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Heart of Straw
Chapter 68 | “BIRDCAGE”

Chapter 68 | “BIRDCAGE”

All around, the wrathravens deconstructed into phantom demons.

They became gas; they became air; they boastfully became life itself.

Swishy knew that they were thinking this in earnest. The nebulous forms laughed every time he looked too hard at them. They constructed a mocking fog, a domineering one.

Within the miasma of darkness the entities crafted, there were the vague shapes of feathers and claws and beaks. Their physical forms were in there somewhere, a tornado of bird-shaped murder that thickened between the clouds, the trees, and even the ground itself. When at first the boy was able to see well enough in front of him, he couldn’t even detect the bushes he knew were off to the side.

The boy stared at his feet and could barely make out the Timberland logo on the tongue of his boots, the silhouette of a T-posing tree. But he knew the world was there. The world was close enough for him to reach. He grasped blindly at the dark and pulled what he caught up to his eyes, a leaf he’d captured and crushed. Cearth hadn’t gone anywhere—it was right where it always was. But the wrathravens were closer. Swishy caught intermittent glimpses of the world, just enough to feel jailed. They hadn’t been caught yet but they were surrounded by bars of shadow.

The snitchtalons were flying for their lives—and Swishy stood upon their backs, watching them do it.

It was a fun perspective for Swishy who was usually the runner—and technically he was—but he hoped that the bird fear added empathy and perspective to his future endeavors.

“See, why would you do that to me? Chase me around and all that? Now look at you!”

You mean look at us? You’re in the situation too.

“But I can fight.”

Then fight!

“I’ll get to it, I’ll get to it. There’s a lot of them, you know.”

We know. Trust us. Nobody knows better.

“How many, like exactly.”

You don’t want that number.

“If you can’t count just say so.”

But the snitches were done talking. They strained their necks forward, piercing the dark, their feathers spiking in alarm at the sudden bricks of curses that obstructed their paths. The wrathravens were creating obstacles now. A net of feathered blades spread before them.

The birds twisted their bodies with action-movie precision, dodging the guillotine traps, while Swishy allowed himself to be cut to ribbons. Near the diced parts of himself he concentrated the pieces of his soul, blocking the ingress of cursed elements as he healed. One [Scarecrow] spell and he was fully reconstructing onto the backs of the birds.

There were a few more feather traps through which the snitches piloting like they’d never piloted before—while Swishy went through the ensuing phases of becoming minced and then whole again.

The boy’s head was always the last thing that returned to his body, flying loosely around the general area of his neck, a vine of soul tethering his gourd. During his beheaded state, Swishy used the flexibility afforded by his soul tendons of a neck to study his surroundings.

But it proved difficult as the attacks came straight for his face, aiming for his ghostly eyes. Sudden claws were the culprit. The wrathravens swiped and reached at him. While some strikes were meant to damage his gourd, others intended to grab his entire head, making sure he’d never return to his straw body.

Mine! The wrathravens called, attracted to the glowing soul inside of the jack-o-lantern.

The scarecrow weaved around several pairs of hands, a panicked pumpkin desperate escaping the claws. He didn’t want to know what it’d be like for his gourd to be eaten—or worse yet, dipped in corruption like a candied apple. Nobody had overtly threatened that but the presence of the wrathraven claws fed him that vision. The beasts were incapable of lying. Even when they weren’t speaking, they revealed their intentions with horrifying clarity. Just like it were impossible to lie to the shadows, these dark beasts revealed their honest selves at all times, especially in their most covetous moments.

After surviving the onslaught, Swishy fused his head back to his body again. The reconnection to his body doused him in relief—before he quivered from the terrifying outcome he’d avoided.

“Close call…” he said to himself—though his snitchtalont taxis had their I-told-you-so response at the ready.

Everything’s a close call around here, you idiot.

Swishy had no back-talk for that one. When the snitches were right, they were right.

For now, though, Swishy surveyed the domain and noticed something important. He saw the walls of the portal realm, the darkness becoming foggy at the boundary, the ‘wall’. There was enough transparency that he could see through to the outside world. The wishwillows in the woods and the sky helped his vision, a natural enemy to the that asserted the black barrier’s existence. The territory possessed the same scale and relative geography as the outside world. The trees, the brush, and even the unique patterns of cloud were the same. This wrathraven nest happened to exist atop the preexisting Cearth as a layered dimension.

It was a good discovery, a promising start. He thought about the E-squat and felt irritation—but also calm. Making it through was possible, this he knew.

A fresh round of SHRRAWWKK! Louder, closer, and in every direction.

Aided by the guiding light he’d made through pollination, he was inspired to add to that sum. He created straw sprites in his hands. And a few more on his shoulders. They glowed and glowed, and their light caught against the peripherals of the flock.

“Take these,” Swishy said. “And I swear if you eat them I’ll find you.”

You want us to split up?

“Yes, go as far as you can go. Leave these at every edge you find, light this place up.”

The wrathravens will follow us. We’ll be golden bait!

“You’re bait now.” Swishy made another straw sprite atop his head, a larger one, a bust of himself that he stoked with gold.

Wrathraven shrieks sent tunneling blasts of darkness at them—which the birds dodged.

Shaken by the close call, the birds took the Swish-idols and split up, flying low, hoping to skate under the cover of everytrees that populated the realm. The scarecrow was annoyed by the whining flock but wanted just as much for the birds to find their way.

Nobody deserved to suffer here. Swishy hoped to continue to think this as his mission progressed.

But the wrathravens were upon him. Swishy felt their monstrous presence flying over his body. As he’d experienced before, the shadows cast by the beasts created a tangible burden. It was hard to keep a firm hold of his rake or to keep his shoulders up. He lowered his stance, bending his knees, shifting his weight upon his hips. Placing the rake to his side, he swung rapidly, releasing a [Swish Cyclone], the first of his gold-rake techniques.

In a 360-degree radius, a light pillar spread around his body, at least five Swishy’s of length away. Immediately, the shadows were pushed away, warded by the lingering light particles. The dots of gold were vanishing quickly, dying out in clusters, and he had to lower his body again, repeating the Swish Cyclone.

It didn’t stop the wrathravens—only attracted them—but the gravity of their shadows had noticeably relented. The double-edged sword was this: more light meant more curse protection from any wrathraven attacks, particularly their black blade projectile—but it also meant more wrathravens, more detection.

The boy was worried. But his senses were sharpened. He was ready for anything that was to come.

And it was coming.

Letters were brewing up above. The DOMINATION of the atmosphere was itemizing into its lowercase components, the conceptual and conditions through which domination was possible. Within the done main hex were dozens of smaller ones, harmful shadow shivs that were directed at Swishy. These words weren’t the usual weapons of war either. Swishy was immune to most blunt force. The D-O-M-I-N-A-T-I-O-N letters released scarecrow-specific harms. Burn and flame and rot weaved around the woods. Despair and entrapment and solitude were spinning along the insides of the hollows, like tongues licking the sides of their mouths. Acid was another. Consumption had its own flock in the skies above, never letting Swishy out of its general surveillance.

The attacks didn’t yet come. They gathered. They bobbed in the air, having a party of sorts. The words watched the boy squirm, seeing if his negativity would leak out and add to their power. The wrathravens hadn’t changed their strategies, especially not in their territory. Waiting was the smart thing to do. Here, a scarecrow collapse did seem like a matter of time. They’d decided this and were convinced that they were right.

Swishy knew this was so. And for the moment he was alone in this challenge. There were no birds to carry him. Only his hands to fight with and his Timbs to run the heck away.

He took the first step and his foot knocked against something hard.

There was a second step, and that also created a metallic sound.

Shackles? Chains? What is all this?

Metal clangs rose from all around him. The sounds he’d encountered in the realm normally came from the skies, from the wrathravens themselves, from the shimmering and terrifying weather. But the floor had something to say to him too, a voice that was not the wrathravens yet was a result of their powers.

Why is there metal? What is all that…shaking?

Everything quivered; everything rang; everything jangled. Swishy became more sensitive to curved bars, to dome shapes that were like the bird nests carried by the trees. The bars were spaced apart evenly while converging toward a singular peak.

Bird cages. Black ones. And all of them shook.

The captured souls inside were invisible, suppressed by the wrathravens’ dark influence. It was well known that the beasts carried souls in their feathers, their bodies, their attacks. But for the first time he’d found that they stored their meals, their victims. The bird cages struck him as a junkyard of refrigerators—though he had a feeling that their purpose went beyond simple food storage. Even now, vapors floated from the hundreds of cages, rising into the air. The emotional turmoil fed the realm’s DOMINATION intent.

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Now the atmosphere was more sorrow than gold, more eclipse than soul-hugging warmth.

The light was close. It was always close. And the glorious rays were always walled beyond the worst terror he’d yet encountered. All that shined must be earned.

How unfair, Swishy lamented.

The birdcages began to cry. They jutted from the ground at grotesque angles. Some of the bars were bent inward. Others were squashed. A visible rust grew by the second upon the most tremulous of the cages. While the skies were glorious in all ways, the wrathravens had no purpose for the surface, and he used it for their personal graveyard, their dungeon of stored prey.

Like the woods, Swishy resolved to cleanse this hell nest too.

He reached out toward a birdcage and picked it up. It was small. The confines were squeezed even for the standards of a hummingbird or canary, and certainly too cramped for the soul he saw inside. The human soul. And that’s what made him question whether the person was in there by choice. The city’s ambition tended to put people in these situations, trading personhood for power. Becoming greater was their most specific and vaguest wish all in one.

The straw god leaned his gourd toward the cage and listened. “Speak friend, do you want to me free you? Will it hurt you if I open the cage?”

I AM THE CAGE, YOU BITCH. PUT ME DOWN. I’LL MISS MY TURN!

“Turn?”

The cage spirit said nothing more. It instead rattled violently, a riot in Swishy’s hands—causing him to drop it. The birdcage rolled along the ground and when it settled an aura of P-A-T-I-E-N-C-E slid along the rusted bars.

Swishy stared at the massive cemetery of cages, wondering where to find his friend, where to find the terrifying Bristles, and—perhaps most importantly to him right now—where to find spirits that were worthy of saving. Surely someone in this God-forsaken realm desired a savior. Beautiful environments were a dime a dozen, enough to fill stacks upon stacks of postcards. Beautiful people were another story, gems that the Cearth was sorely lacking.

The scarecrow lit the ends of his rake and hoisted it, a divine torch clutched in his uncertain hand. The majority of the cages ignored him—or were too scared to reach out. But there were tiny rattles in the distance and even teenier cries.

My turn…it isn’t here yet…

Again with the turns. The boy was miffed, nervous, and mystified. Still, that sounded like a call for help—close enough at least. “Fine,” Swishy eyerolled, “The Savior is coming.”

(…)

Swishy ran across the woods, shutting his soul to the birdcages, concentrating on happy thoughts. The boy thought about jumping into a pile of leaves. He imagined climbing upon the lower branches of a wishwillow and then stage-diving into a gold-wheat hay bale. He did everything he could to keep his mind off the lamentable birdcage souls so he could stoke the gold into his rake.

The wrathravens attacked him occasionally, reaching out with a claw toward his ankles. Or appearing as black vines that grabbed for his legs, his arms, his waist. They were less about destruction and more about restriction, containment, and just simple menacing. All their attacks carried laughs inside them. And snide remarks as well. Watch this! Think fast! Don’t trip! Look out for the pitfall!

There was no pitfall, of course.

Until there was.

A gaping black chasm spread from a dark kernel underneath Swishy and then traveled outward as a dense intent of CORRUPTION ate the ground.

Swishy responded with a [Wing Jump], something that his curses were in awe of, staring longingly into the wrathraven’s bottomless trap. The scarecrow felt his dark souls clench. His inner darkness wanted him to fall into the abyss. His cursed tenants wanted to see what was down there. They hardened, turning into inconvenient weights. The curses gathered in his joints and between the folds of Wingy’s blackness. Fall, fall, they cried. Down, go down! Go for the good stuff!

He ignored them. He disregarded them. He kept his focus on happy thoughts—on memories of flying as a Goldie, holding that feeling while in reality he flapped his dark wing across the sudden gulf.

As Swishy was on the verge of landing across the gap, the other part of the trap came into effect. Right where he was about to land, several portals opened which then produced wrathraven heads, deconstructed. It was an amalgam of eyes and beaks and teeth, an absolute blender to incapacitate the straw boy wonder.

He gripped the red and fed his energy into it. It was a good trap but the skies were his home. He couldn’t be pinned down with such basic tactics anymore. Hadn’t they learned from his last brushes with the wrathravens?

“GOLDEN SCARECROW RETURNS TO HELL!”

If he was going to fight with gold, he’d make it count. No Goldies this time, just violence.

With his double-handed grip, he thrusted the rake toward the waiting mouths of the wrathravens. His energy pulled from his heart all through the length of his arms, feeding into the weapon. The rake handle grew from the boy’s contribution like a plant stalk, and from there the prongs extended as vines. The teeth wobbled, a shimmering distortion from the blinding gold, stalking their targets, their choice of wrathraven before plunging into their heads.

The heads were bleached away, the eyes dying last in savage glares. Swishy was sure that he didn’t get them all, that some of them had returned to the shadows before the attack landed.

The rake prongs stuck into the ground and then retracted, drawing the handle and Swishy with it toward a safe landing.

Everything was suddenly gold, the land bleached by his attack. He didn’t feel weak this time. He took a moment to find the strength within. The straw-bound outside were feeding him prayers. Their ethereal birds remained active inside him, connected through the catalyst of their Swish-straw charms. Every time he needed to mine joy from himself, his heart-held gold-straw thickened. The brightest of his wheat grew and grew, such was the power of his telepathic harvest.

“I can do this,” Swishy told himself, holding his rake close.

Gold sprouts grew from the ground, roots that gripped the nearest birdcages and raised them. The spirits protested, moaning and groaning and berating the plant life.

Put us down!

We don’t want this!

If the wrathravens reject us, it’ll be your fault!

Please, stop! You’re ruining everything!

This is an audition! Interference makes it meaningless!

Haven’t you heard of hibernation?

Swishy kept going. The gold way was the right way. He knew because the rust on the cages was receding. Even as the spirits complained, their tones of voice became more gentle. With the softest cadence, they managed to curse him out, but at least they did it with kind voices.

Still, the complainers weren’t who he was trying to save. Up ahead he encountered more darkness, more cages, more lamentable outcries that were beckoning his luminous salvation.

The shadows cut over his body—he didn’t have to look upward to know that the wrathravens were upon him. At least he knew the Goldie-wielding birds were safe. Swishy’s attack forced a lustrous gold zone into bloom. There was no greater wrathraven bait than the shimmering meadow he stood upon.

A golden rose sprouted by his soil-encrusted Timb, nudging him. Pretty—but no help for his cause. Still, he picked it and placed it in his parka, a good luck charm of his own making.

Then a black and gold portal opened next to him, eliciting a flinch.

“Causing a scene like always, huh?” Trey jumped out of the portal, static dancing over his hands.

“I have to!” The boy hoisted his rake in celebration, casting his friend in enchanted stage light.

Another portal traveler emerged as well: Bristles. He was somehow double his original height. Six wings, one obscenely large claw, and the blackest aura bubbling around his torso and legs. Swishy had mild relief from Trey’s release from Bristles’ energy, the transport orb over his wings—but there were dozens of birdcages floating in his presence. The man got a mixed reaction, too, but on the whole the spirits were hyping him up.

Bristles floated the cages before his face, narrowing his eyes at the souls inside. He tapped the bars with his fingertips. He shook them a little bit—which made the spirits go fuzzy like screen static. “Why dost thou applaud me? Don’t you cagelings realize that I am here to eat you?”

As long as we can become you!

“That is how wrathravens function, biologically speaking. One wanteth this?”

Swishy didn’t have to hear the answer. He knew that they did. A part of him waited for the disappointment to bum him out. But he came to terms with this better than he expected. The chasm inside knotted up. The curses within Wingy solidified to attention. Swishy had his personal batch of dark dwellers to carry. Constantly living with the background din of take-us-to-hell-immerse-us-in-shadow toughened his psyche from the folly of man. He didn't expect them to want what was right for them—only to want whatever they happened to fancy at the time.

In this case: the power of darkness. The freedom of wrathravens. Swishy spoke enough to his curse tenants to know why this was attractive.

We are all things, Swishy reminded himself. Some more than others. Dark more than light…and dumb more than smart.

Yes, we want this! The cages screamed—at least the ones in Bristles’ orbit—while the others on the ground or at the very edge of his aura angled themselves away, cowering, jittering.

Perhaps there was more than one way to be saved. Or at least everyone wanted to be saved differently. Who knew that people were picky about how they received help? Swishy did now.

Swishy walked up to the scared cages—who flinched away from his presence—but he gently brushed the gold rake against the bars, soothing it as best he could. The prongs were hard and capable of violence but his gold was magic, his intentions pure. As he stroked what he imagined were the cheeks of the birdcages, he channeled Sling, her gestures, her energy. The boy was always receiving nurture and now he’d give it. Soft, soft, he told himself, Go gentle.

The N-U-R-T-U-R-E letters flowed through each of the rake tines while the remaining prongs simply had heart shapes bubbling down the length. Black corrosion fell from the bars in chips and flakes. The fog within the cages started to clear, revealing the blue souls inside.

What are they doing? The cages in Bristles’ orbit said. Why would they give up on their potential? Way to give up on yourselves you losers!

But the cages in Swishy’s warmth ignored their dark detractors. Their spirits formed satisfied faces, easing into the coziness.

“What’s going on here?” Trey asked. “I see we have two sides here.”

“I think the wrathravens are going to reward them,” Swishy said.

“I don’t even want to know what that reward is…”

“Thou art ignorant as always…I am strong. I am the best. They want to be me. They want to be them…” Bristles cackled with his many-fanged mouth. His aura swelled and thickened around the edges of his wings, his claw. Even his eyes leaked a dark smoke. Meanwhile, the floating cages earned more corruption, more rust—their proud battle scars. “We all must progress. We all must transform.”

Agreed…said the wrathravens, a winged eclipse bearing downward. They formed a black wall. There were no gaps between them. All the golden clouds and stars belonged to them and them alone. And that same possessiveness was applied to those on the surface, all the frightened and celebrating birdcages.

The wrathravens spoke as one, linked through their hunting proclivities. Transformation is the hope. The only hope. Transform or assimilate into us. You could even say it’s a choice. An UlTiMaTuM if you will…

The ultimatum word warbled with ancient magic. The creatures’ main spell had made a reappearance. Swishy wondered what the next rock-and-a-hard-place would be. He retracted his rake from the birdcage and held it in a weapon’s grip, ready for anything. Meanwhile, the birdcages he’d healed started to crack with spots of corruption. They shrank again into the ground, burying themselves slightly, attempting to hide. Other cages enlarged, rattling in their soil, pulling themselves from their confines.

Choose me!

No. Pick me!

It’s my turn!

Please, wrath gods, I deserve it most!

Loud jangles ripped the air apart. Swishy felt as if he were inside of a wind chime. A sickly purple aura oozed from the birdcages as they broke from the ground and levitated. The jailed souls swelled, pushing against the bars, bending and curving their confines from the pressure. And the cages were forced to grow with the spirits, urged to expand from the tenacity and corruption.

“Are they your cousins or something? They’re definitely your cousins.” Trey grinned at Bristles but his soul quivered. He was being completely serious—not about the cousin thing, but about how similar to Bristles most of the birdcages were. The auras, the vehemence, the surging power.

“No, these are no kin of mine. They’re far from it. They’re humans. Driven as any person one would find in Straw City.”

No! We’re wrathravens! We’re going to be wrathravens! Manifesting is the first step! Seeing it, believing it, and then transforming!

“An audition,” Trey trembled. “They’re auditioning to become one of them.”

Who better to become? It’s time for selection.

The eclipse pressed downward. The crushed upon Swishy had doubled, then tripled. The straw in his knees buckled and softened. He watched Trey struggle as well, his posture appearing bent and tired. Only Bristles stood proud and tall like a totem, a chimera with wings and a claw, an evil god.

[ULTIMATUM]…the wrathravens—and Bristles—said.

“I don’t even want to hear this!” Trey threw up his arms, static emitting from them both. He was exasperated but fight-ready.

“I don’t either,” Swishy tiredly swished.

“No, no, let us hear them. What choice will the flock giveth these plebeians now?” Bristles raised his arms, his wings, his cages. He reveled in the madness though that same madness was turned upon him. Swishy wasn’t sure if the flock accepted him either. He hoped not. He really, really hoped not.

Laughter came from every side, low and slow. The cadence pulsed through the air, forming claws of their own. It tapped on Swishy’s shoulder. It rubbed the side of his head and condescendingly patted him.

Swishy averted his gourd and then side-eyed the creeping darkness.

We’re ready! The cages sang.

Of course you are. For we are your masters. Now listen well and answer with heart…US OR THEM?