Raven (2 page)

She watched entranced. She had never seen a creature of this size grace the skies, yet amazingly it seemed completely normal. As the raven continued to hover, she started to notice a transformation take place. As her breathing slowed and she fixed her eyes on the bird, she started to see that its tail was changing. The black feathers remained, but underneath started to form a pair of legs.

Very muscular legs.

Very muscular
male
legs.

She had to admit to herself right now that what she was seeing was starting to look very odd. She tilted her head to the side, as if trying to allow herself to get a better look. What she saw was a very large raven that had suddenly started to grow legs, but not only that, other changes were starting to become apparent as well. So as not to startle the creature, she inched her way further around the rim of the basin of the valley so that she might afford herself a better view and came round far enough to see the creature side on. What was the breast bone and head of the bird suddenly elongated and formed into a man’s torso and head with a shock of black hair.

Even though Aiyana was positioned well below this creature, she could still see the definition of muscle that carved its way across this now man’s body. Particularly the shoulder blades rippled with muscle which still held the black wings that beat so effortlessly in the air. He was completely naked, but for the black feathers that graced his lower back and covered his rear end. From where she was standing it almost looked like a skirt that covered him, but when the light filtered through and glistened on his body you could see the feathers plain as day. Just above these feathers was a symbol etched in to his skin - it was the symbol of double infinity, almost like a branding or a tattoo.

The updraft of his wings kept the fog at bay and it lingered around the top of the mountain edges. Aiyana held her breath to see what would happen next. The raven was now completely human but for his wings which seemed to propel him closer to the opening that was positioned in the cliff face.

His legs, like the rest of his body were muscular too – almost like a ballerina. She watched as his foot made the first contact with the ledge of the opening and he seemed to float towards it as his wings hummed away, doing their job to keep him up in the air. It was only as both of his feet touched safely down on the ledge that the intensity of the hum of his wings seemed to abate. As though she had blinked too long and missed it, she realised with disappointment that his wings had suddenly vanished. Now all that stood at the entrance of this cavern was a young man with his back to her.

She was so mesmerised that she didn’t think to hide herself from his view. She realised in that moment that this man, this
raven
was meant to see her. She had tracked these trails for months, not quite sure what she was searching for until she had just seen it now. In some strange way, she felt from somewhere deep inside of her that he held the key to her future.

She sensed that he had something to offer her that no other human being could. Lost in her thoughts, she missed him turn in her direction. It wasn’t so much that he altered his body’s position; it was more just a turn of his head.

Eyes of coal bore down on her, searching her face for any signs of fear or repulsion. His eyes at that distance caught every line on her face, every twitch and flicker, every tic that would betray her true feelings. She knew he would see none of that. Only wonderment would be etched on her features. Satisfied with what he saw, he disappeared swiftly into the cave, leaving her alone in the valley with the fog descending back down the cliff face to claim her. 

****

By the time Aiyana was back on her bike the heavens had opened up and poured torrents of water over her and the landscape. She slowed right down once she hit the highway. It wasn’t that she wasn’t confident on the wet road; it was all the other idiots she had to look out for. On a daily basis she found people driving carelessly and recklessly – arrogance and disrespect taking over from common sense and good manners, and that was on a good day. 

Intuition gave her pause to think that these were just empty vessels of a person, perhaps a shadow of their former selves. It was kind of like the lights were on, but nobody was home. People had just stopped caring and seemed to have succumbed to the darkness that surrounded them.

Her clothes were soaking wet and clung to her skin like glue, making it hard to get comfortable on the bike’s seat. She purposefully missed her exit and decided to take the next one as she knew at this time of day it would be less busy. She wasn’t in the mood for traffic and wanted to get home as soon as possible to her loft.

Aiyana was a creative person by nature and worked as a freelance artist and graphic designer for a company in Germany. It gave her the freedom to draw and paint whenever she liked, do whatever she liked and still get paid to do the one thing she loved the most. She lived in a high-rise building in Miami called the Sunny Seas. More like Sullen Seas she thought to herself as she pulled on to her street.

Once upon a time it was millionaire playboys, party girls and high class socialites who occupied all the expensive real estate that dominated the coastal promenade – but not anymore. They had packed up their box of tricks long ago and either fled the country or moved to Victoria, which was the one state left that was thought not to have the new race of people walking amongst them. Aiyana just thought it was a matter of time before that happened though.

Her building was a drab grey colour whose paint was peeling faster than a sunburn victim, with rusting balcony rails that occupied each level. The “Sunny” sign had been half ripped from its anchors at the entry way so that it swung dangerously whenever the wind caught it.

There wasn’t a single soul in sight as she climbed off the bike. The rain acted like a prison and people remained indoors for fear it would emanate something catching. As Aiyana headed up the steps for the front door, she caught sight of the crazy old woman who occupied the ground floor apartment on the left hand side of the building. Her curtains were drawn, but the hooked nose and beady eyes peered through the material, spying on whoever would walk her way. She really did seem kind of crazy and even had the stereotypical ten plus cats, but Aiyana thought she seemed harmless enough, and compared to the rest of the psychos that walked the streets she seemed like a complete saint. Aiyana nodded in her direction and the curtains hastily closed as she entered the building.

She pressed the elevator button and waited for the carriage to come down. There was a musty-ness in the air and the lingering smell of stale tobacco, not completely unpleasant – but certainly it wasn’t roses. The lift chimed to indicate it had arrived at its destination and she stepped in unobstructed and pressed the button for the top floor.

It wasn’t actually meant to be an apartment, although the owner of the building was tighter than a fishes arse and wanted to maximise every square inch of real estate he owned. So he had the loft that was designed for storage converted into an open plan bedsit. It suited her fine; she didn’t have any visitors come to her home – not ever. On the way up the lift’s cables whined mercilessly and the light that lit the small cubicle flickered in protest. Once on her floor she took her keys from her satchel and went to open the lock.

What disturbed her most were the fact that the lock was already open and the door ajar. She hesitated a moment, her ear strained at the door listening for any movement from within. Five minutes past, to which she was certain if anybody had been still in there than surely they would have moved by now. The old door creaked open as she pushed it with the toe of her boot and came to rest in the door stop on the wall behind it.

She took a moment to survey the room, methodically working her eyes over each object to ascertain if it had been moved from its previous position or not. Happy with the way things were, she moved towards the only other door in the apartment which led to the bathroom – nothing suspicious in there either, so she went back and shut the front door and dead bolted it.

It was only as she moved towards the kitchenette that she noticed the sliding door to the balcony had been forced open. The lock clasp was now broken and the remnants of it lay on the floor where it had come to rest. Someone had been in her apartment, and from the looks of things, that someone had come in through the balcony door. She stepped out and took a careful look around. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. She glanced up and checked the roof and then peered around the sides of the balcony.                         

Being the only resident on the top floor meant it was almost impossible that another tenant were the culprit of her home invasion. Well whoever it was had gone to great lengths not to walk in the front door. Aiyana wondered why this was considering the same person seemed to have left that way.

The distant wail of a siren brought her back to the present and she glanced in the direction of the central business district which now seemed to house the low-life population of coastal society - the murderers, wheelers of drugs and armed weapons traders. The ever present dark clouds hung like a blanket over the dilapidated buildings, threatening to spill more rain at a moment’s notice and only further enhancing the doom and gloom of the once vibrant city. Steam and fog also seemed to cling to the skyscraper buildings that dotted the skyline making it impossible to determine where the city actually started and finished.

Her mother had once told her of such a place called Gotham City that had screened in a Batman movie her grandmother had seen over eighty years ago. You could still download it on AAD – which was the All Access Device that people view cinema on these days. Gone were the large and cumbersome DVD and Blue Ray players – those things were old news. Times had changed and what mattered a hundred years ago couldn’t be further from the minds of the inhabitants of the coastal city nowadays. Honestly, it was a feat just to walk down the street without getting mugged or killed. Aiyana sighed, completely deflated that her private sanctuary had been invaded by strangers. She took one last look around before heading back inside.

She went and fetched a long off cut of wood from under her bed that she used to frame the paintings she did and brought it back to the living area and wedged it into the track frame of the balcony sliding door so that it couldn’t be pried open from the outside. Satisfied that it would keep her secure for the time being, she pulled closed the drapes and went and made a cup of tea and something to eat.

Ten minutes later she had a grilled cheese sandwich next to her as she placed a fresh blank canvas on her easel and got busy mixing black and white paints. The city was dark, her mood was dark and this was going to be reflected in the painting she was about to do.

The images of the raven she had seen today danced across her mind as she stroked the canvass with her brush. At first she executed big sweeping gestures of black paint that outlined its massive wings and body, before being quickly replaced by darker shades of grey that accentuated the breast bone of the bird and its claws. Distractedly she shoved a mouthful of sandwich into her mouth and the gooey cheese squirted out the sides of the buttery toasted bread. She cursed as it burnt the roof of her mouth and then went back to her painting.

The feathers were what made the raven so beautifully unforgettable. In a rare glimpse of the sun’s rays, she had caught the blue green tones that mingled with the black feathers on his body. She used the tip of her brush now to replicate the colour on her canvas.

The painting wasn’t perfection by anyone’s standards; it was raw and visually confronting, even a little scary. But she liked it. The eyes of the bird told a thousand stories that she was yet to listen to and the wings told of power and strength. She somehow had stumbled across what everyone it the city was looking for – the mysterious creatures that now walked amongst them.

She could see now how they made it possible to avoid detection when it was obvious they could morph at will. Only one ‘man’ had ever been caught by the APP, which was the Armed Patrol of the People. He had been in his human form at the time and they had whisked him off to some laboratory to run all manner of tests. According to media leaks the scientists had ended up killing him without him ever having revealed his alter form.

Of course the results of all the samples they had taken were a closely guarded secret, one certainly not to be shared with the general public. The only thing citizens had been made aware of was the imprint of a symbol that was located at the base of their spine when in their human form. It was a symbol of double infinity – a branding of a curse that would stay with them for all of eternity, the same one she had seen on the raven today.

Aiyana was intrigued by the species and her curiosity had peaked several months back when she was walking through town and had caught a glimpse of the symbol on the back of a man as he had bent over. He had turned and saw her and made a hurried attempt to get out of the city. She’d followed him on her bike as far as the mountain, but the trail had run cold.

He had abandoned a car at the petrol station at the bottom of Springbrook and then completely vanished into thin air - until now. She’d felt like she had combed every inch of the bushland in order to find him again, and  now that she had, she wondered just what to do about it.

She certainly wasn’t about to tell anybody about it, but at the same time she wondered if she were a fool to think she could trust him. Was she in danger? Was it better for her to forget about seeing him and go back to the mundane existence she had been living?