Chapter Seven
THERE WAS A stream of air coming out of the well. Now it was coming out in gusts, growing stronger and stronger!
And it was not just cool. It was cold.
Too cold for a breeze in the middle of the day!
From below, as loud as thunder, a shrieking sound boomed that made him jump back and away.
His skin filled with goosebumps and his hair stood on its ends. The shrieking sound magnified by the well, in the silent clearing, was deafening.
The gusts of air was so strong now. But either through curiosity or stupidity, Julio still looked down the well.
Another shriek came, he covered his ears as he stumbled back. There was a very strong gust of wind.
And then something big flew out of the well, into the roof of the hut, and there was the sound of wood and things breaking.
And it was only Julio reflexes that saved him -- he didn't even realize he was already lying on the ground until a broken piece of wood hit him on his left cheek.
Whatever it was that came out was strong enough to blow through the wooden slats that roofed the well. Thinking that the rest of the frame would go down, Julio rolled to his side immediately, narrowly escaping a huge portion of the roofing from smashing down on him.
He was on his feet the next second. He ran back to the trees, looked around and scanned the immediate vicinity for whatever it was that broke out from the well.
Julio did not see anything, and it prompted him to look behind twice just to be sure it wasn't at his back.
Then a realization came over him, and he finally ran for the cover of the trees.
The creature! It could fly!
His gaze went up as his right arm shielded his eyes from the sun. He scanned the air to find whatever came out the well. Julio jumped when his back bumped into something solid and hard, but it was only a tree. He immediately went behind its thick trunk and crouched, never taking his eyes off the sky.
Silence.
There was so complete a silence, not even the rustling of leaves could be heard.
Julio became aware that his heart was racing fast, thudding so hard that it deafened his ears. His hands were shaking and goosebumps still covered his skin. He knew he'd become pale. He felt when his blood left his face. It felt cold.
The waiting was killing him! His eyes darted back and forth, scanning. He'd never hated the silence so much until now.
Then the shriek, almost wraithlike in its power to drain him, came again. This time, it was longer, and sounded even more menacing. It was coming from the trees but he could not determine where exactly. It sounded like it was coming from all directions.
His hands and feet were so cold, but his sweat poured from all over his body. Julio dropped to the ground on his stomach from sheer terror.
Then, the creature sped from the trees opposite him, so fast was its approach that it was a blur. All that Julio saw was a mass of bright colors hurtling towards him.
He closed his eyes and accepted his fate.
It didn't come.
Not yet. He felt a strong gust of wind and when he opened his eyes, the creature had somehow changed its route and managed to soar upwards at a steep angle, shooting high into the sky.
Julio was at a loss for words. He had not seen any flying creature do this -- not even bats, surely not from any species of bird. That was what the creature looked like to him, a great bird.
It swooped down shrieking and just as abruptly as moments earlier, glided just as it almost hit the treetops. It then circled the clearing on its edges from above, the shrieks becoming more frequent.
Julio had no other way to describe the sound it made. It was definitely not a chirp-not even a loud equivalent of a chirp-and more appropriate for a four-legged beast than for a bird. It was deep, and yet it seemed to come from such a high pitch.
Julio was so overwhelmed with fear and terror that he remained on the ground, his mind unable to handle the conflict between the instinctual and the logical. His eyes remained transfixed on the creature as it ended its circling and hovered just a few feet from the ground with its back to him. Incredible!
He had never seen any flying creature that big hover! It was intent on something among the trees across him. He saw its great wingspan stretched out and, even more incredibly, he saw a second set of smaller wings on both sides of its torso, connected at the base, working in harmony to achieve the almost fantastical feat!
From the vantage point that he had, his observations only brought more fear and awe. The creature's feathers were very colorful and had a certain kind of gloss on them that made it look like they were reflecting light. The colors were deep shades of red, blue, green and black while the entire length from the top of its head all the way down to the tail was punctuated with the brightest shade of yellow he had ever seen. It almost seemed like the creature had golden feathers!
Its tail also did not look like any bird's tail. It was not flat; rather, it looked like a bunch of those wonderful plumes stuck and coated around a long piece or rope. The feathers almost curved to the side, creating a colorful spiral of feathers thinning out to the end -- where another feature made Julio swallow.
The end of the tail was not tapered off. Instead, there was what looked like a fork made of three prongs -- the middle one spiked straight while the other two also spiked up with additions of a downward spike that resembled that of a fishhook! Its color was deep black and it appeared to be very solid. And very dangerous. Like its razor-sharp claws.
The creature shrieked once more, its powerful wings sending it higher, and then it took off straight into the trees. Silence ensued once more. Seconds seemed like minutes to Julio, his heart still frantically beating. He heard the creature shriek once more and this time he heard a rustling. It sounded like panicked creatures hurtling through the leaves.
In a moment, he distinguished the new sounds -- birds!
He willed himself into a kneeling position, curious to see what was happening.
From far off above the treeline, he saw one, two and then all at once, a flock of colorful birds taking off!
The panicked flight of these little birds was the rustling sound that he heard. He saw the creature shoot up and once clear of the treetops, leveled into a glide after just one flap of its wings for adjustment -- from vertical to horizontal in one graceful move!
Julio wouldn't have believed it if someone had just told him.
As scattered as the flock of birds were, all lined up in the direction it went soon had their lives extinguished. Unlike hawks, it did not use its claws but instead tucked it away and used it's opened beak to capture its preys. The poor birds did not even have time to squeak, their avian bodies broken and lifeless before they were dropped to the ground.
Parrots. They were parrots. The pretty colors of their feathers now looked gruesome as they remained still and lifeless-and bloody-on the ground.
It just took pleasure in killing the poor birds. It wasn't even eating. Parrots rarely lived closed to humans and they live deep in the forest. It made him wonder how deep in the forest he was. It made him wonder how the creature managed to find the flock. How many times did it leave the well? How many times had it flew over the forest to find other helpless creatures to kill this way?
He saw it change its angle as gracefully as it did earlier. It now flew upward. It did a quick flip once it was vertical and almost immediately hurtled in the opposite direction flying upside down, slowly rolling until it was in its regular flying position once again.
Julio feared this creature now more than ever. The act of spying on it had removed the initial fear, but now he was certain that if it somehow sense him, he would be as good as dead.
The creature continued its rampage overhead, leaving dead birds falling down to the ground in its wake. He knew that predatory birds would find one victim, would stick to it and then would devour it. But this one just wanted to kill as many as it could, as evidenced by the
raining mass of bloody parrots. Finally, the rest of the dispersed birds were too far off to hold the creature's attention, so it just glided in a few circles, shrieking, before coming down on the ground.
The way it landed was the most beautiful landing of a winged creature he had ever seen. No suddenness to it the way small birds did, or hesitant pause those larger did when perching. It dropped aimlessly towards the ground and at the last moment, repositioned its upper body so that it was upright.
It flapped its huge wings once, flattening the grass, and with its second set of wings working in a frenzy, the creature landed like it was just a freefalling feather.
It landed with its side to him and only then did the apparent ferociousness of the creature sink in.
With its feet on the ground, it was as tall as he was, and the creature was bent forward. Its three-pronged tail not only touched the ground but was swaying back and forth, the way dogs or other four-legged creatures did!
Its long beak and head were bent forward, and it walked with an easy gait, almost as if it were a bipedal. The entire length of its feet all the way up to its thighs was not covered in feathers but scales that were, from his vantage point, jet black. Even its claws were of the same color; it was the same color as the tip of its tail. When the creature walked a little closer at an angle, he saw that all the parts that would have been vulnerable in any other bird were covered with the same scale-like formation all the way to its neck. The sides of its crown seemed to have a thick layer of the same material.
No wonder it was able to break the roof of the well's covering, he thought, his heart beating in his throat.
He watched as the creature strode forward and once it found one of the dead birds, it looked around, side to side, then looked down on the dead prey, stepped on its head and ripped its body apart with its beak holding the neck. This resulted in just the head being separated from the body while the remaining part, hanging from its beak, got swallowed in one single motion.
So, now was when it starts eating.
The creature continued this for about a few more birds when it suddenly stopped.