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Madilyn doesn’t remember why she’s walking through the woods. She doesn’t remember how long she’s been doing it. And she doesn’t remember when she started following this crow.
What she does remember is that this stupid bird has refused the crumbs she offered it every time she held them out for it to eat. She also remembers that usually it’s the crow that follows HER around, eyeing the metal that holds together the drawstring of her hoodie and any jewelry she’s chosen to wear that day, it’s always liked the locket that hangs from her neck especially.
She made a fair assumption that, like any crow, this bird liked shiny things. Though, she isn’t sure why it follows her so persistently, most birds would have been scared away with how close she got to it when she had tried to shoo it away so she could take her nightly walk in peace.
So, as Madilyn followed the crow off-path into a part of the woods where the thick canopy above makes it seem just that much darker, she can’t help her curiosity. She’s sure the crow is leading her somewhere, not just trying to get away from her, because every so often it’ll look back at her from its place in the lowest branch it can perch on in that twitchy way that birds do to check if she’s still following before continuing on.
She doesn’t know how long they travel through the woods like this (long enough that she starts thinking of what she should call the bird) before the crow glides down to the ground and lands gracefully in front of what she can only assume is a rock since it’s gotten much darker the longer they continue.
Allowing her eyes to adjust, Madilyn comes to the slow and concerning realization that it’s not a rock. Someone is lying down in the middle of the woods, unmoving. Madilyn quickly runs up to the person, kneeling and frantically attempting to shake them awake.
When they continue to not move she rolls them over onto their back to see them better, going as still as they are when she realizes what she’s looking at.
That’s a dead body.
A very familiar dead body.
Madilyn trembles as she pushes herself away from the corpse with eyes wide in terror, unable to break her gaze from it. She shakes her head in disbelief.
“No, no, no…” she mutters to herself, over and over.
She screams and cries, covering her mouth and eyes, trying to wake up from whatever screwed up nightmare she’d somehow landed herself in. She backs herself away from the body until her back hits a tree and sits there, weeping and unable to move.
She only uncovers her eyes when the crow hops up and perches on her shoulder, even still doing everything she can to avoid looking at the object of her horror. The crow tilts its head back and forth as if trying to understand something before it leans down and snatches the locket off of her neck before flying away.
Madilyn curses shakily and frantically reaches out to take the necklace back before immediately backing down when she notices the bird flying in the general direction of the corpse and sits back down against the tree, her original panic coming back to her.
But once the crow passes over the body, it seems to merge with the ground, leaving two tendrils of almost glowing smoke behind; one floats into the locket held in the crows talons, one wraps around Madilyn and fuses into her skin.
The scene around her changes, trees melting into the ground and replacing themselves with gravestones, fallen leafs shifting into dead grass. Suddenly she’s in a graveyard, sitting on a tombstone.
She quickly backs away, observing her surroundings cautiously, especially where she had been sitting.
Madilyn had seen many things today- a crow sentient enough to guide her through the woods with purpose, a dead body in those same woods, that body melting into the solid ground beneath as its soul was absorbed by the necklace that had been stolen from her by aforementioned crow- but none of which made her more aware of her situation than the name she saw on the grave stone.
“Madilyn Mei
2007-2024
Finders Keepers”