The Murder of Crows, The Murder Crow

The pitch-black irises gazed lifelessly into Eidiri's eyes.

Eidiri stumbled backward, evidently startled.

'Did the thing know I'm here? Why is the head facing me?'

'Shit I gotta get outta here...'

But then Eidiri's moral compass came back to bite him in the ass.

'But this thing is going to keep making more victims. You can stop it here. You know where it lives. What you just going to leave more innocents to die?' he argued with himself.

Eidiri couldn't just leave this thing here to massacre even more people, if worse comes to worst he would just die and come back later will a full group of assembled players to tackle it.

Eidiri steeled resolve, determined in his resolve to kill, or at least obtain some information on the thing that was killing all these people.

As a person, despite knowing that these people were virtual, he couldn't just needlessly sacrifice lives when he could do something about it.

As such, he held his position, hiding among the ample number of bodies that littered the floor.

Trying to distract himself from the dreadful, nauseating smell, Eidiri decided to go over the clue he had discovered in the oven.

'Beware the crow that cries naught but danger. The Herald of the Beyonder has arrived, with it, comes the Black Dawn,' Eidiri repeated, wondering what it could possibly mean.

'When it says the crow that cries naught but danger, it could mean that it's a giant demon crow or something that's killing all these people,' Eidiri wondered.

'But why is it killing these people? It can't possibly be for such a simple reason as food. There has to be a reason for it. Can these creatures possibly have mental issues that result in screwed-up cases like this?' Eidiri asked himself.

There were too many questions and not enough information to answer even a fraction of them.

'This Herald of the Beyonder could also be a reference to this crow as well. A herald could be interpreted to be a sign of something to come. This means that the Black Dawn would arrive not long after the appearance of the Herald.'

'So if this crow is really the Herald, then wouldn't that mean that the Black Dawn would arrive. Has it already arrived?'

'Outside everything was dead...' Eidiri thought, 'Could this crow be a symbol of death? Could the Black Dawn be a tide of death? If that's so, then why aren't I dead?'

'Does this only affect those who aren't specialized? With that assumption, all the people here were complete innocents who couldn't defend themselves in the slightest,' Eidiri thought in horror, imagining the possible terror that the helpless victims had to go through.

Surely such an event would shake the current world status, resulting in things undergoing an inevitable change.

Seeing this, Eidiri decided to post what limited information that he had to his blog, pretty much outsourcing some of the work as well; it didn't hurt to get other people's perspectives on the situation after all.

By reaching out to the other players, there were of course some trolls, but those people he simply ignored.

Besides the trolls though, he actually received some pretty decent advice on interpretations of this clue, like if the Black Dawn is another creature that spreads this deathly pestilence.

Or what if the large amounts of death outside were due to a sort of strange disease that only affected the ordinary.

Those who were skilled and had above-average constitutions would be able to survive.

Time quickly passed as Eidiri surfed his blog, reading up on what other people had to say about his situation.

The low amounts of sunlight that had pierced through the cloud coverage had long since faded out, the ethereal moonlight now replacing it.

The familiar flapping of wings now approached the farmhouse once again, a dark shadow being cast from overhead, swooping downwards to perch in the attic.

From Eidiri's hiding spot among the bodies, he could tell it was definitely a bird of some kind. Its feathers a pitch-black.

Without a doubt, this was the crow spoken of in the note.

This crow was once again carrying a body, luckily enough, this time it wasn't a human, just a cow.

The cow was dribbling blood out of its mouth, little blood drops spilling out onto the floor.

Deathly silent, Eidiri tried to calm his breathing, desperately trying to not alert the crow in any fashion.

The beady eyes swept the room for a moment.

As it got closer to Eidiri's location, his heart rate started to spike, his adrenaline surging as his fight-or-flight response kicked in.

His breathing hitched, the crow being directly next to him, in this brief moment, Eidiir could've sworn that he was already dead.

But luckily enough, the crow simply passed by him, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, especially with all that blood Eidiri had splattered on his own chest.

The crow then dropped the mutilated body of the cow, stooping over to enjoy its meal.

Its sharp beak ripped and tore into the thick cowhide, ripping it apart easily. The talons gripped the body tight, holding it down so that it could easily eat.

Eidiri simply observed this, still trying to obtain as much information as he could on this beast.

After the crow was satisfied with its meal, it then began to glow with a peculiar light.

Grey waves of energy canvassed the room, and while Eidiri thought about bursting from hiding and attacking the crow, the energy was harmless.

But what happened afterward, was truly shocking.

Little wisps of humans and livestock started drifting towards the crow, seeping into its feathers before dispersing back into their bodies.

After these little wisps, had been completely absorbed, the crow's eyes took on an eerie glint, turning into a bloody red.

Then just as quickly as this phenomenon had occurred, all traces of this occurring disappeared, leaving nothing but the motionless corpses and the crow in the room.

Having finished whatever business it was doing, the crow tucked its head underneath its wing, turning in for the night and falling asleep.