After the story ended, the birds lingered for a few minutes, perched silently as their feathers ruffled in the wind. In the distance, the sky rumbled ominously.
At this sound, it was as if a spell had been broken; the birds' attention snapped to the sky. Then, one by one, they left. The silver-eyed one stayed the longest, turning towards its family and back at the machine. Then, after another second of hesitation, the bird left.
Another rumble echoed, and dark, grey clouds rolled in overhead.
The camera watched the grass sway faster and faster. Dried leaves lifted from the ground, swirling in the air before settling back down. Then, the first drops of rain fell, driven sideways by the wind. It was light at first, barely a sprinkle.
More rumbles filled the air and lightning flashed behind a cloud, lighting it up for a brief second.
The rain poured.
In an instant, the wall became gleaming wet and the camera's warning systems screamed at the water seeping in through the cracks. Electricity sparked and for a second, the camera's vision wavered.
A loud crack split the air. The wind howled, and the camera's view became a blur of distorted colours as water streamed down its lens. Another crack sounded, this time directly overhead.
The camera saw a shattered landscape.
Colours appeared as disjointed fragments. The sound of cracking continued as something large and brown—a branch—fell onto the camera. More water gushed in, entering through the new dents and cracks left by the fallen branch.
For a few seconds, the visual feed cut out. Then, amid scrambled code, chaos ensued within the camera's circuitry. Water infiltrated deeper, sporadically turning functions on and off.
One moment, the machine was preparing to send an urgent message. In the next, it was stuck searching for some kind of error hidden within its code. It was searching for a snarl in the program, a corruption which started out small but had lasting effects.
Nothing.
The camera's internal alarm flashed. There had to be something. Otherwise, it wouldn't flash.
Then the machine was reading a series of memories. Some were of the woman, others were of the birds. The woman usually cried or talked and the birds walked, flew or played. Sometimes they did those activities together. Other times, they did not.
In another instant, the camera surveyed its splintered surroundings. As the rain lightened, water droplets rolled off the lens, catching on the jagged bits, slowing their descent. The grass appeared cracked, and the sky seemed fractured, with light forming zigzag patterns like a spiderweb.
The machine was back within its code, fighting off a phantom data storm. Meaningless information pelted at the code from all sides. Patterns bloomed and withered. Something popped and whined.
Then-
–The camera found itself back in the room of its memories. Its systems were running smoothly, as if the storm was a dream, an illusion. It saw the woman reading from a thick book, flipping through the pages every now and then as if she was bored of the story or impatient to get to the end.
There was a moment of calm, where the woman settled down again with the book. A second later, she sighed, seemingly giving up on reading and walked out of the room. When she returned, she sat on the bed, setting down the small, white mug on the bedside table.
The camera could guess which words came next.
"I tried to return things back to where they were before. You are back on your mount and I am - was - not talking to you."
It was a playback of the dream from before, but somehow different. Last time, there seemed only barest of bones, with very little detail but now-
–The dream seemed more like a memory, one that was corrupted and now undergoing a reconstruction process.
"Even then, I don't think any system would handle staring at the same place for years, maybe even decades on end-"
The woman in this memory or dream seemed sadder and more exhausted than it remembered. There were prominent dark circles under her eyes and she seemed to dwell on every word, taking long and drawn out pauses every few seconds.
The machine watched the woman stare off into the distance every now and then. It recorded when she looked up, her face wrinkled in an expression of both sadness and pity.
"I just hope that, one day-"
She looked down and took a deep breath. "I just hope that, one day, none of you will be stuck in one place, stuck to the past."
The woman laughed. "I don't think we are going to get ourselves out of this situation." She gestured helplessly at the air.
"We're going to die and you are all going to be alone. I don't want that. I want-"
The woman stopped. Everything stopped as if time froze. Then, as the time ticked forward despite the frozen landscape, colours merged and shapes grew blurry. Corruption.
The camera attempted to push further, to skip a few more seconds in the event that maybe, it would find an uncorrupted section. It tried and tried, the program railing against corrupted data.
There was no change.
Hints of hurried processing sparked within the machine, its illogical side of the program insisting that the full memory must be recovered. Battery dropped faster and faster.
And the camera continued. There was something, a feeling, a knowledge that this moment, this memory was important. If its core memories were cherished pieces of data, this memory was the most cherished but also the most corrupted.
Then, the battery hit zero.
...
The cat huddled with her children, hiding in a covered corner of the forest. The shelter was minimal, made up of some strange protrusion that smelled strongly of rust. Water dripped off its sharp edges pooling onto the ground below.
A kitten whimpered.
The cat curled up tighter, her body feeling the brunt of the cold, wet winds. Up above, she heard creaking as even trees submitted to the storm. Thunder rumbled prompting her to lower her ears. Her children shivered and squirmed.
Then, there was a flash of light. The air split with a loud crack.
The cat lowered herself even closer to the ground. Her children screamed. The storm continued, raging throughout the night. Water spilled from pools and seeped into the shelter, soaking her fur. She shivered violently.
After a long time, the cat noticed the rain lightening. The winds lessened before finally dropping. With shaking legs, she stood up, her fur dripping with rain water. With tentative steps, she walked away from the shelter, with her children following behind her.
One of them sneezed.
The cat flicked her ear and turned back. All three young shivered. With a snort, she turned back to the path in front of her.
It was now littered in fallen branches and wet leaves and while it was not quite dawn, insects buzzed in the air dancing above the puddles of water. The cat leaped, skillfully avoiding most of the water, and waited for her kittens to mimic her actions. They did, following their mother in smaller, somewhat graceful hops.
One of her children sneezed again.
The cat paused, eyes skimming over the drenched undergrowth. Sickness. It must have struck when the cold water soaked her children. Ideally, she would allow her child to rest but she couldn't even find shelter. So, she did the only thing she could do. She continued on, searching for a place to stay.
...
The juveniles awoke to a changed landscape. Branches of familiar trees were missing and the strange boxy creature that resided between the roots of the tree was changed.
Parts of it were deflated, broken and its eye looked shattered.
They circled around the creature, waiting for it to greet them. There was no greeting.
The silver-eyed juvenile stepped forwards, pecking at the eye. There were times where the creature would stay silent until someone touched it, where its eye would suddenly glow. Then the creature would sing its strange song.
The efforts went unnoticed.
The other sibling, the shyer one, tried this time. He whistled softly, hoping that the creature would respond in kind.
There was also nothing.
The juveniles looked at each other and then at their parents behind them. Then they turned back at the creature. The silver-eyed sibling redoubled her efforts, pecking desperately at the broken eye. There was a kind of panic to her actions as she would peck, pace back and forth and then peck again.
Her brother ignored her, focusing instead on the multitude of insects that came out after the rain. After a few more seconds of pecking and whistling, the silver-eyed juvenile joined the rest of her family.
There was no reason to stay.
So they left, but they knew that the next day, they would come back. For one reason or another, their instincts regarded the desolate place as home, as a place of safety.
******
Word count: 16412
And now our first chapter split into three perspectives. And yes, I did really have the camera repair itself before breaking it again.
On the bright side set up to the climax is now done. I can't believe their journey is finally coming to an end.
I'll see you all in the next few chapters.
- Arland