practice they called tee-ing off.

Stop playing, Swishy urged. We have to escape the riot!

If we get hurt, you'll fix us won't you?

That's not the point!

And so the kids tee'd off, playfully twisting down the road, joking about how Swishy was a magic Band-Aid, a mega strong straw-babysitter.

In time, after fourteen or fifteen children were helped, his followers had formed an other-worldly fan-club. He shooed them to hiding spots as he progressed toward The Curseworks but could feel their loving eyes, their adoring souls blooming in the dark.

Despite their hiding spots, he knew their physical bodies were way too close to the action. His ducklings couldn't resist the draw of their amazing new friend. He'd saved them and they wanted to see what he'd do next.

The children progressed behind him—covertly enough—stumbling, but gathering themselves, catching each other, even hi-fiving. They couldn't physically giggle but were acclimating to the gold-straw's blessings. They loudly rustled toward each other, deciphering the trappings of language. Hi, hello! they meant, but swish-swish they sounded.

That's what kept Swishy together, the good vibes, the encouragement within this crazed, predatory city. The children were so excited by every little thing that he did. Swishy was their hero, their older brother.

One of the kids couldn't help themselves, and had quickly learned astral projection to ask Swishy about their family members.

Where is Mom? Where's Dad-Uncle-Auntie-Grandparent-Babysitter?

Swishy head-tilted, playing dumb. "All I see are hay bales and pumpkins. Sorry kid."

It's okay. Fix them when you find them, please.

"Sure! Anything you need!" But Swishy was lying. The adults were all around them in full-sized scarecrow bodies—who Swishy decided against healing. Besides, the adults were already gaining control of their too-big hands, grubby and grasping. And Swishy didn't like that, not one bit. He feared they'd do something else stupid like tossing their kid-crows into the dark portal.

One more block, the wooden CURSEWORKS sign beckoning him with its scarred wood and ancient dark fog.

And the closer he got to his goal, the more the monstrosities collected, their natures gravitating toward Ruby's plaza of shadows. Here, there were less kid-crows, and more big-crows.

Swishy walked toward a scarecrow, a rather large one, a father it seemed judging from its height and shape and conspicuously rotund potbelly—and he snubbed him, ignoring him. The scarecrow's face was smiling—as its mouth was carved into a smile. But the soul inside unable to maneuver the straw. Swishy could feel the disappointment, the straw-bound soul screaming at him. Help me! Teach me! This is what you're for! They should've never given you the magic! Look how you forsake me! Everybody eats—so feed me!

But Swishy shut himself off from the peevish laments, having heard such things thousands upon thousands of times in the dark. The initial pang of guilt soured into annoyance, into Bristles-styled contempt for the foolish, foolish man-crow.

He speed-walked along while ignoring the confused soul-telepathy of the kids. They wanted to know why the man yelled at Swishy. And which scarecrow had complained. And if they should help that him at all.

He pressed onwards.

The closer he got to The Curseworks, the denser the mania became. Swishy was in the thick of it again, traipsing through the battle zone. He gripped his rake firmly and kept his soul-blues peeled for ambushes or stray attacks aimed toward him.

He caught up to Bristles again, who, in his thirst for conflict, hadn't noticed Swishy's presence. The man nocked and shot, nocked and shot, a merciless rhythm through which he blasted snitchtalons out of the sky. The birds never touched the ground, only the darkness—which smokily gathered them up like a Venus fly trap. However, Bristles' henchmen were not fairing as well, getting air-napped by the snitchtalons, embarrassingly plucked from their combat fervor. Meanwhile, their leader tore through dozens and dozens of birds, pitching them toward the abyssal darkness.

And as multiples sets of snitchtalons encased him, pecking and scratching him, Bristles punched at them with wild haymakers. He escaped, running past the scarecrows—through the scarecrows—trampling upon their feelingless bodies. Once he'd cleared enough space for himself, he'd back into a pile of live scarecrow and eat a handful of their straw, healing himself before reentering the fray. His wounds closed and his fire re-stoked.

Swishy's mouth stretched into a carved O of surprise as he watched Bristles wage his terrifying war.

The hidden kid-crows were properly outraged as well—who knew which of their parents Bristles had been eating. Stop him, Swishy! That might be my mom. Please, help!

"Bristles!" What are you doing?"

"Acquiring my body, Swishy my lord. I suggest you do the same. The time is now."

"I'm trying to help them."

"Oh my lord, your heart is so pure, you're better than us all."

"Thank you...will you help me?"

Bristles nocked an arrow, looking pained. "We all have things we want. Didn't you want this? For us to rise up and take what is ours?"

"Yes, but not like this."

"The world is imperfect, dear Swishy. Bird eggs were cracked but the omelette is ours." His smile was so kind. But his soul trembled and enlarged. The spirit inside was dyed in vengeance. Did he care for Swishy? All signs pointed to yes, his tremendous devotion percolating as a pressurized geyser. But was this care actually good for Swishy? He investigated Bristles' vehement soul, the animal inside snarling and draconian. Bristles held out his hand in prayerful expectancy.

Swishy stared up at Bristles with care and concern—a strategic, manipulative persuasion tactic. He played innocent, masking his refusal to join hands. "Let's go to The Last Straw. We can stop Ruby."

"Oh my little liege..." Bristles withdrew his hand, shaking his head. "I support your journey. But alas, you'll never get wings that way. Your wings are here. Surely you see that." He gestured with a sweeping, wing-like arm toward the several arrow-stricken snitches who were slowly dragged into the shadows and quietly deconstructed.

The scarecrow recoiled from the violence but magnetized toward the opportunity. He feared missing out, in fact, he knew it. But the MIDNIGHT spell, the misplaced souls, the missing Trey—there was so much to reclaim from Ruby.

"I know, I know," Swishy shook his head. "I hate that I know."

"May fortune favor you, dear liege."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Yeah...you too." Swishy ran past Bristles, taking the opportunity to gain ground while the aspiring wrathraven distracted the snitchtalons.

Through his soul radar, he detected Bristles faithfully returning to his work: drawing, shooting, collecting.

Fight the bow guy, Swishy! The children's astral projections had strayed far from their bodies, shedding their vulnerable vessels in order to complain. Hit him with the rake! What if he eats the WHOLE scarecrow? What then?

You have to trust me, Swishy said. We're between a rock and a Ruby place!

What does that even mean?

I hope you'll never have to see...

A rock. It'd fallen from the sky. And then more rocks came, nicking his gourd.

Snitches. It could be nothing else.

Several birds circled above Swishy, the ones who revealed themselves at least. As Swishy strayed from Bristles, so too did the birds—they were unwilling to become wrathtalon fuel.

The birds glared at Bristles, their body language diminishing from the arrow maniac, before turning toward Swishy with full and complete confidence. Survivalists to the core, they'd naturally picked the smarter fight, the easier one.

Swishy glanced at the clock tower, but the cloud cover thickened over its face even more. MIDNIGHT was coming. MIDNIGHT closed on in. But he didn't know how much time he'd squandered or how much remained. The mental math scared him because saving 14 or 15 kids meant a minute per kid, possibly more.

A full sprint, desperate and powerful swishing, and rain of rocks intensified—pebbles, stones, bricks, even decorative geodes.

A garden gnome crashed down besides Swishy—which made him pause. The statue was so large. Within the wrecked decoration he pieced together its true face: Ruby's, a chibi-styled one.

Ugh...she's everywhere.

He urged himself onwards but that slight pause was enough for the snitchtalons to reach him, snatching him by the shoulders, lifting him into the skies. His eyes immediately darted to the clock tower, which he could finally see now that he was above the cloud-cover: 11:52. The snitchtalons noticed—as they notice everything.

We know of Ruby's spell. We were there when she casted it. And boy it's a doozy. It'll have you reeling. It'll make you wish you were a bird again, one of her bird's, one of us. But you'll never make it. Because you can't fly. Because you're worth nothing. Because you simply don't belong.

The boy squirmed and squirmed but couldn't escape the grasps of the animals. When he freed himself from one pair of talons, another pair would catch him during his attempted free-fall. Swishy turned his head to face his foes, stretching his mouth toward the birds, hoping to swallow them—but they dropped him outright then, amply perceptive of the scarecrow's bird-meal tendencies.

They dropped him onto a roof and he bursts into thousands and thousands of straw-scattered pieces. He feared for his head, but it was undamaged, un-splattered, its constitution fortified to diamond levels by the arcane witchery of his birth. His soul reached out in springy vines for his straw—which took longer than expected due to the long descent, dozens of meters high.

Swishy saw it then, his precious items everywhere: Trey's heart glossary, the Jesus cross, several stray cards, his heart.

And the worst part paralyzed Swishy in fear: the dive-bombing snitchtalons were shooting straight toward—not him—but his exposed, still-beating heart. He condensed his soul-blues into the deadened rind—he didn't want to see the truth, its inventory of blacks and golds. Blindly, he reached for his items.

Hurry! He told himself. Remake myself. Remake!

As the snitchtalons grabbed for one item, Swishy's soul stretched out as a cord of taffy and snatched it up first. His ethereal grip captured his spilled possessions, playing keep-away from the tenacious flock as a pumpkin-headed octopus. He hurriedly pulled his soul back toward himself, restitching the straw, replacing the items in their appropriate crevices, an intelligent and seamless understanding of how his golem body should be.

We see it...The snitchtalons gloated as they circled, lowering and lowering, skimming Swishy's head, feigning and faking and flinching at the terrified scarecrow. We know how to break you. Tonight's the night. We'll teach you well. Allow us to show you the exact way a scarecrow can die.

Die? It was a foreign concept. He'd known of bodies vaporizing, of souls flexibly leaving their vessels to take a walk or end up repurposed in another form. But die? What was that? He'd only known GAME OVER screens upon emptied HP, his game characters temporarily passing out.

A word materialized in the dark, DEATH, in not gold, but a foggy and mysterious black.

Swishy's soul sizzled and boiled. He knew that he should run, that the death by snitchtalon was not so easily undone.

He peered toward The Curseworks, its sign barely visible as the birds dragged him a full block away. He wanted to jump off the roof but saw the snitchtalons gliding lower, waiting on the ground, hoping for him to splatter and reveal his throbbing heart.

Fast, I need to go fast! Just do what I know!

He jumped.

The snitchtalons immediately shot toward him like racers triggered by the starting gun. They rushed toward the impending splattering. The bird pirates hyper-focused on the cracked piggybank that was Swishy's straw-bound bounty.

Swishy hit the ground, tucking and rolling, mitigating the full damage of a free-fall. He'd curled his torso inwards and only lost chunks of his shoulder from the one-story fall.

The birds were disappointed, angered, but maintained the same arrow-ing speed, piercing Swishy. They shot through his shoulders and back and thighs—tearing clean through.

Swishy hobbled forward with holes in his body, his spirit vines grabbing for the torn off chunks. As the boy reintegrated, his stride normalized and hastened—but he was incomplete. Pieces of his soul were homing in on the flying snitchtalons, pursuing the straw pieces which they held hostage in their mouths. But the birds disappeared into the clouds. Swishy's soul was stretched thin, his gummy tendrils atrophying the further they traveled from his body, weakening, dissipating, until Swishy gave up and retracted his soul.

For the first time since arriving in Straw City, he'd accepted damage.

But he'd arrived back to where he started, one block from The Curseworks, dodging the continuous rock rain. He got hit by the occasional stone, which prompted a snitchtalon to shoot from the dark and catch the cast-off straw. They were determined to nickel and dime Swishy out of existence, a tactic which worked.

Swishy ran and ran, fixing his holes by compressing himself, carving himself down into a smaller scarecrow. The kid became a smaller kid—and as he suffered more beak-shots and rock drops, he'd become a even smaller. More damage ensued, unsuccessfully blocked attacks shaving him down into a grade-schooler, a toddler. Soon he was too small to fit his clothes, the damaged parka and jeans loosely draping him. Even his legs were gobbled by his black Timberlands.

The immense gourd teetered dangerously upon his pedestal of flimsy neck.

He was a baby disguised as a big kid, the boy having shrunk and thickened closely around his full-sized heart.

He'd protected his core well, but the dread now consumed him. The snitchtalons literally consumed him—having flown his straw beyond tendril range, eating and healing and making fun of him no doubt. And the snitchtalons came in for another attack, a dark shroud collapsing upon Swishy. The storm of feathers targeted him and only him, dozens of snitchtalons converging for a conclusive finisher.

Seeds of despair germinated within Swishy, bursting forth in visions of the demonic flock eating him on the spot, casting him into a darkness not of the altar but of his worst enemies. He'd hear their words for eternity, smug caws about a foolish but delectable boy.

He shook his head. No, no!

His resolve, his belief in self, had fortified alongside those deepening fears. The GAME OVER scenario was more than a kill-screen—or rather, a blessed do-over screen. The hurt he'd be subjected to was more than he knew. Consequences, real consequences. Loss of heart and body and friends and...everything.

The darker the feathered night became, the downpour of CACAWs drowning out the outside world, the sharper his concentration had become. The night was his element. He'd lived in the altar. He'd loved the altar. The manufactured shadowclaw darkness was nothing to him, less than nothing. And yet a spell of haunting which had lodged into his psyche and heart. A black psyche, a blackwheat body, a blackness which he now in his time of need was ready to...reject.

And right then, the zeppelin drifted into his line of sight, ready to deliver another troubling bulletin. But not this time. The LEDs went momentarily blank before the lights travelled through the bulbs in a mysterious rotation, formulating a fresh message. Swishy, amidst frenzy and chaos, couldn't stop staring at the blimp screen. Something inside told him he wanted to see the change to come. And then it arrived, the lights stopping in their assigned places, gleaming delightfully in a wondrous, Swish-positive message: GO WITH HEART! SWISH-SWISH!

Trey! He's okay!

He amended his mindset, cultivating a more desirable image, the D and E and A and T and H of his mind shattering to ash.

HARVEST...the word gleamed before his eyes in the comforting, magic golds he'd grown accustomed to. The soul radar had repurposed itself into a straw radar, his gummy soul-ropes flowing from his gourd and seeking out everything straw, everything of even remote resemblance to wheat.

He'd drawn the straw near, creating a shield over himself, a thick and patchy dome of wheat and gold-straw and blackwheat. His ethereal appendages continued to pad his shield, his little house on the battlefield.

The snitch storm slammed into the barrier with a flurry of thack-thack sounds, the demented flock as a unified body of hatred and—what Swishy hated to admit—power. But their vicious pecking and talon-scrapping and eating failed to penetrate Swishy's continuously building shield.

The boy grasped for as much straw as he could get. A finite amount, but enough to survive this situation—he had no doubt of this.

Within his bubble, Swishy began to heal by grabbing the inner walls with his hands and augmenting the straw, absorbing it into himself. He grew in size, a baby turned toddler, a toddler turned grade-schooler, and then evolving into original his four-and-a-half-foot tall scarecrow form.

A breather, that's what he needed. But Swishy soul-sensed the tomfoolery again: the birds continued their attack, keeping the pressure going on the shield, while others were clearing the area of hay bales and food kiosks and light-pots and other large, easily usable groupings of straw. They were starving Swishy of fuel, maintaining their initial plot of death by degrees.

Still, a breather was a breather, for which Swishy was grateful. He shrank his ghostly eyes to beads, shutting himself to the chaos.

Gold thoughts, a golden cure.

And within his heart, the gold-straw began to brew.