The Transition

“Give in,” he hisses in my ear. He sits perched on my left shoulder, unsheathed talons digging into me. He’s been there long enough though, that I don’t feel them anymore except for occasionally when he’ll cruelly flex them, causing them to actually break skin. He is large, easily twice the size of my head, and unshakable. I tried at first, and he snapped his beak at me, making small cuts along my cheek, which is why I haven’t attempted to dislodge him again yet.

He is actually a vulture, or so I presume. My shoulder aches with his weight. From what I’ve glanced of him, he’s a mighty bird with many features, starting a light shade of lilac and reaching black as they trail to his tail and the bottoms of his wings. Further up on his head where many down feathers would be, is white though. His beak is long and black as pitch, face a maroon/purple color. His eyes are what scare me the most though. One is crimson, looking upon me with a beady, predatory pupil, the other being a dark gray, almost like ash. I try to tell myself it is the uncanniness of these eyes that scares me, but I would know it to be a lie. I firmly believe that eyes are the windows to the soul, and this vulture’s soul is darker than any I have ever encountered.

Give in. Give in. Give in. Give in.

It’s hard to tell whether it’s him or my own mind anymore. I’ve endured countless hours of the same statement, same monotone pitch, and giving in is starting to seem like the better option when compared to insanity.

The room I sit in is windowless and door less. It is composed of four bleak, ebony walls, the paneling appearing scarred with age. The floor and the ceiling look much the same… the walls are layered with deep scratches and a few dark spots that I suspect might not have been made from natural causes… the floor looks much the same, only the ceiling appearing untouched. The difference in the floor and ceiling that make them different from the walls however, lies in the scarlet paint. The points

start in the corners, meeting in the center. They’re broken halfway there though, and again at the center, never touching. I assume it forms an ‘x’ but I can’t be sure.

Myself, well… I can’t remember who I am, much less where I am or how I got here. All I know is that when I opened my eyes, there was this horrid creature perched on my shoulder, and I’ve been sitting here since. There’s no furniture anywhere around me, nothing except the four walls, myself, and the vulture –who says nothing except to tell me to “give in”. The only other things I know for sure are what the vulture looks like, and that I am scared of him without a doubt in my mind. Where this phobia originated, I do not know, but it exists, and it has kept me still thus far.

My lungs feel constricted, my stomach taut like a bowstring, and over time my breathing has started becoming faster –since calming down after being originally attacked of course. My throat feels small, and panic swells and recedes as a tide in my veins. Why am I here? What does the vulture want me to give in to?

“Give in.”

“To what?!” Maybe I’ve reached my snapping point… I didn’t mean to, but I shrieked at the vulture, and now I flinch, hoping he doesn’t snap at my cheek again. Instead, to my surprise, his talons loosen on my shoulder, then remove themselves as he spreads his wings. A couple of flaps later, he’s airborne and then makes his way over to the center of the x’s. He doesn’t land right in the middle though, but just outside, staring at me patiently as if he expects me to walk forward while his feathers ruffle.

When I don’t make a move immediately, he caws, an ugly, impatient sound, and says once more, “Give in.” This time I slowly stand, taking one hesitant step forward and then another, until I, too, am standing just outside of the center mark. For some reason, my body seems hesitant to stand directly there. I take it as instinct that I shouldn’t, and so linger outside. This causes the bird to flap his wings agrily at me, cawing and hissing, even reaching across the space to snap at me. This must mean he wants me to stand in the middle..