Crow

02. Lovely Red Eyes

His vision was blurred, distorted.

Everything was black and red. The shadows were longer and the lights brighter. His arms were covered in dark coloured feathers and his fingers had been replaced by long, sharp claws. He could feel his own breath heavier than usual, and his heart seemed to beat a hundred times faster.

Someone was screaming in front of him. It was a female with a long, red hair -or at least it looked like it- whose hopeless expression far from making him scared of himself, could only make him more excited.

"Am I dreaming?", he asked, but he couldn't listen to himself saying a word.

What a weird feeling. He could feel himself warmer and taller, like this body did not belong to him and its will was uncontrollable, but its emotions were more intense.

"PLEASE!!", the woman on the ground begged, but he knew her prayers were pointless, he just wanted her to feel despair. Although he didn't know why.
He caressed her face with the tip of a claw, slowly... making a thin line of pouring blood on her cheek. It is beautiful, he thought, but he felt his thoughts did not belong to himself.

Blood. Red and thick.

The smell made him frantically hungry.

He opened his mouth and he knew it was big enough to fit her head. For a moment he could not believe he wanted to eat her, but it seemed like something he had done before. The girl's yelling became louder and louder and he roared because she was annoying.

"Shut the fuck up!!", he thought; words didn't come out though, but the deafening guttural sound of a beast.
It was hard to think now.

She knew what was coming. Every living thing can sense the danger when approaching, but this prey of his would never imagine the exact amount of pain she was about to suffer.

He ripped an arm off her. He didn't really want to, but he could not control it. He didn't feel scared or sad about her either. Blood splattered on the nearest wall. She screamed louder and begged for her life, trying to crawl away, but she smelled so good he couldn't stop, he held her by a leg harsh enough she couldn't go anywhere. He swallowed her arm whole, munching the bones like a biscuit as she gasped and moaned. He spat up her wristwatch and prepared to eat her head. The most delicious part -for some reason he knew- but first, he had to take her eyes off. Eyes were a special gem. People used to say that eyes were windows to the soul, and they were right for every pair of eyes could tell a different story, and he could read them. Tasting them was even better. He did not know why but he knew.

Lovely red eyes.

Everything was black and red. Red and black. Always. Pulling the first eye and swallowing it made the woman faint. All of a sudden, he sensed someone else staring at him.
He faced the stranger: a familiar face that slowly turned into colours. Shaded by the large shadows of the alley he was at, Philip Rogers distinguished his father standing not too far. The look in the man's eyes was nothing less than pure horror and fear.

What was he doing there? Whose body was this he was locked in? How could his father know it was him under all those feathers and the blood and the screams?

Maybe he had looked into Philip's eyes. Maybe he had known his secret all this time. Maybe he knew because it was  Philip's dream.

"Dad", he growled but words did not exist.

The man disappeared behind the corner with the agility of a serpent and a few minutes after, Philip heard an engine on. The wheels complained on the pavement as the car went away. He had been caught, but he wasn't sure how he had gotten there. Not anymore. A few seconds ago he was sure of what he was doing, he was certain of what he had to do. Now he felt lost, like floating in outer space. He looked to his feet and everything was red down there. Deep red and wet.

The boy half beast, half man now, stepped away from the body he had barely eaten, and with a still big hunger, he faded in the night, leaving a bunch of his feathers behind.
Philip Rogers was confused about everything. He had forgotten his name, although he knew he wasn't just a beast. He was something else.

With anguish in his heart, he reappeared in his room. He could feel the ground sinking under his feet.

What a weird nightmare.

He sensed the car approaching. He was familiar with that unique engine song. He came near the window, and sliding the curtain he watched his father running to the house, nervous and upset.

The shadowed room started to spin. Phil wanted his old body back, he wanted to wake up.

He crawled up on his bed and closed his eyes. He could still smell the blood in his nose.

"Tomorrow I won't remember", he whispered as everything turned black. "Tomorrow I will wake up."