{ Feathers Descend }

Chapter Four

Carmina awoke with the sun blistering her eyes and scorching them. Her eyes were blurred and she was still groggy. She blinked a few times, clearing her vision. Her friends and her were tied up. Her hands were tied with rope that scratched and ripped at her flesh as she struggled against them. The heat bore down on her, making her raven hair feel like the blazing sands below her. Her mouth was parched and her lips were dry, due to the lack of water. Her throat was raw. A black form made its way to her, the heatwaves distorting his form.

She squinted in the blazing heat, the sweat on her eyelids dripping into her eyes, making her have to blink it away. He was blotted out by the sunbeams, making her have to look down and away. As he came closer, his shadow covering her face and providing her a moment of cool across her face. Sweat beaded down her cheeks and forehead as he grabbed her chin and forced her to meet his gaze. His face was obscured by a dark hood. She held his gaze, but out of the corner of her eye she saw a silvery blade catch the sunlight, shining it into her eyes. The blade seemed to dance in the heat, the sun sending scattered light. The strange man recited a hymn in a foreign language, Carmina unable to understand. He raised the blade and with a strong blow, her hands laid in front of her.

It took her body a brief moment to react, before the pain washed over her like a murder of hungry crows. She screamed her pain, collapsing on the sands as the rope slowly draped onto her severed hands. Her friends were now awake, staring at her in horror, their gaze on the pools of blood around her severed hands.

"How are you going to paint now?" The man said, an amused tone crept into his voice. She cursed at him, throwing and screaming insults into the air in front of them. He grabbed her cheeks with his hand, forcing her to look at him once more. He had a satisfied look painting on his face, his lips contorted into a sly grin.

She spat at him, making him wipe the spit off his face with the back of his hand, scowling. He pried her mouth open with such force that she couldn't struggle and pulled her tongue out, then sliced it off. She shrieked in anguish, blood pouring from her mouth and onto the sand, painting it a deep red.

"How are you going to tell your poems now?" He mocked, tossing her head to the side.

Her tongue was thrown off to the side by the man, letting the little bleeding form drop onto the ground. The severed hands pooled blood and her arms dripped blood on her beautiful dress. She screamed, screamed like she did when she lost her brother. Tears fell from her eyes, her voice shredding its cords. It hurt, but not as much as the new void did. Memories flooded her. Pain and misery and hopelessness overtook her. As her screaming ceased, her voice unable to scream any more, all that could be heard from her was her soft sobbing as she gave into her grief. All she could taste was the metallic tinge of blood in her mouth, her throat was raw and scratched from her screaming. His bloodied blade dripped with her blood, the sun shining onto the iron red. He laughed at her pathetic face.

A sound of wing beats and caws filled the wasteland, their caws echoed and her captor looked into the sky one moment before black wings descended on him. Beaks and talons sliced and cut his flesh and robe. She smiled as the crows ripped him apart, unrelenting. Her surrealist of art was coming to life, but at a cost she didn't think would've happened. The blade dropped onto the ground, making a silvery ting.

She remembered sliding the paint brush along the the stark white paper, smoothly painting beautiful paintings of elegant crows with flicks of her wrist. The enraged crows weren't done, and their next target — was her friends. Before she could react, before she could stop them, before her friends could even look into the sky. They ripped at them next, slicing their eyes and skin. Their screams mixed into hers.

Pain and horror filled the air. Her thoughts raced back to this is your fault, this is your fault, everything is your fault. Her guilt swarmed her like the crows and her pain came swirling down like feathers. Her tears came once more, sliding down her cheeks and landing in splatters on her arms. The crows circled back into the sky and flew down on her.

Their wings and pitch black claws and feathers descended onto her bloodied arms. She shut her eyes and their caws filled her mind, black ink filled every inch of her head. The pain and anguish, her pain and blood seeping into the sand. She felt the soft fog caress her skin, comforting and forbidding. A deep, ancient whisper cut into the caws of the ravenous crows. They weren't attacking her. But she didn't understand. The crows cawing was now just a background noise as this — thing spoke to her. It's rumble and incoherent voice spoke to her. Dragging her into its dark grasp, like the men.

She didn't know what it meant, what it was saying. She looked down at her severed hands, her tears rolling down her cheeks, falling onto the sand below. The crow feathers landed on her arms and shoulders. The fog blotted out the sand and turned it as black as the blood splattered grains. Her severed hands laid, the rope still draped over her perfect, ink stained hands. The crows still circled overhead, cawing loudly. The pain was too much, the ground felt like a void that she was standing on. Sitting on a void of endless pain and guilt and mourning. Carmina had no choice, what more did she have to lose. The intentions of this voice was crystal clear.

"Work for me, or you're nothing".

What more could she lose, what could bring her more pain?

She reluctantly accepted the voice, and the fog engulfed her, pulling her into its deadly grasp. Like the crow talons that sliced into her friend's skin, sinking deep into their flesh. The claws of this being sunk it's own talons, poisoning her. Her once beautiful hands — gone. The arms where they once sat, bleeding and flooding pools of her blood. The dark force formed deep ink hands in the spots were her hands use to be. Like painting a line on her white canvases, painting her portraits and conveying her thoughts into surreal, beautiful art. Her new hands were made of ink, like crow feathers.

They glistened in the light, the once bright blood from her hands and mouth now like the ink she painted with. Her red dress now torn and ripped. She no longer saw the pain in her rot — there was no forgiveness. Life showed her none, no one deserves any. Her anger filled her, like the enraged crows that once flew above. The screams of her friends instilled her with rage and pain, the perfect thing she needed.

Her newly formed ink hand shaped it's self into a sharpened blade, curled like talons. Her father blamed her for everything — the loss of her mother, the loss of Matias. It was her fault, her friends deaths, Matias — everything. Her rage consumed her, like ink spilling over sand. She clenched her inky hand into a fist.