This is my first try at a One Shot! Please don't be alarmed by the ambiguity of it at the start, I wrote it like that on purpose! Here I go!
Prompt: Inescapable.
Useless Jabber
I blink. The world before me was a messy blur as I attempt to somehow make sense of it. I blink again, this time with a little more force than the last.
"Right," I could make out a tall man in a white coat staring at me. "It's finished."
What's finished? I wonder, my feet remaining in the standstill position poised in a stoned fashion. I didn't dare move; that man could be dangerous and I'm half blind right now. A pair of hands grabs me from behind as I try forcing myself to fight back but nothing's responding to my commands. Why? My vision is still crumpled, my body refusing to move. I feel a metal barred cage encase me as the door closes and with the twist of a key, locks me in. I haven't even figured out my very existence here yet and I'm already behind bars.
Whoever was carrying the cage was walking in a very clumping manner, feeling my head bop up and down along with the bounce of his feet. Then I see it in the distance; it wasn't just me caged up, feeling as hopeless as ever. I don't know why, but the sight enlightens me.
The man drops me down on top of another's cage with a loud crash and a team assembles together just within my visual range. My eyesight is slowly puzzling together the pieces as I see a large black block being placed down just ahead of me. The men file out of the room leaving one behind as he stuffs his ears with a foamy looking material. He treads over to the black box which I now make out to be a radio and presses a button with a click. A loud, screeching noise screams out of the radio in a painful manner, the walls reflecting the horrible sound off every corner in the tiny room. My heart twists as I feel something tickle in my throat. I try to hold it back but like my urge to move even the smallest of limbs; nothing seems to connect to my demands as a sound escapes me, echoing the awful scream from before.
I spent what seemed like hours in that torturous room, mimicking the most heart-wrenching of tones before the team of men file back into the room and one by one, pick us up by our cages and dump us into a hovercraft.
After awhile the hovercraft slowed to a light hover when a man pulls the door open, a huge gust blew in whipping against our faces. A key, that was all I needed to make a beeline for the overhanging wilderness that begged for me outside. For some reason, as if some unsaid prayer was answered, a man slides a key into the lock of my cage, twists it with an easy jerk and the door swings open.
I feel my wings stretch outwardly backward, as I dive down towards thick foliage of lush green trees feeling my body dissolve into a seemingly invisible barrier and find myself perching on a very comfortable branch. The nightmare is over. I think, I'm free. I taste the air; warm and sticky. I can get used to this. I try convincing myself. Anything is better than back there.
Unfortunately the nightmare has soon well dawned on me. This newfound freedom came at a price – my movement was limited to what I found was a wedge in the jungle and that was only for an hour every twelve hours in a day. In the other twenty-two hours my body would robotically make its way into this abyss of darkness along with the others as we wait silently, unmoving for the next eleven hours to pass. Sadly that wasn't even the worst part. During the constricted happiness I found in the small wedge of the jungle, if so much of a foot landed into the territory all of us would automatically begin screeching out cries of pain and sorrow.
I could see the effect it had on the people that passed us. They would all curl up, trying to shut out our mimicked cries – cries that I could not even begin to imagine where they had come from.
It was several days into the ongoing routine when I met Katniss Everdeen – a young girl, brimming with energy. She was accompanied by a man, probably only a few years older than herself with a great athletic build and this sturdy look to his face. Only everything I observed of them dissolved when one of the others gives a long, strained scream as they walk into our wedge.
I want to tell them, it's not our fault. We did not have a choice in whether we wanted to inflict such pain to them. Blame whoever had created us. Blame them and their black box. Blame them for bringing us into this hollow world which had no place to offer us in the first place. We don't belong here. But even though I knew we didn't belong here, why did I yearn so much to belong?
Her once gentle footsteps break into a sprint, searching for the unforgivable beast that had conjured such a mangled cry. A cry that meant almost nothing to us, but something so nostalgic that brings her to draw an arrow from her quiver and sends it flying into one of my companion's hearts. He falls off the tree and lands with a thud against the compacted earth, his body immediately limp from the death wound. There are many more of us however and our bodies won't listen to anything we command of it so the cry is easily replaced by another. This time, the pitch was a tad lower than the last but it strikes a bad chord somewhere in the man's heart as he rushes over screaming, "Annie, Annie!" His cries are desperate, as if we had just disturbed any peace that he had in his mind.
Still, on we echoed as we reduced them into their fetal positions with their hands covering their ears. The girl had probably taken out nine of us before realizing it was no use. There's too many of us, and not enough of her arrows to go around.
When we leave, I hear a boy run to the girl as he envelopes her in his arms. She was all choked up but he comforts her with simple but reassuring gestures. I was flying away, spiraling down into the abyss of black when a dream conjures in my mind.
I'm free, no restrictions and definitely no reciting of horrible screams. The sun is bright and warm but is balanced by the coolness of the light breeze that was flowing through the forest. A female perches on a branch not too far from me, as she sings her own songs to inhabitants of the home they shared. I am immediately struck by her beauty, such soft ruffled feathers and an array of perfect chorus notes that could only be ever sung by her. I want to make her mine and those songs my lullaby. I flitter down towards her… spiraling… spiraling…
My eyes shot open when I realized that the nightmare was far from over. The girl, the man and the boy that had helped her were all gone as a new set of feet trampled unsteadily through the jungle. They crossed into our wedge, but no scream flies out of our mouths. We sit on our branches waiting, watching, hoping. That is when I hear their voices.
"They've broken through the barrier." Says one of them. "The Games is long over."
"What do we do with all the muttations we brought in?" The second asks, with a questioning tone to his voice.
"Leave them here to die." The first one growls; looking at us all sitting a safe distance from him.
"At least the birds – we should at least release them into the wildness in the districts." The second one protests. I could feel a glow emitting from all the others, a glow of the hope we were so overdue for.
"No." The first one snaps, glaring at the second guy. "You should know very well how that played out last time."
"Y-y-yes." He stuttered, shying away to the idea. Fight back you coward! I wanted to scream out, but no words escape my mouth.
After a long pause, the first one sighs. "They're useless without something to mimic. Just let them die here." Taking a step back, the man strides off out of the wedge laughing so mechanically I had to figure out whether he was the one even making the sound. The second guy slowly follows him out of the jungle before both of them disappears onto the hovercraft.
As if a clock has struck twelve and the chimes could be heard, we fly back into the dark abyss where we will spend the next eleven hours, come out for an hour of sunlight before plunging ourselves back into the darkness again. We will keep going in this endless routine because we're jabberjays, and we were simply programmed to do so.