Birds?!

We made our move.

At least Alicia did. She told me to wait in the car because it was too dangerous.

Alicia found a hiding spot on a street where the nest often came through. The car, with me in it, was parked a bit further on that same street. Mostly so Alicia could keep an eye on me in case things went wrong.

It took about an hour before they showed up.

They were wearing the same long black coat as they always do. Which made them easy to spot for us. Alicia jumped out of her hiding spot as soon as the nest passed by it. However this is where things started going wrong.

A raven landed on the hood of the car and cried out. The nest heard this and turned around just in time to see Alicia.

Alicia tried punching them in the face but the nest pulled back and she hit their chest instead.

The nest grabbed Alicia's arm and threw her against the wall.

And then..

The nest dropped their long coat, grabbed a knife, lifted their shirt and stabbed themselves in the stomach. I had to stop myself from throwing up in the car. For a moment I thought they killed themselves to avoid capture but they didn't fall down. Instead the birds..

One after another birds just kept flying out of the wound. There were so many of them.. and they all attacked Alicia.

The nest then grabbed their coat and ran away.

Next thing I know I'm jumping out of the car and running after the nest.

I wanted to turn back and help Alicia but my legs wouldn't stop.

So I just kept running. I knew I was being an idiot but that nest is the only chance I have to find my mother. So I followed the nest when they ran into that alleyway...

“Turn away.” The nest demanded.

“No.”

“Fine. I'll just have to kill you then.” They started walking towards me.

I realized I had no plan, no weapons.. no flamethrower.

So instead of doing the smart thing I just.. charged at them.

I tried to grab and tackle them to the ground.

Instead I felt their hand on my neck and suddenly my momentum changed downward.

Now I was on the ground with the nest towering over me.

“You people really don't know how to quit.” They sighed as they put their coat back on. That's when I noticed all the scars on their stomach area.

“What?” I was confused, did they mean the archive?

“I guess I'll need to leave a stronger message so your bosses don't send any others after me.” They searched through their coat for a few seconds. Then they frowned. “Dropped my knife, fucking hell. Alright, this'll be unpleasant for the both of us.” Then they took a deep breath and opened their mouth as wide as they could.

I was so confused by everything that was happening that I forgot to even try to get back up and run.

That's when I saw a beak coming out of their mouth. Followed by the black head of a bird. I realized it was a crow. A crow was crawling it's way out of a human's mouth.

It cawed at me!

A bird crawled out of their mouth and cawed at me?!

I can't even express how absurd and terrifying that was.

Then suddenly there was a thunk.

The nest fell to the ground with the bird still half in their mouth.

There was Alicia standing behind them. Full of large scratches and bleeding from several wounds. “I.. told you..” She was panting heavily. “..to stay in the fucking car.”