The Perfect Specimen

A man lays gasping for breath next to the carcass of a bird the size of a small car. All around him is a dense cl.u.s.ter of trees and foliage. Broken branches directly above him and blotches of blood adorned on them and the grass around him indicating a serious fall.

The man removes his hand from his pelvis and looks down to see his condition. He sees three deep claw marks as large as the birds talons. He reaches down into his pocket and takes out a first aid kit that should be to large to fit inside in the first place. Dressing his wounds though he can not help but grumble and complain.

"That damned bird dragged me to who the hell knows where... Shit that f.u.c.k.i.n.g stings... Dammit stupid merchant, you could have been more specific in your notes. How the hell am I supposed to know that 'The herb is of the feather' meant 'A giant f.u.c.k.i.n.g Condor is guarding the herb'!"

After griping enough his situation he reaches down into his pocket and takes out another item, this time it is a plant in the shape of an egg. He smiles to himself and after looking at it for a short time, he properly stores it back into his pocket.

After dressing his wounds with the antibiotics and sloppy stitching. He wraps up his wound with fresh bandages and reaches towards the bird carcass. He grabs the handle of a dagger that is plunged deep into the birds stomach.

He pulls out the dagger, shakes off most of the excess blood on it, and puts it in the scabbard on his waist. He takes a few looks around before pulling out a piece of paper and pen. He writes a line through the words 'The herb is of the feather' which is below many other words that are crossed out.

The man is Clem who has come out into the wilds in search of a way of bringing back his brother from the grave. He has devoted all of his time to procuring the items and methods needed for the resurrection process. He knows that he is following a rumor, but is willing to risk everything on it.

After doing so he looks at the remaining list of items. He knows his limitations and started with the easiest tasks first. Buying the simplest items in town with his meager savings. Afterwards he has braved many difficult trials to procure the items needed. He was not successful in most of his attempts.

Leaving him to mark it down as something to come back to later. He tries pleading with ascended households and stronger companies for help on the most difficult tasks, but was turned away due to his lack of capital to trade for their services.

Knowing that he could not rely on anyone else, he has decided to try and handle the problems himself. The first difficult task that he needed to complete was to find the herb known as 'New Life'. It is the least dangerous of his most dangerous tasks.

'New Life' is generally found in the old nesting grounds of monsters. If enough embryonic fluid is absorbed into the soil from the mutated monsters, the ground becomes fertilized enough to support vegetation, in specific 'New Life'.

After gaining some information from a trade broker at the company HQ, he traveled to the old nesting grown of a flock of bird monsters. What he wasn't aware of though was that this nesting spot has been recently reused by a new breed of birds.

After getting to the nest, he saw the egg growing on top of a giant statue sitting down in a chair. It was growing on the statues l.a.p and was in plain view for him to see. There were no birds in the empty nests on the steps leading up to the statue so he ran right up to the statue and tore off the plant from its l.a.p.

What he failed to notice was the nests had fresh eggs in them. He thought they were just egg shells. The moment he took the herb off the statues l.a.p, he felt a piercing pain on his side. A bird the size of a small car lifted him off the ground at such a fast speed that he lost consciousnesses momentarily.

After feeling a deep pain from his abdomen, he is jostled awake and sees the underside of a bird with its talons hooked inside of him. He panics and pulls out his trusty dagger and stabs as deep into the birds underbelly as possible.

A ear piercing shriek fills the skies for a few moments. Afterwards, he feels the sudden pull of gravity and begins falling along with the bird. With it's claw still stuck in his side, the wind from the fall caused them to start spinning in the air.

When he felt the impact from the crash, the bird was underneath of him taking the brunt of the damage. From the impact, its talon became dislodged and they continued plummeting towards the ground. After hitting the ground, Clem was barely able to retain his consciousness as he bounced off the top of the bird and smashed into the ground beside it.

He looks at the next item on the list of riddles he procured from a merchant and sees it mentions 'The belly of the worm'. Already aware of how dangerous these cryptic messages are, he starts having second thoughts about whether or not he can really go though with doing these difficult tasks.

He then reaches into his pocket again and pulls out his brothers lighter. After rubbing it slowly a few times he makes an oath to himself, "As long as I am breathing I will bring you back Cleetus... I promise."

He puts the lighter back in his pocket and slowly gets up from the ground holding onto his damaged side and limping towards where he presumes civilization to be.

A few hours after Clem leaves, a small bald zombie comes running in full speed at the birds carcass. The zombie is covered in many different types of blood, all ranging from fresh to completely stale and crusty. The school uniforms self cleaning feature manages to burn away everything on the clothes, but not on his actual skin.

It kneels down in front of the bird and begins taking bite after bite. Consuming the overly large carcass and without even a sign of stopping. After biting off the last big mouthfuls of the birds meat, the small zombie then looks up with milky white dead eyes.

It then notices a small trail of blood going away from the now picked clean bird skeleton and begins making its way along the trail.