US OR THEM? The question blared within Swishy’s head.
It was the season of choices. The season of if-someone-shows-you-who-they-are-believe-them. The hive of activity around Swishy followed these themes. No deviations. Only madness.
He stared at Bristles, who’d spoken the [Ultimatum] technique himself. He was doing his own thing, clawing nearer to his desired transformation. Many birdcages danced around him. They jumped. They floated. They stretched portions of their souls through the metal bars and phased into Bristles’ body. Some even went into his eyes, his mouth, his ears. The souls took any route for ingress into the wrathraven. Even when Bristles wasn’t a beast, his physique was impressive. Darkness would always love him. Darkness had chosen Bristles from the start.
It was the aftermath that Swishy worried about. What was next for Bristles? Would his next—definitely violent—actions help or hurt them? Did he need a straw god anymore? Would he fight and then farm Swishy?
The boy shook those thoughts away and focused on himself. The [Ultimatum] was upon him as well, bearing down with its woeful effects.
Due to the wrathraven’s spell, Swishy’s psyche was under attack. The boy kept his mentality together well enough but the chasm within him rejected his be-good-do-good compulsions. His blackwheat stirred in pockets around his body while his dark feathers ruffled from temptation. Swishy’s cursed tenants were considering the wrathravens’ offer in earnest, enamored by their personal dreams of what progress and ascension held in store for them. At a baseline, a semi-comfortable and sometimes outright pleasurable status quo, Swishy acted as a leader to the entities within. All autonomy and decision-making were left to the final say of Swishy. He drove their futures. This worked out mostly. But the U-L-T-I-M-A-T-U-M danced and warbled, a siren call that teased the idea of driving their lives.
The boy was a proponent of autonomy—but it was hard to allow the curses to run free, to do as they wished with his body. And that’s exactly what the awakened dark dwellers were doing now. Their competing interests caused a division within the weaves and splits of his straw.
There was debate; there was outcry; there was discord. And there were tremors. Riotous, riotous tremors.
Swishy wanted to hug himself but showing weakness was folly in this moment. Dark smoke ebbed from his body, vapors that he kept within the boundary of his aura. Releasing that negative energy meant a feast for the wrathravens, a harder fight ahead. He stood firm. He remembered his flashcards. ENDURE was a word that Trey hadn’t had to teach him. He’d been through so much and he’d overcome the scourge of himself once more. The word seeped through him, then braced over the aching parts of his soul.
US and THEM bubbled outward, claiming space and attention and weight. The pressure was both mental and physical. Swishy felt like he couldn’t move a muscle unless he made a decision.
Meanwhile the birdcages in the ground rattled and rattled and rattled. Their souls wrapped around the bars in tendrils and shook their pitiful homes. Let us out! They screamed. Let us grow!
The souls grew larger—and so too did the birdcages. Something had to give. Something would. And Swishy loathed to see it.
The wrathravens made things worse, of course. Swishy’s unrelenting enemies had a way with words. They spoke from the murky skies like rulers. Gods.
You’re your own darkness, the wrathravens echoed, a stacking reverberation from the sky that mimicked the pattern of obsessive thoughts, of niggling notions one couldn’t quite release. There was no place stickier than the mind, this the wrathravens knew, and so their layered voices functioned as a mass hypnosis to their captive audience. Your own darkness must be explored. Glide through yourselves. See where the exploration of your ambitions take you. Know no limit. Become what YOU want. Do you really want to follow a scarecrow? Be the main character. Embrace the true possibilities of the life on Cearth. Are you really living? Can you all, with confidence, say that you are your best and truest selves?
The shifting straw disturbed Swishy more than he wanted it to. He, the so-called main character, the shot caller of his life, walked into this situation prepared for outright war rather than a vote-off. It was the blackwheat in particular that surfaced beyond the normal straw, snaking to and fro, changing positions, restless as ever.
Some of the entities were content with the current state of Swishy while the others screamed for him to take the plunge, to transform from a shadowclaw soul into a wrathraven. US wasn’t enough for the majority of his curses. THEM was the path they’d decided upon, to become them, to join them.
Darkness was too attractive. Only a dark dweller knew how that felt. Once one had lived in the altar, there was no greater peace. Every nest paled in comparison to the cozy abyss of the shadowdeep.
“Are you guys really going to make me come in there?” Swishy said to himself, swishing vehemently at his chest.
Trey gave him an are-you-crazy look. His forehead was glossy with sweat but he remained in well enough shape to spare Swishy a judging look. He knew Swishy’s situation but that didn’t make the scarecrow appear any less silly.
The cursed congregation of Swishy’s straw nullified all embarrassment, though. They were loud. They were tumultuous. And the [Ultimatum] brought them on the verge of staging a coup, a scarecrow hi-jacking.
“Fine, I’m coming in there, ugh.”
Swishy focused on his heart, its shape, its precious collection of joy, and pushed a gold-straw thread out from its surface, weaving it into a Goldie. Then he sneakily devoted half of his consciousness to the Swish-mini. He floated in his ribcage, a molecule in a vessel of brown, of occasional shocks of gold, and of more shadow and blackwheat than he knew how to handle. “Keep it down! Just let me do my thing! You know I’m strong. I’m a good leader.”
Are you, though? The cavern of curses said, crawling around the stalactites, strange eyes peeking from the hollows.
“Yes, I am. Wrathravens don’t even make anything. What have you seen them craft?”
There was silence, thought, and murmurs amongst the weave-bound population.
“See? Trust in me. You’ll see.” Swishy offered a self-satisfied smile at the little rhyme.
Death.
“What was that?”
They craft death. They craft domination. Only the strong can craft these things. They craft birdcages too!
Clouds! It’s a dark sky. It’s incredible up there. When we join THEM then we can just float like aerial marshmallows while we watch everything else die.
Oh, that’s the good stuff!
And they craft themselves! See how large they are? Wings, feathers, claws. They’re craftsmen. The murderous kind. The run-this-realm kind.
“I’ll run things different. Like that gold sky above!”
Or we can have it now. By joining THEM. Your promises are later. There’s are now.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
But they weren’t kidding. The dark dwellers inside were drowning him out, re-finding their voices. And then a wind blew all around the Swish-mini, twisting him around like a tassel. He knew that dark force, the source of the virulent spin-spin-spinning. His chasm had found its boldness. Those dark dwellers knew that a wrathraven evolution was upon them. Pre-celebratory euphoria riled the abyss.
Go in there! Take the plunge! There’s so much possible if we became a wrathraven! Go on, Swishy, we know that you want to fly. You only have one wing now but can you imagine six? First, that’s an even number, balanced flight. Second, you’ll go fast. You’ll go high. You could even go to space! Take us there, young god, side with THEM, become THEM.
His straw trembled from the outcries. This was something that happened every so often but it never occurred to the extent that his limbs were moving on their own.
“I accept you guys, I see what you’re saying, but I’m the boss. You don’t know the right thing but I do.”
How can you tell us what’s right for us?
“That’s just the boss’s job—the boss of this body. My body. Now keep it down!”
The boy gathered energy and drew gold out of the surfaces of his main body’s ribcage toward the Swish-mini. The bright weaves came from above, below, and the sides, creating a radial of rays. Light glimmered like a torch at first, then a flare, a tiny sun—too bright for the dark dwellers to comfortably withstand.
“[Flash],” Swishy said.
There weren’t comments anymore, only passive groans as the shadows dispersed.
He wondered if he could recreate that on the outside but knew he didn’t have enough straw for it. Yet at least. But he filed this simple maneuver away for later use.
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Then he released the Swish-mini, taking that part of his consciousness back into the main body. He felt the released straw coiled back into his limbs, emitting a brief warmth on his soul.
“There,” Swishy said, nodding to Trey.
“I don’t know what you did, but you’re looking less dark. The purity looks good on you!”
“Thanks! Now to keep it that way…”
Both boys gazed at the looming [Ultimatum], trembling from the crush of its descent.
US or THEM? Wrathraven or wrath-not. The two choices loomed over their heads in billboard-sized letters, drawing in a draft of darkness from the birdcages. It fed off everyone’s anxiety. They waited to see what they’d become or if they’d remain as jailed souls rotting in the night.
There was desperation in their corrosion. They didn’t know how much longer they could stand to remain in this state. And their urgency seemed to intensify the corruption. Shadows were an engine in many ways, especially in that shadows tended to create more of themselves by instilling dark thoughts in others.
Well? The legion of wrathravens said. The cloudiness above moved with maw-like qualities.
“Them!” Trey called. “I’m choosing them, as in me and Swishy and non-wrathravens, obviously. I don’t want any parts of ya’ll. So will these shadows clear up a little bit? I’m trying to see that gold sky ya’ll are hoarding up there.”
The wrathravens almost choked on their laughter. They weren’t the most elegant of creatures. These crass beasts were having a riot over the instant choice made by Trey.
Are you sure you don’t want to take that back? Normally we accept one’s choice right away but you have potential. With the tricks you know, you could unleash the greatest black lightning. You could become a dark soul, cursing everything you touch. And if you like pets, we’ll even give you your choice of birdcage.
“I have to be myself, and myself is a human.”
Oh well, potential is wasted every day. But you won’t be dying here. The matter of your termination will be for us to decide.
“I disrespectfully disagree.”
You’re entitled to your opinion just as we are entitled to YOU. The birdcages are one-size fits many. It would be simple to welcome you to the farm. Surely, you don’t think that we can let your gold powers go to waste. You see, we wrathravens are anything but wasteful. We eat and use everything. Souls and all.
“Do you see that?” Trey said to Swishy, no longer paying the wrathravens any attention. The Clayborne pointed above him at the location of the words. “The US disappeared. Is that the same for you?”
“You know it. With all those wings, how can you T-pose?”
"Good point."
"The best point, Trey."
Trey patted Swishy's shoulder.
The scarecrow locked his decision in. His gaze was imbued with determination. His demeanor made his choice obvious. US was what he’d picked from the start. He reached toward the word and grasped at it. When he closed his little hand around the vapors, the word disappeared, either vanishing into the ether or draining into his skin.
THEM has another loser. You lot are full of valiant ones, aren’t you?
The scarecrow’s curses had returned to clamoring and complaining and making a racket out of their leader’s conservative approach to the shadows—but as opinions and not a bodily coup. At least Wingy relaxed. While the feathers contained dark dwellers that had wrathraven fantasies, the majority of the wing had come from consuming those beasts. These curses, in a rare act of forethought and self-preservation, didn’t want to return to those days.
A modest intent slid from the surface of the wing and then burrowed comfortably beneath the feathers. RELIEF. And squirreled away beneath ‘relief’ was the real culprit to the dark wing’s alignment with Swishy: TRAUMA. But not in any serious way. It was contained, controlled, not close to the point causing blackwheat production. Whenever Swishy's gaze landed on a trembling birdcage, Wingy unconsciously fluttered. The wrathraven magic was a trigger. Swishy nodded his head at his wing and the wing fluttered back in acknowledgment.
“It’s a soul farm…” Swishy said.
“You mean the wrathravens are getting power from their captives?”
“It’s what they want to do to me. They’re keeping them alive and hopeful, only to take their hope, to make them wait. Every second they wait is a ton more despair for them to grow from.”
“I can see that happening, yeah…look how happy Bristles is. I don’t think he’s with US anymore.”
“I don’t think he ever was.”
“True, wrathravens are with themselves most…”
The boys stared at the wildcard party member, their souls spiking in anxiety.
The birdcages in the Bristles’ orbit were rattling and spinning faster than ever. The bars lengthened and stretched the peak of the cage. Even with a lack of a body, the confined souls were expressing a euphoria that matched Bristles’ ramped-up mood. The scarecrow mentally prepared for a betrayal. Though how much of a betrayal could it really be if Bristles only told them the truth about himself?
The man-bird became obscured by the swirling metal. He held his hands up like a villain with a god-complex. And the god-complex of Nevermore floated over his back, that dark genie, using the same pose.
As the moments passed, the human parts of Bristles were subsumed by the shadows. The caged souls had wrapped themselves around his one massive claw, his six wings, and now they’d bound his face and eyes. So little of him was human anymore—though that’s not how he ever conceived of himself in the first place. Swishy was almost happy for him, but he was too terrified for himself to express it.
As Bristles reveled in the glory of his returning beasthood, Swishy thought about his small returns to flight, the discovery of wing-jumping and Goldie creation. He could relate to the joy—kind of. Nothing was better than become what you wanted. It just worked out better for some than for others.
The act of transition was the most important factor to the Straw City denizens. Everyone generally had hope that they’d have better lives.
But the specific compulsion of the citizens to cast aside their humanity was something that Swishy wouldn’t have even dreamed of. Even Swishy, who identified most as a dark dweller, didn’t innately believe that bodies were disposable. Vessels were precious. One-of-a-kind. Temples.
For a time, Swishy thought that his followers were the real crazies. They were the ones who’d surrendered their bodies after all. To him, the snitchtalons had stolen bird vessels out of necessity—they didn’t even possess bodies in the first place. Sugar wraiths were the start and end of their futures. He never considered that the snitchtalons and their existence made any kind of sense to him, but they did.
They were just jerks.
Still, Swishy looked around the realm for the snitches he’d given his lantern-light straw sprites to. But the woods were so vast and the darkness so thick that he couldn’t detect them. He hoped they were okay. Everyone was just trying to make their way. The scarecrow was willing to think graciously of his former enemies in the face of the wrathravens.
The wrathravens came from the sky and were visible with their full bodies for the first time. Some were the largest wrathravens that Swishy had ever seen. Others were small—even smaller than Sling’s reborn wrathraven chicks. These creatures were surprisingly diverse in their physical forms but the amount of shadow that they carried was immense. Size didn’t matter when it came to them. Their malice still overflowed from them as if they all had their spiritual big brothers watching over them. A flock of wrathravens was one matter. But they’d all carried with them their version of Bristles’ [Nevermore] upon their shoulders.
Winged demons also had something of a guardian looking out for them, a guardian angel-spirit-demon of sorts. Nobody went through this world alone…everyone refused to. The rattling birdcages told him so.
“Is this why we haven’t seen any humans around here? Is everyone in The High Chasm trying to transform?”
Who isn’t trying to change? To grow? But we suppose we can tell you this: we like to hunt. Nobody wants to be hunted, to be taken. And the moment when they’re within our grasps, when they’re reduced to caged subservience…Ah! So delicious. Their sorrow is the true ingredient of our ambrosia! Feed us, everyone! [Wring] yourselves for us.
WRING appeared in the sky, its aura flaming downward onto the litter of cages.
And the cages squeezed and squeezed. The souls grunted and bulged between the suddenly collapsed bars. But the wringing wasn’t yet complete as bars then twisted, the metal behaving as no metal at all. There was no give. It squeezed like a rag. And the souls inside had gone rung from the birdcage in a fatigued goop.
Each spirit melted over the bars and crawled along the ground, a sudden outpouring of anonymous slugs. And if that weren’t bad enough, the spirits shrunk. The humanity in them, the blueness of the souls, was getting tinged with corruption. It wasn’t the effect of any wrathraven spell that reduced the spirits but a side effect of spiritual depletion. Deprivation had set in like a rot.
A HUNGER emerged through the entire realm.
Everyone shrieked. The realm itself cried.
HUSH, the wrathravens commanded. And their intent skimmed over the surface like a low-flying beast, silencing the criers with a layer of death. None of the souls remained. The birdcages lay opened, crushed, and twisted into a field of pokers.
Are you sure you won’t join US? There’s no one left to save. There’s no farm left. You’d be fighting for nothing.
“There’s a farm,” Swishy told Trey. He didn’t confirm this himself but it was something he had to say. A fight without hope meant you already lost. “They’re hiding.”
Trey nodded and collected sparks in his hands.
Nothing hides from us. We’re saving them.
Swishy closed his eyes and tried to sense the hushed spirits. They were beneath a suppressing fog but now they were worthy of his salvation. Even if they had voices, even if they had the sense to ask for help, Swishy was compelled to drag them from the depths anyway.
“Are you trying to help them?” Bristles finally asked. The darkness clung to the human body as towering wings, flowing like flames. Huge feathers drifted around his head like a crown. Bristles had come out of his bliss for a moment to address his god and only his god. Trey waved at him but a knotted vein bulged from Bristles’ temple.
“I think you know the answer to that,” Trey said anyway, used to the stubbornness.
Bristles waited for the scarecrow. There was no attention like Swishy’s attention. Swishy took the initiative to speak to his devotee.
“I think they could be useful.” Swishy picked his words carefully. He knew he could get away with murder—so to speak—with Bristles, but he knew the tact he needed to take to appeal to his natural evil. His curses laughed and fed him dialogue. Call them henchmen. Say they’ll be good servants. “I need all the fertilizer I can get.”
Bristles laughed in the classic antagonist way. Something about harming the weak enlivened him. The weak didn’t so much give him meaning—but it meant so much to his pleasure senses to have the ability of domination. Nothing tasted quite like winning. After all the conflicts Swishy had just gone through, his bouts of gloating, he understood Bristles a little better.
Just in Swishy’s world, he wouldn’t have to fight at all.
He couldn’t wait to retire his rake. Or rather, to use his rake to collect his leaves and that’s about it. The vision tasted so good to him at that moment. His weapon glowed. The wrathravens adjusted their paths toward the boy. They were unable to resist leaning in and getting pulled.
But his light wasn’t for them, not the way they were now. He conceived of a straw maneuver to protect the drain victims.
“So long, my liege. I must meet my flock now. It’s time we reacquaint ourselves.”
“Good luck!” Swishy wasn’t sure why he said that. He was halfway convinced that Bristles was going to make a most inconvenient choice for the crew. After all, he never did right for the weak. That was something for the scarecrows—not the monstrous crows.
But there was hope. The scarecrow was cautiously optimistic.
Crunch! Crackle!
Even amid the compressed birdcages. The screams of wrung-out souls were a torture to the boys but a serenade to Bristles.
“I humbly accept thy grace, Lord Swishy. Blesseth be those that TAKE the fruit!” Bristles squeezed his claw into a fist. He flashed a hellion smile before shooting upward like cannon fire.
The air parted in ironic halos.
“May we survive,” Trey said to Swishy while clasping his hands in prayer.
The scarecrow copied the gesture.
There was no [Zzt]. No flowing aura.
Just two boys, united, making a simple ask to the universe.
And all around the birdcages continued to scream.