The trees passed by in a blur as the night sky made it difficult to see anything besides what the moon’s soft luminescence provided.
After a few hours of flying, they still had not reached their destination.
“Yea a few miles east,” Tom thought to himself. However, he was glad nothing major had happened since seeing the man.
Everything was going to be alright.
At least that's what he thought until Arthur stopped flying and fell from the sky.
Tom only had a second to be shocked before a much larger bird appeared from above and grabbed Arthur out of his fall.
The bird, which Tom guessed was a falcon of some kind, leisurely continued flying with Arthur dangling from his talons. The bird turned its head back to stare at Tom with one eye and bobbed its head up as if asking a question.
Tom wasn't very familiar with falcon behavior but this one appeared to be rather human. He now had a choice between making a run for it, or continuing to follow along with this person and see what happened. “Ha, who am I kidding? I have no choice but to follow this guy." Tom bobbed his head in an affirmative manner to which the other bird turned back to facing forward.
Tom was left alone with his thoughts for the next few hours of flight and in that time, he found himself coming back to the same questions.
“Who is this guy? Why did Arthur fall and did this guy make it happen? I sure hope we land soon because I'm about to fall out of the sky next. I wonder if he has any food?”
At what Tom estimated to be 1 AM, the bird did a nosedive into the trees.
Doubting his ability to repeat the feat without serious injury, Tom descended slowly and began pushing through the leaves.
After fighting through the branches of what felt like half the forest, Tom was met with the naked form of the trenchcoat man and a new question, “how did he change already?”
Tom estimated it only took him fifteen seconds or so to make it through the trees meaning the man shouldn't even be close to transforming back yet. The man was holding Arthur in the form of a goldfinch. Tom landed on the ground and looked up at the man who had plucked a feather on Arthurs right-wing before setting him on the ground.
Tom decided he might as well shift before the man did it for him, plucking the same feather from his wing. After a minute or so, An unconscious Arthur and a seated Tom were back to a human appearance.
During his change, Tom noticed the man seemed restless. He had begun tapping his foot around 30 seconds into their transformation and given out a sigh at 50 seconds.
Tom waited for the man to say something, figuring his best option would be to not piss off the large adult man standing in front of him. He wanted to get to the bottom of what happened to Arthur, but Mr. Trench Coat could potentially do something similar to him so standing quietly and waiting seemed like a no brainer.
The man opened and closed his mouth a few times before saying, "My name is Vincent and I apologize for frightening you both earlier. I'll admit, this is not how I planned on our first chat going but here we are."
"Know that your friend is fine. I am not going to hurt you or him and if I had not interfered earlier, he would have likely been injured from the fall if not dead. I'm sure you're full of questions so go ahead and ask."
Tom absorbed the information before questioning, "why were you following us in the first place and why did you force us to shift in some random forest?"
Vincent responded, "I can't answer the first question yet, but as for the second, I did not want you to fly off while I got supplies. There should be some gear and clothes around here somewhere. You really thought I stopped in the middle of nowhere for no reason?"
Tom pushed his initial fear that the man was going to have them dig their own graves before killing them to the periphery of his mind.
Vincent continued saying, "The shifting was necessary because I needed to let you know I'm not a treat to you or your friend. It's also much easier to stop a person running through a dense forest in the dark than a small bird."
"Try to stay put while I find the spot with the gear." Tom nodded along not entirely convinced about this "Vincent's" seemingly good intentions, but willing to play along for now considering he was lost in the woods and had no food.
Vincent began walking around methodically sweeping the forest, and eventually stopped in front of a large moss-covered boulder.
He got on one knee and grabbed the underside of the rock, before easily flipping it on its side in one fell swoop.
Watching the spectacle, Tom congratulated himself for the correct decision to not piss off the man who could lift a likely thousand-pound boulder with ease.
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
In the place where the rock once rested, a steel hatch appeared. Vincent bent down and gripped both hands on the handle and heaved to open the rusted door.
After fighting the handle for a few seconds, it finally opened and underneath was a rusty ladder leading into darkness.
After making sure the rock would not move back into place, Vincent looked over to Tom and said, "You go down first and I'll get your friend."
Without responding, Tom stood up and walked over to the ladder and put his hands on the rungs to test the ladder’s strength with a small push.
When he was confident it would not fall under his weight, Tom placed his bare feet onto the metal, careful to avoid cutting them on the rust and having to worry about a new Tetanus shot.
After making it down the 15-foot ladder, Tom was surrounded by darkness much thicker than the above moon-illuminated forest.
Tom looked around and couldn't see anything. Taking a deep breath let him notice the stale and dusty quality of the air.
He heard Vincent beginning to make his way down the rickety ladder and quickly jumped away in case the ladder gave way.
Vincent made it down the ladder and set Arthur against the wall.
He turned away from both of them, and began moving his hands against the wall further into the darkness.
Vincent returned moments later with a kerosine lamp and lit it using a box of matches attached to the side of the lamp. He held the lamp high above his head and fully illuminated the room.
Vincent walked over to the now obvious three other lanterns and lit all of them using the flame from his own.
Tom looked around the room which was approximately the size of a shipping crate.
One small wall was dominated by the ladder while the two adjacent walls were filled with cabinets, a table with chairs, and lockers. The final wall was occupied by three stacked bunk beds.
Vincent walked over to the side with lockers and began opening each one rummaging around for something.
After the fourth locker, he reached inside and pulled out a box with the word "clothes" written neatly in faded black ink.
Vincent wiped a thick layer of dust off the box, opened it and pulled out sealed bags of shirts and pants.
The man tossed a set of clothes at both Tom and the still unconscious Arthur.
Tom ripped open the packs and looked at the clothes before smirking. Tom commented saying, "I've never held a real tie-dye shirt before. It's like looking at a piece of history.”
Vincent sighed before continuing to put on the clothes. When both were fully clothed, they moved Arthur over to one of the bunk beds and put the clothes at his feet.
Vincent then went over to one of the opened lockers and pulled out a box labeled “stove” along with another labeled “canned goods”.
Moving over to the table, he put down both boxes and began opening the one labeled stove.
He looked over to Tom and asked him, "Can you look for something edible in the other box?"
Tom opened it and coughed from the large cloud of dust billowing out from inside.
He reached inside to pull out cans and set them on the table according to name.
Tom’s morale began decreasing rapidly after he pulled out the fourth can in a row labeled "meat".
After emptying the box, he had four cans each of "meat", beans, corn, and bread.
Tom's face paled as he realized his bowels would be creating nothing but bricks for the next few days.
Vincent noticed Tom's expression and chuckled before saying, "at least it will be warm," and flicking a switch to light the stove which sputtered to life with a bright red flame.
Tom opened two cans of each type with a can opener found in the bottom of the box and handed the opened cans to Vincent who began heating them on the flame.
Vincent reached under the table and grabbed a chair for both him and Tom before sitting down and leaning back in the chair.
"Now that we're a bit more settled, let me tell you some more about what's going on. I mentioned earlier my name is Vincent and I work for a special school. My job is to find people like you two and help bring them somewhere they can learn properly. What are your names by the way?"
"My name is Tom and the guy over there is Arthur."
"Well Tom, I'll start with what happened to Arthur. He passed out because he ran out of energy. I'm not talking about the kind of energy loss one would feel after running a marathon but the vital force that allows him to transform. In fact, I’m surprised he was still flying at all. What he did was very dangerous. He could have shifted in mid-air and fallen to his death if I had not been nearby. His body should have forced him to land much sooner, but it seems he pushed through the pain."
Tom absorbed the information before asking, "Why did he run out of energy while I still felt like I could keep flying?"
Vincent responded, "My guess is that he doesn't have a very high energy level. A comparison would be that he is like a triple A battery while most people are like a D battery. It could be anything but that is my guess."
Tom frowned at this considering Arthur was much better at all parts of the transformation process and had taught him everything he knew about it. Why would his energy be lower?
Tom was further confused by the fact Arthur had never passed out before and although this was the farthest they had ever traveled, Arthur never showed signs of weakness after traveling prior long distances.
Tom asked, "How long will he be out?"
"It's difficult to say but I would estimate at least twenty-four hours."
Tom nodded at this and opened his mouth to ask another question before being cut off by Vincent who said, "I understand you must have a lot of questions but let’s save some for when your friend is awake. That way, we can catch you both up to speed simultaneously.”
Tom nodded again before standing and grabbing two cans of heated food and bringing them over to where Arthur lay sleeping.
Vincent had finished his cans earlier and ascended the ladder. Tom assumed he was fiddling with the hatch entrance or the boulder.
Tom sat down on the wall next to Arthur's bed and finished both cans before he started whistling.
Arthur and Tom had spent years practicing random skills thanks in large part to their extensive free time and lack of access to TV or video games.
Each had talents ranged from playing instruments to walking on their hands. Tom had an early fascination with carnivals which inspired many of the skills they'd pursued.
Living in various places and being around many different people had allowed them to further diversify their portfolio of tricks. Tom thought back to the last town they'd visited where he'd learned numerous magic tricks from a man working with them in a shipping yard.
One of Tom's favorite things to do was whistle, and he practiced whenever he could find time. He felt like it helped keep him calm and did a pretty good job passing the time while he worked on simple tasks.
He whistled whatever came to his mind and jumped between genres with a Christmas song followed by a folk tune with plenty of rhythm but little reason.
As he sat against the wall whistling, Tom could only wonder if Arthur would be alright.