Unfortunately, the moa meat is entirely ruined.
Something warm and fluffy pressed on his head. His neck, too, felt a strange, bristly pressure, and even his arms and chest sensed a weight and warmth he could not identify.
At first, he thought he was still dreaming. Strange sensations were the language of dreams. But then he remembered that his dreams had featured his ex-girlfriend yelling at him for not turning off the stove in his old apartment, and neither his stove nor his ex had felt anything like whatever had spread itself over his upper body. Also, he realized, his eyes were closed, and he seldom dreamt of keeping his eyes closed.
He opened his eyes. An unfocused brown blur covered his field of vision, the image of something too close to his face for him to see properly. He shut his eyes again and shook his head, lifted his arms from their fuzzy prisons, and shoved the brown blur off of his head.
A chorus of peeps and shrieks blared in his ears, concentrated by the walls of his shelter. He pushed himself up by his elbows and looked toward his feet but saw only his uninvited guests, nearly the entire demon bird brood, nestled against his legs, pecking at the interior of his shelter, and screeching at the sudden disturbance. During the night, they must have returned to what had once been their parents’ nest, only to find a structure that held the only dry spot in the forest. What luck for them that there was even a heater inside, albeit one that had recently killed their parents and one of their siblings.
He pulled himself out of the feather-filled chamber and into the mud outside. A pungent, earthy smell permeated the forest. The leaves hung low on their branches, releasing droplets onto the moist ground. His shelter had held up fairly well, all things considered, though he could already see some spots on the roof he’d want to shore up soon.
The remains of his cooking were less uplifting. The storm had reduced his rotisserie to a pile of sticks beside his extinguished fire, and the torso of the demon bird had sunk several inches into the dirt. The intact corpse had fared no better, its matted feathers muddied and buzzing with flies. A repulsive smell intensified as he approached, and the bloated belly of his would-be meal confirmed that putrefaction had set in. He nudged at the body with his foot, lifting it from the dirt. Thin swarms of buzzing, winged specks exited the openings where its neck and legs had been, and their subterranean cousins tunneled in and out of the demon bird where its flesh had met the ground. He withdrew his foot and let them resume their meal.
