Exodus

by Taylor Denton

The dark smog along the skyline only slightly obscures the raven’s vision. She looks down from her perch rather than across the smoking plains that once were her forest. Her gaze does not break from the moaning creature below her, lying on its side, its neck angled strangely. She cocks her head as his cries lessen. He is close, close now.

She remains unsure of what the stag is dying from, though, at this point, the cause does not matter. She would never know. She only knows that his insides will rot and ooze and liquidize into mush. His chest rises and falls slowly, his eyes dart around in a frantic loop of movement. She wonders if he can see her. She unfurls her wings and caws, just enough for the sound to reach him.

The raven once enjoyed taunting the stag when boredom arose; he had been easily tricked. The stag was once the pride of his herd, mammoth in proportion with antlers that nearly surpassed his height; she used to wonder if they might touch the sky. The young humans left gifts at his feet before they shot and ate his kin. But the humans never ate the raven, they feared her. Feared her eyes and the echoes of her voice. When the humans grew old, they forgot her; but they never forgot the stag. No matter, the raven was content as long as the stag didn’t forget her. She would perch on a branch and screech loudly, starling him in the midst of his mates and children. She would fly low about his head as he would become riled by the action. In those days, the grass was soft and gentle. The sun was a welcome presence, the moon brought with it a lulling chill. Water was clear and clean; the raven could even remember when she was able to see through it.

When she selected her mate, a small male with satiny feathers and a dazzling dance, and left her young flock, she established her territory near the stag’s. He would blink and breathe slowly through his nose when he noticed her presence. She took no care in the passing of time outside of their forest, unaware of its disintegration, even as the stag’s herd grew weak and sickly. His children and mates withered away; their ribs risen up against their skin as though they swallowed tree branches. The stag would watch as the raven and her congress picked apart the members of his herd, her children far more ravenous than she. The stag never grunted, he never stomped or snorted. He never rattled his antlers. He only ever breathed, slowly, through his nose.

The weakest of the raven’s congress perished first. She found the young male sprawled over the hard, pale grass; his wings bent and crooked. Her son, his left leg always slightly longer than the right. As the days passed, and his body was absorbed into the withering earth, she watched his uneven legs disintegrate into ashen nothingness. The wind quieted as her other children stopped flying, the first sign of the plague reaching them in the skies. Their wings tucked close, only their croaks caused a breeze to stir across the hollow and dry earth. But soon the raven’s children perished, and their echoes died. Their forest was poisoned, and the treeline fell away into stretches of empty horizon. The days and night blistered with sudden, uncompromising heat. Even in the darkness, there was no reprieve from the invisible fire.

The raven had never minded the debris that humans trailed behind them. Often, she and her congress found their best meals in the garbage, another gift from the humans. But the trash ceased to be fruitful. It became impossible to distinguish the earth’s surface from the empty cans, the waves of the ocean from the waves of plastic bottles. The trees bladed, their brown leaves littering the ground like dead cockroaches. The blue of the sky was replaced with a thick, dark cloud which never dissipated.

From the outer boundaries of her territory, thunderous echoes and clouds of white dust rose through the sky in straight arrows. The noise of humans died away, as the scream of a fawn is cut off the moment its neck is snapped within the jaw of a wolf. The raven and her congress were forced to scavenge for food elsewhere, and it was not difficult to discover an array of bloated, rotting corpses. Her family feasted on the carcasses, each member gorging themselves, but she hesitated. She was slow in her feeding, for the taste of the meals were pungent. Despite her warnings, her congress was unable to resist the lure of an abundance of food. Within days, her entire congress had joined the dead; fodder. She saw Odin’s body among the carnage.

The raven remembers, remembers each voice of her dead congress, remembers the way their wings once moved as they flew. She remembers those who died quickly, hardly realizing what was happening before it was finished. She remembers those who ended slowly, their bodies twisted in agony and their beaks pried open. She had thought that her time had come, that she would die alongside her mate, her children, her flock, her forest. But she survived. The pain in her stomach never ceased, her vision forever tainted and darkened; but she survived. When she returned to the brown woods, she found the stag alone. He was no longer the impressive, beautiful creature he had been. He shed his antlers, tiny stubs taking their place; like little bones from his skull breaking through the skin. His hide, once a silken blanket of brown that had shimmed when the light hit it, now balding; exposed with patches of pink flesh. His eyes were milky white, frothy foam gathered around his mouth. His strength had fallen away, he weighed little more than his fawns once had.

From all the chaos, nothing emerged. Lightning struck, lightning struck and not a rumble of thunder followed. The world is empty. The gifts are gone. The fear is, too.

She followed the stag as he wandered out of his territory, perhaps in search of food. He found none. And she watched him, sometimes using whatever strength remained in her wings to hover just over his head. His breathing would calm once he saw her. But this is an end. Finished, as he lay dying on the soiled, hard, black ground.

The two of them had wandered too far from the boundaries of their forest, the raven doubted she could find her way back even if she tried. Deserted structures of the humans, abandoned and forgotten, surround the raven and the stag.

Cold steel that burns at the raven’s touch, not the soft green flesh of grass. The height of the walls nowhere near how tall the trees used to stretch, and yet, dizzyingly high, higher than the raven could think of flying.

She tilts her head, gazing down at the ruined creature below her. He cries out again, the sound suddenly abrasive. It shocks the raven as she spreads her nearly bare wings open, calling a timid response. She leaves her perch and swoops down toward the stag. Her flight was uneven, her movement strained. It was a far cry from her younger years; she was the fastest and most graceful flier in her congress. She lands awkwardly next to his snout, his hot breath blowing against her. His eyes move to her, the flare in his nostrils lulling to a calm. He knows her, still knows her. From the forest, from the green. She cocks her head and warbles. He angles his chin toward her, never breaking his gaze. Already his body decomposes, but no ants come to nibble away at his flesh. No flies hover over him, waiting to implant their maggots within him. Not a single beast circles the hazy skies above her. She knew long ago that they were gone, all gone. The stag’s cries cease. She gently presses her beak over the top of his snout. His eyes never break their fixture on her as they dim and flutter.

He dies. The exhale is a wheezing, ugly sound that hurts her ears. His right eye is jammed closed, his left is partially open. His mouth parts as his tongue slips from between his teeth. The smell is pungent, despite his only being dead for a few moments. White foam leaks from him, and the raven removes her beak from his snout.

She is the only one left, the sole remnant of a wasteland. She senses it through the tremors of the rotted core of the Earth.

The dried-up memories still sing to her. The raven’s memory echoes in the space all around her, but she still could not quite recall the color green. Not the lush green of their forest.

She eats his left eye first. She does not take his right. She tears away at his neck, then down around his stomach. In the past, she never tore apart at a body so soon after death. She always waited, waited while the other creatures began her work for her. She especially enjoyed tricking the wolves, gullible and proud beings. But the wolves were some of the first to perish. She knows that she must be the one, the only one left now. His taste is bitter and vile against her tongue. Bits of his fur and chunks of his insides crawl down her throat. It is an ugly flavor. She places herself on top of his ribs. She continues.

She watches as the night fog moves in while she eats. There is a hint of movement beside her, and her gaze snaps toward it. A plastic bag scrapes along the ground. She watches it for a moment, scanning the landscape before her. Bottles, cans, mountains of colorful waste. The raven sees, and she remembers. She drives her beak within the stag, weakly, as her strength fades. The raven sees, and she remembers. The stag is still warm, she feels him against her feet.