Flames of Blue

I woke up hungry.

“Ugh… My stomach…”

I rolled over, looking for the granola bar I usually keep on my bedside table…

‘Oh, yeah. Almost forgot.’

I got up, sitting on my haunches (is that possible as a bird?), and rose up to my full height. I started hopping over to the box, and flipped over one of the stones left over from yesterday’s explosion. There were, as I thought, a couple bugs. They’re larger and more colorful than the ones on earth, but I might as well try, right? I grabbed a large, purple beetle from the ground, holding it up to my beak. I sniffed it, and it smelled… almost like grape juice, actually.

“Huh. Might as well, I’m a bird, right?” I said to myself, popping the critter in my beak.

‘Mmm… not bad. Crunchy, with a tangy inside. Almost like a chocolate.’

I grabbed another, which looked like a bloated, orange earwig.

‘This one tastes like mango. Numyummy.’

After a good hour of experimenting with bugs, I had found that most all of them taste absolutely delicious. Also, some taste like fruits, some taste like vegetables. It depends on their color for the color of the food, and the species for the type of food.

‘Meh, I’m not hungry anymore, might as well get going with the flight thing.’

I flap my wings, getting used to hovering again. After a couple minutes of practice, I could hover for a few minutes just by flapping my wings constantly. The harder I flapped, the higher I would go, and if I stop flapping and angle my wings, I can go into an easy glide down to the ground.

After about an hour of this, I tried to go as high as possible. I knew for a fact that I was on a coast somewhere, as for the cliff about fifty meters away from the crumbled remains of the box. The cliff drops off onto jagged rocks and a foamy sea, which I want no part of. I cracked my neck, looking up at the clouds. Crouching, I take a deep breath, and then spring upwards. Flapping harder and harder, I reach the lower clouds without even looking down. I bust through them, but then stop.

‘Shouldn’t I be able to sit on a cloud?’

“Why not.”

I spin around, a large cloud right below me. I start gliding down, coming closer and closer, until finally I land on it.

“Ha! Fuck yea, this is awesome!”

I hopped to the edge of the cloud, a warm breeze ruffling my feathers.

“Whoa, since when do I have raptor vision…?” I said, stunned. I can make out each individual leaf on that one tree. There’s a ladybug on one of them. Huh. I looked around, making sure to keep my balance on the cloud. There was ocean all around one side of the landmass, but the rest was obstructed by the cloud. I hopped to the other end, and nearly fell off.

“Oh crap. How am I supposed to get out of here…”

I was staring at a huge stretch of sea. I couldn’t see any sort of land on the horizon, even with my newly found amazing eyesight.

‘I’m fucked. I’m on an island with practically no resources, one tree… wait. A. Second.’

Survival Island... Minecraft. It’s all about using your surroundings, making the land work with you.

'I have plenty of ways to get out of here, if I think about it.'

I swooped down to the tree, landing on one of the branches. Looking around, I see the crater, with the box still attached to the arrow. There was the paper too, next to my sleeping mat. I have wood, a storage unit, chain, an arrow, stone… and there’s a small pond over yonder. It’s freshwater, I drank from it yesterday. Hmm…

‘Think, it’s just like an island survival or escape map from Minecraft, use your head.’

Thinking cynically is something I’m good at. So I went ahead and did so. I flew down to the crater, a plan already in mind. I picked up the box in my wings, and opened the lid, looking inside. Surprisingly, there were two compartments, instead of one large space. Perfect. I unhook the chain, and pull the arrow out of the ground, dropping off all three items at my sleeping mat, next to the piece of paper. I also drop off the ring, which was quite useful. I started circling upwards, scanning the area for any stray wood. Since the island was less than three kilometers in diameter, it would only take about two hours to scan the whole thing.

In just over three fourths of an hour, I spotted a ruin, and swung myself in its direction. When I touched down, I immediately felt that something was wrong. There wasn’t any sound, no crickets chirping, and no cicadas whirring. Something, a predator, was in the area. I slowly went up to the eroded wall, careful to not make much sound. From the base, I could tell that this small shack had been here for more than a century, and it had weathered some extreme storms. But it hadn’t survived all of them, it seems. It had collapsed recently. I crouched, and then jumped, flapping my wings once, but with lots of force. I quietly landed on top of the wall, and looked down. There, in the middle of the broken timbers and stone, was a strange creature.

Strange is probably the best way to describe it, considering that it looked like Discord had his way with Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. The… thing… below me looked like it had been a giant lobster that had come out of the ocean and merged with a tree, and then promptly grew wooden spines and a huge snout. The snout, of course, being filled with razor sharp teeth that are tearing into a snapped timber.

Basically, imagine a big ass dog, with a really long snout and that has the lower body of a lobster. Instead of skin and fur, it has bark, and the whole thing is lined with spikes.

*Shiver*

The creature has an appetite for wood, apparently. So far, in the five minutes I’ve sat on the wall, its eaten most of the caved-in roof. As it finished the last of the sticks, it got up, holding a thick plank in its mouth. It was probably the height of an average alligator, and as it began lumbering out of the broken door frame, its tail hit the side.  This set me off-balance, and I had to snap out my wings and start flying to avoid falling.

“Rrrrggghhh…”

‘Shit, it heard me.’

The beast had heard me flapping my wings, and began turning around. To avoid being seen, I stopped flapping and half glided, half fell behind the wall. I looked through a hole in the masonry to see if it had noticed me, but it seems as if it hadn’t. It began walking away again, and I decided to follow it. Maybe I could steal some wood from it. I’m going to need some for what I have planned, after all. I looked up, seeing the noonday sun, and then started after the thing.

A good fifteen minutes later, I arrived at a small, rocky outcropping at the base of a slight incline. The creature walked up to the rocks, and went around a larger one. I followed, peeking around the rock to see that the thing had gone into a cave. I followed, again. Quietly as possible, I crept into the hole after it. It looks like not only do I have great eyesight, I have some degree of night vision. It wasn’t long until the tunnel opened up into a larger cavern. There were stalactites hanging from the ceiling, and a small underground stream flowing off in the distance. I crept behind a boulder, watching the creature take a left around a bend. I followed, sticking my head around the corner, to find quite the surprise.

Sitting now, the thing was surrounded by sticks, timbers, and even a few logs. It placed the plank that was in its mouth onto the pile carefully, making the stack even. The creature wasn’t alone now, though. There was a much smaller animal of the same type, sleeping on the floor. The larger one curled up and started off to sleep, too. I sat for a solid twenty minutes before I made a move. I silently flapped over to the pile of wood.

‘Strange how such a creature could be so organized.’

The pile of wood I was standing on top of was consistent of only planks, and they were all stacked in three piles next to each other. Unusual. I started looking around for the five lightest, flattest pieces of wood I could find. After three minutes of silently scanning the room, I had found three of the five pieces. Two were balsa, so they were very light. I don’t know what the third is made of, but it’s light as well, so it will work. I hop over to another stack of wood, where I find a large, thin plank of balsa wood.

‘Great, this’ll work. Now I don’t need the fifth piece. It’s amazing how this... animal? Gathered so much driftwood.’

I gather up the four pieces under my left wing, and begin heading out of the cave. A few feet from the exit, I see a piece of heavy twine, and pick it up. I can use with any kind of supplies I can get.

I walked outside the cave, placed my loot on the ground to look at, and when I was satisfied, I grabbed them in my talons and started my trip back to my side of the island. Even before I had flown twenty meters, I heard a bloodcurdling roar.

And was knocked out of the sky.