I rolled over on my side to try to make out who was talking and what they were saying. That's when it dawned on me that I was all alone and outdoors. I was so stiff and exhausted I didn't really care. Somehow I still had the costume on. I must've imagined it was my blanket on my bed at home.
It was still dark out, just before dawn, I heard someone talking again and instinctively flinched into a crouch and looked toward the sound- only to come face to face with a terrifying sight. At first all I could make out was fur, and a horrible stench. But I didn't hear any breathing but my own. Maybe it was dead, whatever it was. I gingerly reached out to touch the carcass to make certain it was just some kind of road kill. Instead I felt long, cold teeth, made out of polyurethane.
Whew! It was just my head.
I was relieved as when you go careening off the road into a snowbank in your car in winter but realize that thankfully you didn't hit another car. But I was still on my guard.
"What are you? What are you?" came one of the voices again. This time there was something furry and alive coming toward me. Again I was relieved when it was just a raccoon sniffing at me? Ordinarily you'd expect a 14 year old girl to be wigged out by even small wild vermin, but for some reason, I realized that I didn't have any reason to be afraid.
Unafraid as I was still didn't know who kept talking.
"What is it? What is it?"
"What are you? What are you? Are you a people or a dog? People or a dog?"
"Bugs, bugs," another voice said from a few feet away.
"Mmmm, good. Mmmm, fruit, mmmm, good" said another, I thought from up above.
"Are you a people-dog?" said the raccoon, looking up at me?
"What the hell?!" I said, "Are you- are you talking to me?"
"Who else? Dog-breath people-girl?" said the raccoon.
"Holy shit! This is too much. Somebody must have snuck some LSD into my Powerade at half time.
"Do you understand me, little guy?" I asked my new subsentence.
"Do you have any food?" it asked.
"Uh, no, sorry."
"No food? What good are you?" it snapped back, and started walking away.
"No wait! come back! How can you understand me?"
"Don't mind him. His kind all have one-track minds. Food food food. Not very smart at all." came a dry, superior voice, from above me. I looked up into the ash tree I apparently had fallen asleep under but only saw a crow.
"Excuse me," are you a crow?
"Corbin Corax is the name, and I happen to be a raven," he explained with some offense in his tone, "larger and much smarter than any crow."
"Great, I'm talking to a big black scavenger bird with a superiority complex. I still don't know if I'm cursed or just crazy, but I know I must be both."
"Perhaps, Dog-Girl, perhaps you are indeed a little of both."
"Oh Geez, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. Maybe I'm just dreaming. Or maybe somebody really did drug me as a prank or something. I just want to get home and sleep it off and wake up and have life go back to normal."
Then as if on cue, quoth the raven, "Nevermore."
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