A Short Story I Wrote For Art Class
The Kokuri
Fog filled the Victorian streets of Sussex as the sun preluded to radiate its warmth onto the vacant city. There was strange, eerie feeling about the atmosphere. Silence spread throughout the streets like a deadly disease. The silence was so empty, in fact, that someone were to drop a miniscule pin onto a worn and weathered floor, there would be a massive implosion. Blood streamed down the heads of the fallen. Terror filled the beating hearts of Sussex not too long before all of them turned cold and dormant. Maimed corpses were left in such inconvenient places, no one would think that anything as horrendous as this catastrophe would occur there; for instance, grocery shoppers lay prostrate in aisles of supermarkets, and everyday pedestrians were scattered among the city streets. Bodies were left in catacombs, their ghosts haunt the labyrinths of London. What psychopath would be so mad that he would have the wits to desire to be the cause of a mass murder of millions?
A few months earlier, the cityfolk acted as if my predictions were a malarkey, and they ignored my foreboding prophecy. Everyday on the cobbled streets of Sussex, I proclaimed the destiny of Sussex to all who listened. I had an intuition that something terrible and momentous would happen very soon. I was quite right, too. Those ignorant peasants should have listened to me. About a month before the incident, I spotted a small, strange bird majestically flying around in the muggy sky. The way it was flying was quite particular, in fact, like a vulture circling its prey. I continued to gaze at it for a few more seconds of admiration, then carried on with my afternoon stroll around the neighbourhood. Moments later, I eyed the strange bird perched upon a bakery windowsill and slowly confronted it. As I got a closer look of the animal, I realized it had black and leathery tentacles where its feet should have been! And what was this I saw? Mantis arms? How on earth could this animal be possible? I thought to myself. I deduced that, according to my observations, the bird hybrid was quite young. I crept a little closer to it to get a closer look. "Are you following me, little one?" I whispered. It cocked its head at me and pipped four times. Alas, I had gotten to close and unfortunately spooked the bird, for it fled.
Three weeks subsequently after my confrontation with the strange and eerie fowl, one of my cronies and I were fox hunting and we sighted the bird that I found priorly. "John, do you see that bird up there?" I asked, pointing to the branch where the hybrid was perched upon. "Over there, on that larger branch? Yes, I see. Why do you ask?" John squinted, for the branch was quite a few metres out of his range of vision. We began walking at a slow pace through the overgrown grass, avoiding broken branches that had fallen years ago. "Well, about a month ago, I saw that same exact bird. It was sittin' over on the bakery windowsill. But listen here, he's special, he's got tentacles!" I interjected. "Are you barmey, lad? How would it have octopus tentacles?" John shook his head slightly, then furrowed his brow at me and walked ahead of me. "John! I'm telling the truth! They're not octopus tentacles! Please, just believe me, just this once?" I increased my voice and ran to catch up with him. "Why would I believe you? You're the one who's telling fairy tales to everyone and saying that something rotten's gonna happen when it obviously isn't. How do you know all this stuff anyway? For all we know, you could be lyin' your arse off." "I don't know how I know this stuff, John. I guess I just got a feelin' about it. Listen, you gotta trust me. I'm your best mate." "Best mate? Since when, Rory? Blimey, I don't even know if I can even trust you anymore." I couldn't believe John didn't believe me. I decided to leave him. If he said that we weren't really friends, then what's the point in being around him, right? As I walked out of the forest, I heard a gunshot. The air began to get very dense. What's John up to now? I thought, as I ran back, determined to find out who shot that gun. "John, what was that? Are you alright?" I shouted as my ex-crony was in my sight. "I found that bird of yours, Rory! I got it!" "Why would you kill it, John? Why?!" "Why? Because it's a monster! That's why! Well, I'll just leave you here with that freak bird. Knock yourself out." He handed me the dead animal and walked away with triumph.
When I arrived home, I decided I needed to study this animal a bit closer. I needed to find out how it came into existance. I came to the conclusion that in order to understand what, why, and how, I needed to dissect it. Setting down on my lab table, I noticed its eyes. They neither looked they belonged to a bird, nor any animal. It appeared to be that the eyes belonged to an insect, and not just any insect. The bird corpse condoned beady eyes of a mantis possessing a wide binocular field of vision. It obtained wings of a finch, but it appeared that somehow, it managed to live with an additional mantis hindwing. I decided to dispose of the corpse after I examined its exterior, and not attempt to dissect it.
The next month was a complete and utter disaster. Turns out, there were more bird hybrids, or Kokuri (I chose to name the bird prior to the incident). In fact, there were flocks of the species. The moment the sky went dark due to the amount of Kokuri foreshadowing the city, everyone knew that I was telling the truth all along. Pedestrians were running around in the roads and sidewalks like chickens without heads. One of the first Kokuri to swoop down for its prey gouged the local librarian's eyes with its beak! As the uproar continued, the malicious fowl used their leathery tentacles to capture cityfolk, and some of them, to strangle to death. This bloodbath continued for about a week, just enough time to kill and feed off just about everyone in Sussex. I'm not sure where John ended up, but I have a feeling he's still alive somewhere.