Angel Feathers

Part 1

     There is a young man, age 23, chopping wood at the edge of a forest. It is the evening – the sun is beginning to set. He looks up and wipes the sweat off his brow. A young woman, probably age 22, comes from the west and begins to walk into the forest. She is wearing a beanie, sunglasses, jeans, and a forest green t-shirt. Her brown hair has tight yet soft curls. In her hand is a bag of Swedish Fish. She does not see the young man; he yells to her, confused. The forest is dark and is no place for solitary adventure. She stops, eyes wide and frozen, then breaks into a run. He follows her, concerned for her safety. She keeps running deeper and deeper into the forest. Her right foot snags on a low branch and she trips, her sunglasses shattering on the ground. She gets up and continues running in the same direction. The young man fails to catch up to her, but he finds the broken sunglasses and picks them up. Interestingly, there is a single white dove feather stuck to the lenses. He listens for any distant movement and tries to follow her path. Up ahead, he notices a small clearing with an old two-story house on the edge of it. The house was clearly abandoned long ago. He sees a flash of curls and knows the girl is entering it. But why?

     Cautiously, he walks toward the house, the back facing him. He finds the porch, rickety and moldy with age. However, he sees two white doves next to the door, which is slightly ajar. He opens the door, looking around for the mysterious young woman. All he makes out in the darkness is a trail of Swedish Fish leading to the staircase, red as blood on the floor. Piano music starts playing; it comes from upstairs. The young man follows the trail of fish candy up the creaky stairs. The music is peaceful yet eerie in the hollow house. He scans the room at the top of the stairs, then listens for the direction of the music. The haunting, beautiful sounds pull him to a back room. There, she is playing piano in the middle of the empty room; she does not see or hear him. He stares at her graceful hands, the calm radiating for her presence. His eyes then fall on the dove feathers covering the piano, the floor, her hair. Pure white feathers in an abandoned building.

     She looks up and makes eye contact with the young man. Fear consumes her features, and she immediately stops playing. He becomes frozen while looking into her intense brown eyes. Before he can react, she whips past him and is gone like a faded memory. He did not hear frantic footsteps or the slamming of the creaky door. All he remembers is the dove feathers disappeared, and the Swedish Fish melted into little puddles of blood. He senses that the house does not want him there.