The Bird in the Pit
Flip’s heart was beating so wildly she was sure that the guards could hear it.
“No! Please!”
They were dragging in someone else- a pleading male pigeon who struggled against the bonds on his wings and legs with a furious desperation. He had the look of a non-member; those birds that chose not to join a gang. He was small, with ruffled gray-and-black checkered feathers and a confused, terrified look in his eyes. He confirmed her suspicions just a moment later.
“Please!” He continued to beg, his coos quivering with fear. “I’m not a deserter! I don’t know anything!”
Flip watched, barely daring to breathe. What are they doing with him? She wondered. Her heart felt like it was twisting with each of his desperate coos. He’s just a harmless non-member! We knew they were chasing more and more of them out, but.. this is senseless!
A guard, the one with the commanding air about her, stepped forward. “You’re a traitor for your refusal to support the Soldiers of the General.” She spat. “Which is reason enough to throw you into the Pit.”
“I’m sorry!” The non-member wailed, shivering so viciously his skinny shape almost looked bigger than it was. His pleading eyes locked for a second on Flip, then went back to the guard. “I’ll join you, I’ll do whatever you want!”
“Let him go.” Flip murmured, then clicked her beak shut, having not meant to say it out loud. They wouldn't listen to her.
“Then you’ll die.” The guard cooed, smiling cruelly down at the non-member. The other two started to drag him to the pit, which, being on a roof, was a strange word for it. But, as the non-member was brought, struggling, to the rough square of cement, Flip couldn’t help but see it as a fitting description.
They started to hoist him up.
No. Flip thought, her throat feeling so tight she could barely breathe, let alone speak.
“No!” Echoed the non-member, his coo as much a screech as a seagull’s cry. “I’ll do any-”
He was dropped into the pit.
Flip didn’t hear anything for a moment but the breathing of the guards around her. Then, a quiet thump.
Silence.
Suddenly, a mangled squawk resonated from below. Screeches, coos, struggling…
The muffled, drawn-out noises lasted for both fleeting and agonizing minutes.
Silence again.
A voice shattered the spell, causing Flip to flinch violently.
“That’ll happen to you if you don’t cooperate.”
Flip tore her gaze from the Pit to look to her left. It was her, the pigeon with sleek, gray-checkered plumage and white-tipped wings. Her voice was so strangely flat that you might’ve almost thought she was bored, if her gaze hadn't been so intense.
“I’m-” Flip was instantly ashamed at how her coo trembled. She had to wait several moments before she could talk again. “I’m never going to tell you.”
“Into the Pit, then.” The white-winged pigeon said, her voice holding the shadow of a sigh.
Flip’s eyes widened. Her heart, if possible, beat faster. The guards on either side of her grabbed her restrained wings roughly and pulled her forward.
Flip pushed out her wings so violently that they ached, attempting to free them from their bindings. She thrashed in her captors’ grasps, kicking her stubby feet and wildly thrusting her neck. It only earned her scratches on her feet from the cement she was being pulled, ever-so-slowly, over.
Another few seconds of struggling, which felt like an eternity. Flip looked down. She was at the Pit, so abruptly that she could practically believe that time had sped up to get her there.
She finally, truly understood why it was called the Pit.
The cement chute dove down into darkness, a dank smell of oil and rot and decay seeping out of it. It couldn’t have been that far down, since the non-member had survived the fall, but, looking down into that darkness, Flip thought that it must go on forever.
“You ready to talk now?”
The blank voice hit her like a reinforced window. She could feel the intent gaze on her back.
Flip tried to give a brave, death-defying answer. But nothing would come out. She tried again.
“I..” Her voice sounded like it came from somewhere else- it was weak and small and utterly helpless.
“Just tell me where the others are. I won’t hurt them when they surrender. The city will be cleansed of the filth of the other birds.. and those misguided by them will be taught again to live peacefully under our almighty General.”
The flat voice had transformed into something else, like a blank piece of paper which suddenly was being written upon. It was soft, friendly, sympathizing; smooth as the shell of a new egg. Flip could feel some part of her mind wavering. She isn’t that bad.. I.. I can trust her. If only- She violently shook her head. No! She’s a manipulative liar! She would kill the others.. Flip took a deep breath in a futile attempt to calm herself.
“No. I won’t tell you.” She cooed, her fake-courage rapidly dissolving with every word. “Not- not.. in my- dying breath.”
At once, the voice was flat again, but it had a harder edge this time.
“Throw her in.”
Flip gasped and couldn’t help but shiver violently as the two guards held her over the Pit. She stared down, eyes wide, heart hammering so viciously that her insides felt like they were being hollowed out to make room. Her fast, panicked breathing filled her head.
For a moment, a sense of absolute blankness washed over her. Flip imagined herself from outside her body- a plain gray pigeon with stark black bars on her wings and a small crest jutting out from her head, the very trait which she had been named for. But, wait.. No, she looked different now. Her weeks of imprisonment had left her skinnier, her feathers dirty and unpreened, her feet caked with grime. Her crest at the moment was probably shaking, shaking, shaking..
I don’t want to-
The guards let go of her.
Flip opened her beak, but nothing came out.
All she saw was darkness, then-
Nothing.
To be continued...
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good job!!
