Vultures

Six

The dark current of the void carried me from one memory to the next, drifting through water I could sense, but not feel. I didn't know if I was merely unconscious, or perhaps I was dead? Was this what dying felt like? My body felt nothing, which in some ways I suppose I was thankful for. What a strange thing to take comfort in, especially considering the sheer terror and panic only moments earlier. For the first few minutes, hours - I didn't really know how long - I felt strangely calm.

Whenever death came up in conversation, everyone always seemed under the impression that your life was supposed to flash before your eyes in some instant replay as your heart stopped and your brain shut down. Somehow my recap appeared much less tidy and straightforward than I thought it should be. Some of the moments were strange and twisted, not exactly as I remembered them. My earliest memories of the Gardens intertwined with images of large black birds. Recollections of lazy summer days and colorful autumn foliage with Aunt Amber were interrupted by a shadow, lurking in the background like a ghost.

Then, the soft current turned into a rapid. Although the water swept over my head, I didn't get the sensation that I was drowning. The loud roar of a river flooded my ears and suddenly I was falling. In total darkness I managed to land upright, on my feet, but my legs wouldn't hold my weight and I fell to my hands and knees.

Finally, I felt pain. The familiar sharp stabbing pain in my head resurfaced, although it was still dull in comparison to when everything had blanked out. My vision was fuzzy, a blurry haze at first, but slowly marble tile came into focus, stained with a few drops of crimson.

For a moment I forgot to breathe. I was on the floor in the wrecked hotel lobby, but that was impossible! I remembered leaving it! Didn't I? I remembered abandoning the hotel, my arm about Will's shoulders. He dragged me faster than I could move, worried that the Vulture would continue to follow. The scenery had grown bright, so bright that glancing around left streaks across my vision. I had closed my eyes against the harsh glare, and then, failed to open them again.

Not a sound traveled through the large room, a deafening silence dominated when I should have at least heard the wind from the coming storm outside. Déjà vu nearly knocked me backwards as I allowed my gaze to travel upward, resting on those scuffed and dirty boots in front of me. I should have been terrified but for some reason I wasn't and I dared to look up further, to the mask.

Everything was frozen in a bizarre still frame. Even the particles of dust floating through patches of sunlight were unmoving in the air. It seemed as if my brain had shuffled through my memories, skipping and glitching until it became stuck on this one image, possibly the last thing I would ever lay eyes on: the Vulture, up close and much more personal than I had ever cared to be.

Past the dark holes in the mask the glint of human eyes barely showed, the color was impossible to determine. My subconscious had picked up on these things while my logical brain had frozen in horror. The Vulture had long hair but I was unsure of the shade, I could see some of it peeking from behind the mask and vanishing behind their shoulder. They were covered from head to toe, except for a small portion of their neck. The skin there was pale, though it was hard to tell with the blood streaming from where their ears should be, staining everything red. It was smeared and some of it was dried, there was no way that it had happened all at once like that if it was their own.

Had any of this even been real? Who knew if these details were something I truly remembered or just a figment of my imagination brought on by some near-death delirium. As I studied the Vulture, crouched in front of me, I realized that I had missed something else. All of the rage, the anger and the hatred that I had felt from this figure before, it was gone. My memory past this point was hazy, but when the Vulture had knelt in front of me, I hadn't felt the anger anymore. I had been so terrified that I hadn't truly realized the atmosphere had changed.