I used to have a deep phobia of darkness. I straight up refused to leave my house at night, even if it was for a chocolate bar or £10 (I was 10 when this story happened).
I hated walking home on my own in the Winter (I always got detention) and I more or less hated walking to school. However, my mom forced me to walk.
I was walking to school in 2005 - 2006ish and I was talking to my friend about video games - probably Resident Evil 4 or something. I will call my friend Whoosh (we called him that, we all had nicknames) and we were next door neighbours - well, double next door neighbours, there was a person in between us.
The school was a 25 minute walk away from our homes, and about 10 minutes in (a long, straight road, 200 metres long and 10 metres wide) we saw a man under the street light. This was weird since it was 5:30. Why were we going to school at 5:30? In our school, there was a thing called “Breakfast Club” where you can arrive from 5 AM to 8 AM, then go to the actual school.
He was long, had lanky, skinny arms and was black. Pure black.
Whoosh said that it was just because of the light but I wasn’t so sure. The light was right above him.
I nudged past the man and I asked: “Sir, why ‘r’ you up so early?”
I was a dumb kid. I didn’t know basic respect and person space, so as you can probably tell Whoosh was trying to shut me up. He muttered, “Mate! Don’t you know not to talk to strangers?”
I felt ashamed and walked away. But not before taking one final glance at the man.
“I am a night owl,” I heard as I spun round. It was said in a British accent - but it seemed like it was artificial. English was clearly not built for this fellow. When I did spin around, he was gone. But his voice still lingered. It was like he faded - but not entirely. “Not like I liked lights anyway.”
This time Whoosh turned around. “He’s not here, right?..”
My friend group consisted of Whoosh, Bash, Bong and Crackle. My nickname was Crunch. Crackle was the only one who wasn’t at breakfast club. Me and Whoosh told the others about the man and they told us to just bring a camera tomorrow. It was quite reasonable.
So we did. 24 hours later, I recorded the man and kept the camera on him. I kept the camera behind my butt, and when we walked past him, he said: “So you boys came back ag’in, huh?”
I looked behind me. His arms weren’t there. Instead were wings. I looked back, motioned to Whoosh, and he looked behind him as well. Nobody.
“You must just be imagining things.”
Me and him reviewed the camera footage when we arrived home. My home, in particular.
The camera picked up the arms coming back into his body… I could see some black liquid squirting out. Before the liquid hit the floor, it all formed into one large stick, before squirting out feathers. Eventually it solidified and stopped shining.
I stared in silence. I could hear the bathroom door and Whoosh puking.
I walked to school at 4:30 AM the day after that. I made sure to wake up extra early. I walked past the man with the camera, not daring to turn around and arrived near the gates of breakfast club. I looked at the camera footage.
This time the legs shrivelled up, still holding the man still and eventually it squirted some more of the black liquid. Around him it formed bird legs - it took me a few seconds to realise he was turning into a bird. But that’s outlandish, right? Plus, why would the man wait an entire hour for us to come? That was weird.
Me and Whoosh woke up at 4 AM and snuck out.
I saw a crow there. I sighed in relief and closed my eyes, but then I heard Whoosh screaming. I opened them, and I saw the crow in front of me.
“Why’re you so scared?” I said. What I didn’t expect, however, was this…
“Walk away.”
I was too scared to move. Did the crow just say something? But that was impossible, right?
I snuck back into my home and went to bed.
Breakfast club - I told Bong. He seemed to be the smartest there is.
“It’s fake. It… it has to be fake.”
The next day. I walked past the man. Alone. I looked back. It was a human. With bird proportions, bird legs, bird wings and it had a human chest and a human neck and face, but it had a bird beak. It ran for me. Before I could even react, it grabbed me and opened its beak. Now I could confirm - it was pitch black. It put my legs in its mouth and then I dropped to the floor. I was frozen. After about 10 minutes, I looked backwards. It was gone.
The taste lingered in the air. The foul, foul taste. Until something else lingered. Something else.
“It will come soon enough.”