The Harvest

His feathers pressed against the steel bars of a cage, Turkey felt numb. This was all he knew; the faint light overhead, flickering on and off, the ruckus of his fellow captives panicking in fear, and worst of all, the wraiths.

The wraiths walked past the cages, selecting the largest birds and carting them off. Once a wraith selected you, it was over. The end. Turkey knew naught where his fellow captives were hauled off to, only knew that their fate must be grisly. Why else would they be stored in such wretched squalor?

Wraiths, wretched monstrosities with elongated wings and legs, clearly did not value their comfort, and thus, their lives. For many turkeys died before the wraiths came for them. Pressed tight against each other, they had no space to move. The floor of their cages served as both a bathroom and a feeding ground.

            Footsteps echoed. A wraith approached his cage. The cage door creaked on its hinges as the wraith opened it and reached with a groping hand clothed in the skin of a dead animal for Turkey’s neck.

Turkey’s heart fluttered with fear as he was roughly dragged from the cage and brought into a dark room reeking of death. He clucked nervously, sensing danger as his neck was placed on a metal slab. Warm blood coated the slab, staining his feathers.

 Something sliced through the air behind him. A sensation of pain in his neck, then, silence.