Young Writers Society

"I never saw that movie cause I heard about what it did to people!" Amy ducked as a bird swooped down at her head. The thwacked it away, usung her bag as a shield. "Friggin birds! Friggin feathery beasts of fury!" She pulled out her knife, feeling useless in combat against birds of all things. How the heck would she fight them with such a short knife? It's not like she could just swing it at them. They were too small and twiggy.

"Can you make more use of this than me?" She asked, flipping the knife closed and shoving it into Loki's hands. "I'll cover you or whatever -" she deflected another bird with her bag. "- I'm just trying to avoid gunfire though too. Freakin guns. I hate guns."

"Sorry," Tasha says, not sounding terribly apologetic as she shoots four more birds out of the air.

I shot one of the birds that were attacking Amy and Loki. "Do you guys want me to protect you?" I asked.

Amy looked at Crifide from behind her large bag. "Have at it, cowboy." He seemed much better equipped to do this sort of thing.

Darian grabbed a flaming torch from the fire to lure the ravens away from the defenseless ones in the gang before dropping it to the ground, aiming his scythe at the oncoming storm of birds. "EVERYONE DOWN!" he shouted, before launching an incendiary round from the end of the gunscythe.

The murder of ravens caught fire, cawing in one deafening accord before dropping to the ground, burning and charring the grasses around them.

...and then Darian's eyes went wide as giant talons sunk into his back.

Amy let out an involuntary "AAA!" as she saw the raven swoop down from behind Darian.

In a flurry of adrenaline filled motion, she yanked the knife out of Loki's hands and ran over to Darian, yelling "AAA" all the way. She came behind Dorian and with one arm, wrangled the raven into her grip and cut at its throat - or, where she assumed a throat would be, on a bird. She pulled the knife back sharply, nearly chopping the bird's head clear off. Breathing heavy, she pulled back from Darian, looking wide-eyed at the now dead bird whose claws were still stuck in his back.

"Oh... god. AAaa. Can... can I pull them out?" She had no idea what to do, but they had to get the talons out, right? What do I do? What do I do? What did I just do?

She gave a bug-eyed expecting stare at the warrior woman and Crifide, hoping with as much experience they seemed to have in fighting, maybe they'd know something about doctoring - because she sure didn't.

She went around to look into Dorian's eyes and face him. She put a hand on his shoulder, searching his face for signs of life. "I'm so sorry, oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. W-we're gonna f-figure this out."

I ran over, slipping one of my two guns into its holster as I came to help Darian. "Damn!" I growled, shooting a few more birds. "Someone cover me so I can patch this one up!"

I started shooting all of the birds that I could see.

Darian heaved out a breath, blood spurting from his mouth as the bird lifted off into the air. He looked down with wild eyes, tried to pray for healing, but blacked out as the giant raven soared off towards its nest in a nearby plateau.

Amy nodded as Tasha stepped in and watched as birds fell out of the sky one by one with each shot from Crifide. She looked at the bloodied knife with a sense of panic but out of some indeterminable instinctual drive found herself running back to her bag, tearing the zipper open, and pulling out a first aid kit. It was a sizeable one at that - she had always anticipated the worst, but never did she feel ready for when it really happened - and it did.

She looked back at Darian, watching as the bloodied bird released it's grip from his back and soared into the sky. For some reason, it's departure was followed up by a mass exodus of the other remaining birds who had been swarming around them. In the few seconds it took for the area to clear, she found herself frozen for a moment, before the sight of Darian's blood and Tasha looking him over brought her back to her senses.

She rushed over, opening the case to reveal bandages, latex gloves, saline solution, a bushel of bandaids and other various things of the like. She'd only ever thought she'd have to use this stuff on herself if she got attacked by muggers or something. Never this.

"I can help." She said quietly, before realizing she still had the bloodied knife in one hand. "Uhh... this uh..." She stuck it sharp-end in the ground a bit a ways from her. "D-don't... need... that."

Now that all of the birds were gone, Loki's attention returned to the group that had assembled in the clearing. His attention landed on the cluster of people. He dropped his weapon in shock when he saw Darian lying unconscious on the ground, blood staining a wound on his back that Loki hadn't noticed. When had he been hurt? How could he have missed seeing something like that?

He glanced over at Crifide. The man was still surveying the sky, most likely trying to prevent another surprise attack from the birds.

Loki felt absolutely useless. He couldn't fend off the birds like Tasha, Darian, and Crifide could, and he didn't have a first aid kit like Amy did! The most he could do was offer his help, but would it even be necessary? Amy seemed like she had everything under control.

He walked over to the girl and crouched down beside her. “Is there anything I could do to help?” he quietly asked, wiping away the beads of sweat on his forehead.

Amy looked up at Tasha, at Darian, and at Loki with a quiet desperation in her eyes. But the eye contact didn't last long, as she quickly began to busy herself with trying to figure out what to do with Darian and his wounds, and figuring out how to get him back to consciousness. She began to take out some supplies, and put on the sterile latex gloves.

"I don't know... uhhh... do you have cell service? Could you try to call an ambulance?"

With one glove on and one off, she used her free hand to grab her cell phone in her back pocket and handed it to Loki. "Here. See if I have service."

"Let me take a look. I'm not a doctor, but I've been trained for basic field first aid." I knelt next to our fallen comrade, calmly assessing the wounds.

He grabbed the cell phone out of her hand, almost dropping it in the process. After a lucky save, he opened up the right app and prepared to hit the numbers that would bring help. But, as his fingers hovered above the keypad, he was hit by a wave of doubt. What if he was on another world? He didn't want to call the wrong number! That wouldn't help them at all, and it would show that something wasn't quite right with him.

After staring at the phone for another couple of seconds, Amy asked, “What's wrong?”

He gulped. Of course she had to ask – I still don't know what to say!

“Um...” He looked up from the screen. “I'm not from here. What's the emergency number for this area?”

"911," I answered as I tried to stop the bleeding.