Darkness creeps into the sky at last on a cold October’s day. A long journey on All Hallows Eve comes to an end, as I step off the bus. Silently the frigid wind whips the leaves, skittering them across the roads towards the church.
As I walk home, a bird screeches above me. A great crow with glowing eyes descends from the murder in the sky. It sits in the tree, larger than the branch it clings to, cawing at the darkening void above.
I quicken my pace, but as I flee the calls grow louder and more cacophonous as other crows join in from above. The noise becomes deafening, the skies are alive with the voices of these sinister birds, overwhelming and vast. I break into a run. Heading a less familiar stretch of town, the paved streets suddenly and surprisingly give way to dirt and rocks, lost in my own town?
Falling to my knees, the sky is black with crow bodies as if they were one entity. The sound too merges to a solid hideous cawing, hovering down below, when suddenly the amorphous mass breaks up. The sounds cease, and the birds spiral out and away, vanishing over the darkening horizon. As they leave, a white object falls from the black mass to earth, landing with a soft thud.
After the fear subsides, morbid curiosity takes over and I approach the sky-borne thing. It is a beak- hollow— a beaked mask, shaped for a human. Defying all sense and logic, I lift the object, and examine it closer. I press it to my face. The mask is cold against my face, and it fits like a glove.
Satisfied in my curiosity I pull on the mask to remove it. It won’t come off. It has fixed itself to my face now. Panicking I struggle with the mask, and instead of feeling the air, and hearing it slide off, I hear a different sound. A creak of bone, and twist of sinew, my face fills the hollow beak. I can feel my mouth move against the mask’s form, dislodging it as my face contorts. The mask comes off.
My nose has melded with my expanding jaw to form a beak. A crow’s beak. As if in response my skin shudders, prickling as bumps appear. Then through my skin, pinfeathers twist out and spot my skin. They develop into black feathers engulfing flesh and covering my body. The skin hardens, and warp my arms and legs, feathers tear clothes. Claws burst from fingers, and legs arch, as my fingers merge into talons.
Dark wings Erupt from my back, and tail from my posterior. A crow in humanoid form and hungry for the night. I drop the mask and take to the air.
Darkness…Coming.
Happy Halloween!
I usually upload these on midnight on the night before Halloween, but I was in transit from Istanbul, so it had to be out off. My Internet went out at midnight, so this had to be delayed, my apologies. It's in first person out of laziness, and because this is what I've replaced actually dressing up with. I haven’t done anything avian in a while, and when merrowsong suggested crows as a Halloween theme, which led to this.
I just bought a plague doctor's mask in Venice, so I hope you're not sick of that mask yet. Hint hint. I used this also to test out my new inks, I used oak’s gall black for that deep purple, and an indigo for the sweatshirt, and then india ink for the matte blacks. I changed my approach for working with these up a little, less line-work and more color messin’.
Ink and watercolor on Paper, 9” x 12”
Art is © to me ageaus
~Age
For those of you on the East Coast in the aftermath of Sandy, I hope the best for you and your families, and that your lives will be back to normal quickly.
As I walk home, a bird screeches above me. A great crow with glowing eyes descends from the murder in the sky. It sits in the tree, larger than the branch it clings to, cawing at the darkening void above.
I quicken my pace, but as I flee the calls grow louder and more cacophonous as other crows join in from above. The noise becomes deafening, the skies are alive with the voices of these sinister birds, overwhelming and vast. I break into a run. Heading a less familiar stretch of town, the paved streets suddenly and surprisingly give way to dirt and rocks, lost in my own town?
Falling to my knees, the sky is black with crow bodies as if they were one entity. The sound too merges to a solid hideous cawing, hovering down below, when suddenly the amorphous mass breaks up. The sounds cease, and the birds spiral out and away, vanishing over the darkening horizon. As they leave, a white object falls from the black mass to earth, landing with a soft thud.
After the fear subsides, morbid curiosity takes over and I approach the sky-borne thing. It is a beak- hollow— a beaked mask, shaped for a human. Defying all sense and logic, I lift the object, and examine it closer. I press it to my face. The mask is cold against my face, and it fits like a glove.
Satisfied in my curiosity I pull on the mask to remove it. It won’t come off. It has fixed itself to my face now. Panicking I struggle with the mask, and instead of feeling the air, and hearing it slide off, I hear a different sound. A creak of bone, and twist of sinew, my face fills the hollow beak. I can feel my mouth move against the mask’s form, dislodging it as my face contorts. The mask comes off.
My nose has melded with my expanding jaw to form a beak. A crow’s beak. As if in response my skin shudders, prickling as bumps appear. Then through my skin, pinfeathers twist out and spot my skin. They develop into black feathers engulfing flesh and covering my body. The skin hardens, and warp my arms and legs, feathers tear clothes. Claws burst from fingers, and legs arch, as my fingers merge into talons.
Dark wings Erupt from my back, and tail from my posterior. A crow in humanoid form and hungry for the night. I drop the mask and take to the air.
Darkness…Coming.
Happy Halloween!
I usually upload these on midnight on the night before Halloween, but I was in transit from Istanbul, so it had to be out off. My Internet went out at midnight, so this had to be delayed, my apologies. It's in first person out of laziness, and because this is what I've replaced actually dressing up with. I haven’t done anything avian in a while, and when merrowsong suggested crows as a Halloween theme, which led to this.
I just bought a plague doctor's mask in Venice, so I hope you're not sick of that mask yet. Hint hint. I used this also to test out my new inks, I used oak’s gall black for that deep purple, and an indigo for the sweatshirt, and then india ink for the matte blacks. I changed my approach for working with these up a little, less line-work and more color messin’.
Ink and watercolor on Paper, 9” x 12”
Art is © to me ageaus
~Age
For those of you on the East Coast in the aftermath of Sandy, I hope the best for you and your families, and that your lives will be back to normal quickly.
Category Artwork (Traditional) / Transformation
Species Crow
Gender Male
Size 727 x 1000px
Really quite awesome a spooky-looking! Wonderful story to accompany the image, too. :D
Bravo on the artwork and the short story that you made.
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