No matter which way David looked at it, it was his bedroom. The PC even had the stickers he’d put on it, though faded and peeling almost beyond recognition. His sneakers were still on the floor exactly where he’d kicked them off, the piles of random junk everyone seemed to end up with exactly where he’d left them. It was just…abandoned. David was certain nobody had been in here for a long, long time. An entire ecosystem of plants and mushrooms infested the room that even his terrible cleanliness would have never accounted for. On top of that, the door to his room was blocked from the other side, and he was trapped.

“Okay, so, gotta get outta here somehow.” David squeaked to himself in irritation after fruitlessly digging at the door for several minutes. His claws had made short work of the rotten wood of the door, much to his surprise, but he found only an immovable pile of rubble on the other side.

With a hiss of irritation, he turned away from the door and began to examine the remains of his old bedroom with a critical eye. Other than the fragments of eggshell on the floor and the claw marks pointing towards a large dent where he had flown into the drywall in panic, the room was largely unchanged. He bounced onto his bed and wrinkled his nose in disgust as an unpleasant mildew smell wafted up to reward him for his effort. With dainty distasteful steps, David quickly minced over to the window that he had always largely ignored in favor of covering it with a large thick curtain. He eyed the filthy glass with disgust before carefully rubbing his exceptionally furry shoulder against it several times, attempting to make a clean spot to look through.

“Yeah…guess it makes sense the dirt is on the outsi…I CAN'T TAKE MYSELF SERIOUSLY I SOUND LIKE A GNOME ON HELIUM!” David’s enraged shriek quickly reached a pitch that ascended well beyond human hearing for a moment as the windowpane vibrated ominously in tandem with his outburst. He audibly clacked his jaws shut and went silent while he had a sudden epiphany alongside a tidal wave of chagrin.

David shuffled backward a few steps with difficulty and began to inhale, sucking in a massive breath of air until he began to feel like a furry balloon. He then aimed his face at the window, swiveled his ears back flat along his head, and screamed with all his might.

–Screech level up!–

–Gained 3xp–

He quickly discovered he needn’t have aimed at all, but it did the trick. Glass spiderwebbed with cracks for only a heartbeat before exploding out of its frame to disappear with a vaguely musical sound down the side of the tall building. Fresh air immediately swept into the room and David smelled…too many things. The smell of growth, death, dirt, and something he was pretty sure was cooling concrete crashed into his nose like a freight train flying into an explosion factory. He coughed violently before he began to sneeze, gagging soon after as the scents overwhelmed his new more powerful sense of smell. If his stomach hadn’t been empty, David was certain he’d have puked all over.

The fit went on for several minutes as David tried unsuccessfully not to breathe before he finally began to acclimate to the more powerful sense. Eyes watering, he climbed back onto the bed and peered out the window before his jaw dropped and he promptly sat, spending the next few minutes just looking out the hole in the wall. If he hadn’t lived in the city his entire life, he doubted he would have even recognized it. With a bit of a numb feeling he mentally adjusted his estimate of ‘nobody had been here in years’ to ‘nobody had been here in decades’ as he gazed blankly at the darkened view from his bedroom.

The city had been utterly reclaimed by nature, towering trees pushing up through both concrete and buildings alike. Huge sheets of ivy crawled up the sides of everything and choked out the smaller plant life on the ground, while enormous roots seemed to be the only thing crossing the road these days. The only lights he saw, no matter where he looked, were the stars in the sky. His eyes were huge as he looked straight up into the Milky Way in all its glory, so dense in the sky it almost looked unreal, and the rest of the cosmos twinkled back at him happily. David took a moment to feel appropriately small in comparison before a deep horn-like cry echoed through the air from well past his line of sight, continuing for almost a minute before it finally ended.

“Yep, nope. Not gonna be here when the Murdersaurus gets hungry. Okay so let's just…” He muttered to himself as he scampered over to the improvised exit, all childlike wonder evaporated by the ominous call.

After several attempts at climbing out of his window and down the side of the building proved to be a terrible idea, David found himself balancing on his hind legs with his arms extended, leathery wings flapping in the wind. Every time a gust caught the appendages he was pulled around and found himself constantly furling his wings before having to try again. It was hard not to look down at the cracked concrete of the sidewalk four stories below him and imagine himself as roadkill, which naturally he did many times.

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“Okay, okay. I just have to…grab…the air. Feels like it anyway. Like swimming, but thinner.” David hyped himself up as his squeaks grew in volume, “Come on David, fucking pigeons do this all the time. Stuff’s been flying forever, you’re not special. You can do it, I think I can, I think I can!”

Sucking in a few extra breaths in quick succession he exploded out of the window frame and hurled himself into the air with far too much force. David frantically clawed at the air, trying to scoop it under himself in a clumsy attempt to stay airborne as he fought the urge to close his eyes. To his absolute shock, it seemed to work, and he found himself hurtling over the much lower duplex across from his apartment. David screamed with exhilaration, not even noticing how thin and reedy the sound was in his excitement. Muscles burned across his back, and his arms quickly followed but he didn't care, he was flying!

–Flight level up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–Warning: Stamina Low–

Huh? Stamina– OH SHIT!

With a mental twist he didn’t even know he was capable of a tiny readout appeared below the warning while he frantically attempted to remember what exactly stamina was.

–Warning: Stamina Low–

–47/125–

The counter continued to drain every few seconds as he desperately attempted to keep an eye on it while avoiding the side of a towering concrete structure slowly being consumed by thorny vines. David realized he had made a critical error. He had no idea how to go down, and he had climbed a stupid distance into the sky by his reckoning. He zipped past the huge building and broke free of the city entirely, enormous dense trees stretching away to the mountains in the distance. He frantically looked for any break in the vegetation as he attempted to turn back, fumbling his rhythm and dropping dozens of yards toward the ground with a terrified squawk before snapping his wings out straight and trying to force himself to even out.

To his surprise the counter stopped flashing red and began to flash orange instead, the drain massively slowing. It took him a few seconds to figure out what the difference was but it dawned on him quickly.

He was gliding.

–Warning Stamina Low–

–22/125–

OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT

David held the pose as long as he could, watching his stamina fall as the tops of the trees crept closer. Desperation once again came to his rescue and he found after a bit of impotent thrashing and cursing that he could direct his fall simply by leaning, pulling his wing in a bit on the side he wanted to turn towards. Using this new and cutting-edge technique he managed to curve swiftly to the right and slam face first through the branches of an enormous pine tree and almost knock himself out. Wings flailed, and he snatched blindly with his back feet before his claws finally sunk into the bark of the trunk and arrested his fall.

He hung there panting heavily, his muscles once again shaking with fatigue. It was all David could manage just to hang onto the tree and catch his breath. Despite this, he rocked with high-pitched laughter and began to gasp for air when he wiggled onto a large branch and gripped it tightly with his hind feet. David only laughed harder when he immediately overbalanced and swung forward to hang from the branch, flaring his wings out as wide as he could in the cramped space.

“THAT WAS FUCKING AWESOME! HOLY SHIT! WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

–Flight has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–Flight has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–Flight has leveled up!–

–Gained 3xp–

–You have taken 4 Impact Damage–