Beneath broken stone and warped metal, a solitary raven panics as it senses imminent danger. It escapes certain death mere seconds before the structure finally crashes to the ground. On soaring above the devastation, the bird spies a wet-eyed woman...
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Where am I?
What is this place?
Why is there so much noise?
These were questions running through my befuddled brain as I registered the desperate situation in which I found myself.
I could not recall how I came to be where I was. All I knew at that precise moment, was the cold, the dark, the pounding in my head, and a sense of foreboding. My eyes had not yet adjusted to the inky blackness - but my hearing alerted me to danger.
Sounds - both familiar and at the same time utterly alien - boomed, receded and swept all around me. I shifted nervously, my head snapping around with each new noise.
An erratic, prickling sensation filled the air - its presence unsettling, but I could not ascertain its source.
Minuscule rays of white light filtered through the cracks of my enclosure bouncing off the surface of the cracked stone and hardened clay. The beams danced on the floor near my feet as if in search of something. I looked up, but the brightness was blinding, I had to turn away.
My tail feathers bunched as my body pressed up against one of the solid surfaces to my rear. Panicked, I spread my wings and tried to alight upon a ledge at the opposite side. But space above was restrictive, and my effort merely resulted in my crown colliding with a hard surface.
I crashed back down, my wings splayed over the ground, my beak digging a groove in a patch of soft earth.
My heart was hammering, and in between the after-shafts of my covert feathers, my skin prickled. My fear was tangible, my body reacting to the gravity of my situation.
Stones shifted directly somewhere above me, causing a thin stream of powdered rock to spill over my back. I felt it sifting through my contours. I shook to rid me of the dust, my feathers opening and closing from my vigorous movements.
A sharp, wailing noise burst forth, like a screech. I immediately shrank down, my chest brushing over the dust I had just expelled from my back.
The noise hurt my ears; I had no way to deaden the sound. I thought it would penetrate my skull, skewer my brain. Such was its tenor.
Other sounds joined in; these were deeper, ambiguous and emphatic. The screeching grew more frantic.
Now adjusted to the gloom, my eyes could make out sharp stone edges, enormous boulders, metal and -
A scuffle to my right - movement!
Something was in this prison with me.
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