Light in the Darkness [vs Diamondfowl] Day 2

The bird is insane, it must be.

Any noise outside of its shrieking is impossible to hear. I can barely hear my own yelling, but I know I am yelling because I can feel my vocal chords vibrate in my throat. Why I'm yelling I don't know, maybe it's contagious.

It screams at me again and lashes its tail, sending a glittering feather at me. The attack missed, which was a good thing for me because I watched at that feather scored a line in the ground. Had that been my flesh I would have sustained a serious wound.

This further cemented my instinctive knowledge that I needed to kill this thing. The sooner it was dead, the sooner it would stop attacking me.

And the sooner it would stop screaming.

With ringing ears, I raised my axe and launched myself at the bird, trying to scream as loudly and piercingly as it did.

My axe chops into the bird's leg with some force. I'm glad to feel the heavy impact even as it sends shocks down my arm. The screaming doesn't stop, but it hitches for a moment before continuing. I move back, trying to get out of the way of the flapping wings. I manage to move far enough out of the way to avoid the lashing talons but not far enough to get out of its range entirely - I hadn't forgotten about its hard-edged feathers.

It hadn't either, clearly, as it sent another one whipping toward me. This one was coming too fast for me to move out of the way of and a searing line carved its way along my thigh. The spot was similar to where I had landed my own blow, almost mirroring the damage I had done to it.

That didn't make me pity the thing, only become more ready to strike it down.

If the Capitol thought a sparkling turkey could stop me at this point they didn't know me. Not that they would really bother to know me. No one knew me. I was someone different now, I had to be. I was no longer the broke lesson horse, doing his rounds without argument. I was going feral.

So I raised my axe and struck once more at the creature pestering me.