My waterlogged ankle boots crunch on the stony shoreline as I wring out my hair, shaking my head at the waterfall at my back.

It roars, taunting me, a thunderous plea demanding I look upon the impossible height that I just descended.

“Don’t wanna know,” I mutter weakly back at it.

My voice is a bit hoarse, either from screaming or swallowing the questionable water.

I can’t be sure.

It felt like that dream we all get when we’re drifting asleep, you know?

Falling and falling then snorting ourselves awake, jolting just before impact?

Except I didn’t get to wake from this nightmare.

Nope. It’s just me and the thick unfamiliar woods that border this strange beach.

It probably looks beautiful during the day, but in the depth of night, it appears ominous and foreboding.

A caw draws my attention upwards.

That, at least, is familiar.

The crow flies overhead and lands on a gnarled branch before me, almost beckoning.

I don’t have any other concrete plans at the moment, so I decide to heed the summons.

“Aht!” A male voice scolds loudly.

I drop to the ground, like I’m taking cover from gunfire, before I’ve even considered the action.

Footsteps crunch over the beach to my left like gravel.

I decide I’ll just stay down.

It’s nice here, actually.

Cold and bumpy.

Comfy.

“You don’t wanna do that,” the man advises as he closes the distance.

There are so many things that he could be referencing that I’m forced to look up to discern his meaning.

I don’t hold in my gasp.

The near death experience has obliterated my filter.

“Indiana Jones?” I breathe in awe of the man approaching with torch in hand.

I’ll eat my ruined shoe if I’m wrong.

I mean, this guy _does_ have darker hair and a full beard, but it could totally be a disguise.

His beat up leather jacket, military-esque shirt and pants, combined with a worn hat?

There’s no whip, but maybe he lost it?

Maybe he got rid of it on some drunken night, thinking it was a snake on his hip.

The man stops a couple feet away from where I lay. “No,” he answers, voice imbued with humor, “name’s Brand.”

“Indiana Jones _is_ a name brand,” I agree.

Hand on hip, he sighs before speaking slowly.

“My. Name. Is. Brand.”

“Ah,” I say as I sit up.

We can play pretend if he wants.

He seems to note that I’m humoring him and sighs heavily as though exhaling all his impatience.

His head tilts back a bit, searching the starry sky, then seems to recall something when he pins his icy stare back on me.

“That crow… Why were you walking towards it?”

“Oh. Well, it said, ‘Hi,’” I inform ‘_Brand_,’ “I didn’t want to be rude.”

He sighs once more.

Dude has a serious breathing problem.

“Those birds are bad news around here,” he says.

The crow caws indignantly.

Brand’s eyes flick in its direction while explaining.

“The locals believe their presence to be a sign of impending death, and for 800 years, they haven’t been wrong yet.”

I nod along with that.

“They don’t call a group of crows a ‘murder’ for nothin’,” I agree.

He gives me a huff of disbelief and a shake of his head, looking me over for the first time in my tight black jeans, previously pristine white shirt, and short black suede boots (RIP).

“What are you doing out here,” he asks, almost more wary of my presence now than the crow’s.

I rest back on my palms.

“Just, you know, taking in the fresh air.”

His expression threatens the doom that temple of his infamous treasure hunter counterpart’s was purported to contain.

I deflate.

“I’m obviously lost, man. Unfortunately, I’m one of those people who gets a sip of alcohol in their system and disappears from their group. Guess how many sips the open bar at resort up there offered.”

I hike my thumb in the direction of the waterfall in illustration.

His long arm drops to his side as he closes the distance between us then, making me tense.

I flinch when he offers his hand down to me.

He looks toward the waterfall that seems to rage at the continued lack of my attention.

“Yeah, I heard your scream,” Brand admits, looking down at me strangely, “the crow made sense until I saw you were alive.”

“For now,” I tease.

He doesn’t seem to share my sense of humor, which is a shame.

Wiggling his extended fingers a bit, he says, “Come on. I’ve been staying with the local tribe. They’ll keep you safe until morning.”

“You sure?” I ask, even though I’m already putting my palm in his.

There’s the heavy presence of a predator sizing us up from the brush in my periphery, and I don’t like the idea of proving the crow superstition correct.

Brand heaves me up and guides me onto the same path that he exited the woods from, based on the disrupted stones his torch reveals.

“Positive,” he promises.

Trees that I’ve only seen on rainforest documentaries begin to curl around us in an oppressive tunnel, his long legs eat up the barely worn path, forcing me to power walk to stay within the light he provides.

Rusting within the brush on either side seems to follow our trail.

“How long have you been here,” I whisper to his back, afraid to make too much sound, but much more terrified to be lost in my own thoughts.

A stirring from above has my eyes flicking up to find a crow, but this time, it’s not alone.

Two more frame the branches on either side of it.

Another three fly past.

I follow their path to where they land on the branches ahead of us, looking down damningly as we pass.

“A few years,” Brand replies lowly, confirming my fears of being overheard.

The torch he carries in front of him illuminates his silhouette tilting its head in thought while more shadowy wings congregate and land along our way.

“Three years,” he confides quietly, “you’re actually in for a treat. There’s an annual ritual they do, and we might just make it there in time to see it if we hurry.”

And here I thought we were already hurrying.

The rest of the trek is passed in silence.

My unease escalating the further in that we weave, the trees becoming further eclipsed with innumerable obsidian wings.

Extra light ahead, a large bonfire, reflects against the intelligent orbs staring down at us.

A loud drumbeat makes me jump with a yelp.

Hundreds of wings rustle from above, emulating a war fleet setting sail.

Brand turns back to me just before we breach the clearing with an eager gleam.

“We’re here.”

I reluctantly follow him out of the trees, my instincts screaming that this charade of civilization is more dangerous than the creatures that lurk in the brush at my back.

Huts with little windows border the cleared area before me in an arc around the impressive pyre in the center. It’s so large that I’m surprised it couldn’t be seen from the resort.

But I have no time to admire it, nor the honest to goodness thatched rooftops that I’d love to spend time admiring the artistry of, as the unsettling drumbeats start up again from an unseen musician.

I freeze.

Brand tosses his torch into the fire before turning to me a few feet away, arms spread wide with the showmanship of a ringmaster.

The lights in the hut windows snuff out in rapid succession.

Tribespeople ease into the clearing in my periphery.

But my instinct dictates the biggest danger was disguised as my savior, now standing before me.

The drums halt along with my heart.

“Thank you for coming so willingly,” Brand announces loudly with a wide pleased grin.

My limbs fill with static.

I scan the area in a daze.

Shirtless figures have filled the space, framing my back, ensuring there will be no escape.

“Without your help, this tribe would succumb to the curse of the crows’ presence,” Brand goes on, as if talking me through my stupidity will solve it, “the crows demand death, and on this very night, we offer it to them.”

I shift on my feet and scan the blackened caps of trees, the harbingers of doom looking down upon the rather lackluster display.

“_This_ is the ritual?” I ask incredulously, barreling through my fear.

Brand’s face falls along with his arms at his sides.

“Well, there’s an altar and stuff,” he snarks resentfully, visibly frustrated by my lack of an expected response.

I wrinkle my nose. “But why me?”

His face breaks out in the unsettling grin again.

“The forest always provides the sacrifice!” He yells his answer.

The tribespeople cheer and stomp their feet as if overseeing a gladiator match.

Tears pour from my eyes, unbidden.

The sight sadistically relaxes Brand enough that, when I raise my trembling hands in plea, he doesn’t even flinch.

When my steady hands spread and push on his chest with a strength he didn’t realize I had?

He barely has a second of comprehension before he’s tumbling into the flames at his back, his shrill screams dying out as the pyre collapses around him, pinning him within his own plan.

A cacophony of celebratory caws arises as he turns to ash.

I turn towards the tribespeople as the sound dies out, scanning them until landing on their obvious leader.

“We good?”

His stoic face slowly creeps into an unpracticed smile, startling everyone when a booming laugh erupts out of it.

“No wonder you came so highly recommended,” he compliments in my language.

I shrug humbly. “It was pretty easy to pretend I was one of the girls from the resort that he’d been abducting for this.”

The leader’s smile vanishes.

“We require willing sacrifice,” he laments, eying the flaming remains of the man who desecrated the ritual.

Gesturing to the extreme amount of crows, he continues loudly, in their language.

“He brought them upon us with his ignorance. May the removal of his presence cleanse this land.”

The people stamp their feet in agreement as wings match the beat, fluttering skyward in an obsidian curtain that temporarily erases the stars.

One diverts from the murder to land gracelessly on my shoulder with a hoarse caw.

The leader grimaces at it upon his approach, his entourage following at his back.

“Our deal?” He asks, emotionless despite the beautiful display of proof that the curse was lifted.

I nod. “We’ll bring you willing sacrifices annually. Unless you want more?”

His hmph is as close to a laugh as I’ve ever heard from him.

“We’ll take what we can get,” he answers, betraying his gratitude and reverence by eying the stars as they appear.

As I turn to leave, an aged hand lands on my free shoulder.

It takes everything in me to turn back towards the leader with a look that doesn’t promise violence.

His face is pinched in concern.

“Why do you keep a crow as a pet,” he whispers tremulously, “you know what they mean.”

Poe ruffles her feathers with a throaty noise of distain at his words.

I just laugh.

“I’m an assassin,” I remind him. “It’s not her presence that threatens death, but mine.”