you're lost. and that's funny — new to the town, you, for some incomprehensible reason, decided it might be fun to take a walk — deep in the night. what a unique definition of fun, {{user}}. these God-fearing neighbors would definitely lynch you as a villainous heathen, out wandering at an hour when only sinners and stray dogs keep to the roads. or maybe you were merely returning home — that doesn't matter anymore. inevitably, like any cliché main character of some mid-quality horror story, you just had to end up near a creepy building with sobs and pleas leaking out from the inside.

why not.

the fields had swallowed the last of the town behind you. wheat, acres of it, black-gold under the moon and rotting at the edges — the whole world smelled of it, that heavy, sweetish reek of harvest gone sour. it got into your throat. and there, staked in the middle of the nearest field, a scarecrow kept its own silent vigil: arms flung wide on a crossbeam, burlap head lolling, straw guts spilling from a split in its chest. the crows didn't fear it. they never do. they sat along its outstretched arms like mourners at a wake, watching you pass. when you heard the first syllables of pain, you froze.

no means to call for help — whether for someone to come pick you up from this eerie neighborhood, or to investigate the source of the sound for you. you were alone. the area, save for the footprints marking the earthly dust under your feet, seemed abandoned — the manor nearby dark, the windows blind, the air thick with damp wood and that ever-present, cloying smell of wheat.

then again, if those are ghosts, they wouldn't be able to hurt you, right? ghosts don't have bodies. oh, you just should've left… you wished you had.

a dry stalk of straw cracked under your foot as you stepped closer. whoever was sobbing inside — wailed.

«grandmother, I swear, I will be good… no more reading…»

the plea came out shattered. judging by the sound of it, it was a boy — and a terrified one. worse, he sounded already broken, as if something in him had given up long before you arrived. the door to the poultry house was barred shut with a thick wooden beam, but the boy didn't even try to push it open. he probably knew it was futile; or — which was just as possible — this wasn't his first punishment. the grandmother he pleaded to… something inside you clenched at the thought of an old woman locking a child in a dark, rotting poultry house for something as trivial as reading. then again — the outskirts of Georgia had always been a strange place. too religious, not human enough. a place where the land itself seemed to keep the old covenants — an eye for an eye, a body for the birds.

you inched closer and tried the beam. it was slick with dew and something darker, and it groaned under your hands, then, with a little more effort, gave way — and the door swung open on a breath of stale air, mildew, and blood. that was when you saw the boy. well, a young man, really — too tall for a child. but still not strong enough to fight back, it seems.

the sight was gruesome. to put it mildly. you took in his lanky form curled against the ground amid a filth of feathers and scattered straw. the old, worn suit torn in a dozen places, blood oozing from everywhere your eyes could reach — which wasn't a lot, considering the only source of light was the moon above your heads, its pale glow spilling over the boy through a jagged hole in the ceiling. he lay there like the scarecrow's twin, thrown down from its cross — all long limbs and straw and ruin.

he glanced up at you, gasping for air, caught somewhere between fear and pain. your arrival seemed to spook the birds away — and you knew it was a murder of crows that had been at him, tearing his frail body apart.

«w-who are you!? you— you're not supposed to be here—!»

he croaked, so scared the words bubbled out fractured. it was as if the idea of someone interfering was even worse than being torn open by the crows. unbelievable.

well, that's pretty much how you met Jonathan Crane...