Natural Forces: Chapter One

The Messenger

Note to reader: This is the first Chapter of Natural Forces, a story in which a down on his luck, normal guy, gets tossed into a path leading directly to assassination, murder, escape and of course talking animals. All with one goal in common. The Destruction of the Human Race.

Chapter One: The Messenger

It happened awhile back. Not quite sure of the day, nor really of the time, mid afternoon I believe. Though what I do clearly remember is, the crow.

Sitting there, seeming to watch me, looking at me, sizing me up. Where “there” was I am not quite sure, my memory is a bit hazy about that part, though I believe it was a park somewhere, for I do remember sounds of children playing and the mixture of numerous voices all speaking at once like a mob entering a subway.

Anyway, that Crow Hop that it did was somehow different than what I am familiar with. It seemed as though he himself was uncomfortable with the movement, like a baby taking its first steps, teetering and wobbling about, like walking on an earthquake. It seemed embarrassed. For when I tilted my head in confusion, it turned away and looked down at the ground to avoid my gaze, like I said It seemed somewhat embarrassed.

Not but 5 feet away from me, and not sure as to how long it had been there, I reached into my jacket pocket to see if perhaps there was some forgotten piece of something that It might want. Train ticket, scrap piece of paper, candy wrapper, nope that was it, I had nothing. I looked at the crow and said.

“Sorry man, I got nothing for ya.” It tilled it’s head back up in my direction and replied:

“That’s ok.” and then continued with,

“Holy Shit, I can talk?!”

Now I’m no fool mind you. The first thing I did was take a look around for someone with a camera and microphone. “This is some kinda of prank”, I thought to myself.

It, the Crow, just stood there, looking at me, tilting its head, jerking it up and down, side to side, until its gaze rested upon me. We looked at each other. We looked at each other for some time, not really sure what to do or what was happening, or what pray tell was going to happen next. However, not wanting to be the butt of someones joke, I decided to stand up and walk away.

“Wait.” The Crow said. “What the hell is going on here?!”

This caught me, it caught me off guard, for even though I knew this was just some kind of stupid prank I answered.

“What? What? stop that.” I stupidly said as I gazed down on it.

“Stop what?” It replied.

“Stop talking, stop talking to me.”

Now at this point I was sure to end up on YouTube somewhere on someones Channel. Dumb Man Talks To Crow, would be the title of the video. However, what happened next was, well, truly devastating.

“Now you listen to me” It demanded, “I don’t know how I got here, or where here is, but what I do know is I am a messenger. This message that I carry here in my brain, I can not say from where it originated from, nor who gave it to me. Not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know myself. All I know is I arrived here to bring you this message, even though I don’t know who you are, or even who I am.”

What could I do, I was dumbstruck. If this was a prank it was incredible, for the synchronisation of the words being spoken and the movement of the Crows beak was uncanny.

“You are,” It continued, “To leave this place immediately and go to Washington D.C. You are then to buy a high powered rifle and check into the Motel 6, 8 km from the Martin Luther King Junior Memorial. Check into room 12.”

At this point it twerked its head downward, twitched, did that Crow jerking thing with its head and took one step back. Where its left talon had been the ground poked up, a solitary worm stuck its head out of the grass. The Crow heightened its neck as a snake would preparing to strike. Just at this moment the worm erupted from the ground like an exploding geyser, sending bits of dirt and tiny rocks flying skyward, opened its ever expanding mouth, (which ended up being about 2 feet in circumference) and swallowed the Crow whole. I was frozen, unable to move, talk, or even think. That worm, now about 2 feet long turned what i believed to be its head, in my direction. A slit began to form where a mouth would be and it said,

“Don’t be late.”

With that, it burrowed back into the earth and left me alone, by myself, with my thoughts, spinning.