CHAPTER 3 — CARRIONS OF A FEATHER

Crash—!

Like a meteor on impact, I hit the ground. The dirt gave way from beneath, coughing up substances and antimatter, and there I was—splattered at the bottom of the endless sky. None the heroism of what you'd normally see as a superhero landing, no, that would have done the selfsame damage.

As though someone inadvertently curved the track to splatterpunk, this was how I arrived at the fields.

Gallons of heavy blood soaked into the blackened soil—wriggling as they gushed, clinging to grit and pebbles, and spreading in sluggish veins. Bubbles hissed up from the muck.

Bent arm, bones in sinister protrusion. Each and every limb twitched like some dying mantis' legs. Ribs jabbed through ligaments torn into smudge, and my jaw dangled off to the side.

You could imagine, like, a decommissioned animatron left in a haunted amusement park.

I yelped, not so much as an exhausting one.

Yet still a sound.

Steam rose from within the skin, carrying that sharp, blood iron stink.

I lay down there, still, eye.

I've gotten used to the routine—the death and despair, how I have to crawl and get back up. Although, I do hate this feeling of helplessness during the repair. I wait for it. I let the meat and blood pull itself altogether. No matter how much I hated it anyway, I had to live with it.

Then I blinked.

I was breathing again.

Cranky, maybe, but alive.

"Okay…" I wheezed, face pressed into the dirt. "That tech still works."

I surmised that if I was transmigrated, I'd have been stripped of the vampirism.

…Just some pessimistic calculation going on, actually, like sitting at the table knowing the deck's stacked cold. Somehow makes you think you're holding a seven and two different suits. When imagining crossing worlds, it's best not to expect the golden finger to also cross borders.

I sighed.

Well, on the topic of transmigration, I've only been hypothesizing—half driven by wishful thoughts.

I could also imagine that if I died, this could be hell.

The dirt wasn't normal dirt. It was black, fine, almost ash-like, and it pulsed faintly when I touched it. As though it had a heartbeat of its own. You know, it's increasingly bothering that the red lines over my skin were pulsing all the same.

I scrambled to my knees, As I turned, ruin were born out of nothing. All it took was a blink for these structures to appear…Man, this space is weird.

The landscape stretched into endless ruin. Towers like broken spines jutted from the ground. Rivers of glass wound across the horizon. Above, the sky was stitched together from patches of night and day, stars bleeding into clouds of burning red.

And then the sound began.

At first, I thought it was the wind.

A low hum, rising and falling. But the longer I listened, the more it sharpened into something too structured, too deliberate.

Voices.

"Is that you, John?"

But I was quite sure I didn't hit the mark.

There were more or less thousands channels where these damned voice came from.

All wailing together in a haunting chorus that would easily make someone's skin crawl. Heck, I'm a vampire myself—but it got into my senses. Vialed into the slightest dosage of fear, my eyeballs twitched.

Thankfully, I found skydiving significantly more thrilling than approaching monsters.

Cause I'm a vampire myself.

…I sighed.

Heightening my alert, I staggered back.

Eyes darting across that distorted fields I could be certain where and what.

That was when I saw those uncanny figures.

Shaped like people but stripped down to shadows, their bodies thin and stretched, faces melted into blank ovals. I suppose they all looked deformed around these perimeters—all in the likeness of their god. If John was the supreme he claimed to be, then these were definitely the ones who worshiped him.

They stood among the ruins in clusters, swaying as though rocked by an invisible tide.

And from their throats poured the sound—the endless, broken choir.

"Harpies," I exclaimed, not knowing what to really call them.

One of them turned.

Eyes nonexistent as well as their mouth.

Its head tilted, jerking, like a broken puppet.

The wailing grew louder—then quieter, and louder, as far as my mind would drift into, was them doing the Wakandan war cry.

Their singing halted when they caught my attention.

"You who fell from the skies…" he synthesized, like, really, his voice wasn't natural. Best you'd think would be that of a vocaloid model—though I can't mention a name. "By the will of the lands, state your name and prepare to receive the Gospels of the Revenant."

Prepare to receive, what now?

How it clicked wrong the first time, it was a dead giveaway for damnation.

And—I have only just arrived.

Well, this must mark the true beginning of this phase of my new life.

This doesn't really make me…happy, to say the least. They swayed together, every motion too uniform, as if an unseen conductor had them bound by invisible strings. Their faceless heads tilted my way—damningly so unreadable, I can't map out a conclusive social weather status. Although, somehow, there was glee with how they swayed—like penguins on their happy feet.

Though I can't be bothered to think they were simple creatures.

"Where am I?"

A rude, disruptive question, to which was met with, "This is the Endless Expanse."

"You mean, you named this place exactly how you see it?"

"For as long as this place existed, it has always been the Endless Expanse," he answered, warranting an unsolicited mock, "Your curiosity is beneath you."

"Well, what I'm trying to know is…" I sighed, furrowing my eyebrows to look at him straight. "Is this the afterlife or a parallel world?"

"This place has always been the Endless Expanse."

That was it.

Nothing more.

"Okay, then…Perhaps, do you know of a guy named John?" I asked, my lip twitching into a smirk as I brushed dirt from my sleeve. "I'm his colleague, you know, from godly work."

The figure stood dignified, and then: "Who?"

Oh, great, an owl.

There's no way I was close to believing John was actually God. The thought had been marinating in my frontal lobe ever since, leaving me with that sour aftertaste of doubt. And now, with that flat "Who?", I could tell this wasn't his army.

My dumbfounded ass readily exclaimed, "I thought we had the one who rules all of you."

"Pay no heed about it."

As calm as doughnut, I see.

The leader's voice broke my train of thought. "Your name." He stepped forward, the humming chorus dipping lower. "State it, sky-fallen one."

I lingered, letting silence stretch, pretending to weigh the request. Finally, I muttered, "I don't have one."

His head jerked. "A nameless being who fell from the skies. That can't be possible," he gasped, the words vibrating in static distortion. "All people who come from the skies must have names, or they can't join the Choir."

Their chorus rose again, voices layering, each phrase tumbling over itself like broken glass. I swore I felt the sound pressing on my ribcage. Annoyingly so.

"Uh-huh, then I suppose you are mistaken," I said, flexing my jaw back into place with a crack. "I didn't come here to join your choir."

The flock of harpies shifted uneasily at the declaration, their swaying breaking rhythm. The silence that followed felt like a taboo had just been carved into stone.

"What?!" the leader shrieked, his voice splintering into static. "That's blasphemy. The laws of the Carrion Choir apply to all who fall from the skies."

Their bodies leaned forward as one, like a tide about to break.

The air thickened, literally, carrying iron sands weaved from their song.

"Oh, wow, that's funny," I said, scratching the back of my head, forcing nonchalance. "No offense but, yeah, I like me better with a face. You all look like… dunno, non-humans?"

"What did you call us?!" the leader howled as the rest of the Choir rattled. "You dare mock our glorious forms, metamorphosed by the Revenant?!"

I tilted my head, feeling the weight of their faceless stares. Hostility radiated from them. "No, what I'm saying is…I'm not fond with the idea of looking like you."

The air quivered.

The leader thrust out an arm, his fingers twitching in a stiff command.

"The blasphemer mocks the Choir!" His voice crackled on each syllable. "He shall be shredded and woven into the hymn!"

The flock shuddered, a ripple passing through them like wind through rotten reeds.

Their swaying lost its rhythm, devolving into spasms and jerks.

"Well, whatever you say, but I'm not into group stuff." I forced a grin, baring the sharp glint of fang. "I prefer being alone."

"Nonsense!" the leader screeched, voice splitting like broken speakers.

He didn't even listen.

"Oh my," I said, raising a brow. "You might want to think this through."

Their faceless swarm leaned forward, a tide about to break.

I clicked my tongue.

"Look—there are thousands of you. I'd rather not die a thousand more deaths than I already have…" I announced as I also stretched my arms. "…But I also don't feel like crippling your entire army just to make a point."

The leader's head tilted, his blank face unreadable.

"We shall shred your every fiber into the verse."

I have to admit, that was scary as fuck.

Static crackled through his next command. "Attack!"