"Origin Story"

An archaeologist brushes dirt from a shallow depression in the rock. The shape

resolves slowly: a nest, or what remains of one. Fragments of fossilised shell collapse inward.

There are no signs of life, save for a line of small, three-toed impressions pressed into the hardened sediment, leading away.

She pauses, hand hovering over them.

“I wonder if you made it.”

---

Under a scorched sky, a mother theropod scours her nest, gently combing through broken shells with thick cobalt talons. She’s been gone too long, searching fruitlessly for food in a world which no longer knows day from night. 

The scents she relies on for navigation—wood, water, plants, prey—have all been replaced with fire, smoke, and death.

She’s been gone too long.

The membranes inside the eggs have dried to a thin, sour film. Insects haven’t found them yet—if any insects still live.

Caw-da!

Her hopeful call comes jagged and hoarse.

Silence.

She sniffs the ground, disturbing fresh-fallen ash and revealing a set of foreign

footprints. The ache of starvation is replaced by a new craving: vengeance.

The footprints lead west, through the riverbed scar of an evaporated river. She sees it then, darting for the rocks. The same small footprints trailing behind. A creature half her size.

One with a taste for the dead.

Thr-chit!

Its warning cry spurs her on. She lowers her head, readying herself for the kill. 

A flash of talon and tail disappears between the cracks.

The mother leaps, scrambling over the rocks. Snapping and scratching. Her mouth waters at the promise of a meal.

Thr-chit!

It hisses, writhing as her claws find purchase.

Caw-da!

Caw-da!

Caw-da!

Once, her family would have answered her call—they would have torn it apart

together. She waits. There’s no one left to answer.

The beast reeks of her nest. She grips it, sinking talons through flesh and bone. It keens lowly. Triumphant, the mother feasts.

Thr-chit.

A high-pitched caw titters through the rocks.

Thr-chit.

A baby scavenger emerges, sniffing the air. The mother lowers her head, poised.

Briefly considers a second meal. She clacks her teeth, chitters, attempting to drive it off instead.

But it’s too stupid—or too weak—to run. There’s no water, no food, no anything, formiles around. She nestles down.

Caw-da.

Softly.

The baby inches closer; she bites open a wound on her own flesh and holds still.

Allows it to eat and drink. It goes on like this until the smoke thins, and a westerly breeze carries salt-air over the dead plains.

They head for the coast together, an uncertain path laid out before them.

---

On a different shore, in a different time, where the rock is pale and the water runs clear, a Vampire finch lands on the back of a Blue-footed booby.

Caw-da.

The booby shifts once, then stills.

The finch works at the skin, quick and practised. A bead of red rises. It drinks.

Thr-chit.

The sea moves in and out, unchanged.