Aging

There wasn't much to the room that Blanco was confined to, so naturally he discovered most of its secrets and intricacies fairly early into his childhood. From his hatchling days he had discovered the thin paper pamphlets on the shelves, pages glued together with years of damp. He had torn the first one to shreds while trying to open it so he had begun to treat them carefully, prying them apart with thin splinters of wood that were pushed into the corners of his...

"Don't go outside." It was the mantra to Blanco's life since the moment he was born. His earliest memories were of the inside of this room, looking up at his mother's grim countenance as she relayed the sombre warning. Outside was dangerous, he would die out there, she said, it was better for him to stay here and let her provide for him. He had nodded gravely in response, agreeing to stay within these four walls for a...

Grackle shuffled around in the bushes, eyes shut tight to avoid the branches currently smacking him in the face. He felt around on the ground with his chin until it hit something soft. Carefully he picked up the clump of feathers and backed up out of the brush. The branches tugged uncomfortably on his soft baby fuzz as he limped over to the small pile of leaves he had been collecting. The hot air pressed against him. He scratched his chest uncomfortably. The fires had mostly died out. ...