Life After Undeath

“That was an excellent story, Aakifa!” Juno praised, but then quickly added, “I’d be happy to either go next or let Osiris go next, but I feel a quickening of our movement which indicates that a waterfall is probably coming up soon!”

“Oh no!” I wailed!, “We have to get out of this trunk! Can anyone move at all despite the doughnuts that are sticking you into place?!?”

“Not me!” Osiris said worriedly, “But I’ll keep on trying though!”

“We can’t move either.” Griff said, “And it’s going to be a nightmare to gather up y’all’s body parts if we actually do fall down a waterfall…”

We all fruitlessly tried to break free from the doughnuts that were holding us in place, but none of us had any success, and we soon dropped off of the waterfall!

“Ahhhhhhhhhh” we all yelled, and Griff yelled at us that these waterfalls could sometimes drop for hours.

The waterfall drop did indeed continue on for what felt like hours, and it seemed as though our only hope of avoiding a catastrophe! would be if Zelly and Whoosh! somehow returned in time to save us.

Our salvation did end up coming; though it was not through Whoosh! and Zelly.

We felt something grabbing the trunk that we were in, and then our very much unwanted descent gradually shifted into a much more desirable ascent.

We were flown for a very long time, and whoever was carrying us didn’t say anything at all.

Eventually, we felt ourselves stop, and heard what sounded like a bunch of baby birdies nearby.

“How cute!” Juno gushed, “I love baby birdies!”

The rest of us all agreed that we liked baby birdies too, but weren’t exactly sure why we were near any.

That was when I began to wonder if perhaps we were going to be food for the baby birdies!

I asked the others if this might happen, and Griff replied that, “There are some pretty big birds around here, and so it is possible.”

Suddenly!, the trunk was opened, and we saw a GIANT bird looking in at us!

The bird then picked me up with her beak, flew me over to a nearby nest, and dropped me down into the open mouths of some baby birdies!

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” I screamed!

The birdies were only able to get to the doughnuts at the moment, but I feared that they’d get to me soon enough! I was doomed!

The momma bird then dropped Juno and Griff into the baby birdie’s mouths, and then had soon picked up Osiris and dropped him in too.

We were all screaming in horror and terror, and were dreading our inevitable fate of being eaten alive!

What actually happened made no sense though! All of the baby birdies managed to eat all of the doughnuts off of us, but successfully avoided even scratching us!

We were free now!

Well… Kind of free…

We all thanked the birdies, rushed over to an edge of the nest, and peered over the top of it and downwards.

What we saw was that we were very high up in the air. We also saw that the nest that we were in was on a tree branch, but that it was also the only branch that we could see on the tree. This made it so that climbing down the tree didn’t seem possible to us.

“Stupid one-branched trees…” Juno muttered, to which Griff added. “We could hold onto you two zombies for a while, while climbing down; but we wouldn’t have the endurance to make it as far down as the tree goes.”

“Oh no!” Osiris added, “The momma bird is flying away now!, and she might be our only ticket out of here!”

“What I’m wondering” I said nervously, “is if those baby birdies will get hungry again and actually eat us eventually. It was very nice of them to only eat the doughnuts at first, but how do we know that they won’t eat us later?”

Suddenly!, one of the baby birdies began speaking!

“You four taste bad! Can tell from the smell! Only want doughnuts!”

“Wonderful!” Griff said, happily, “You don’t happen to know any way down from here, do you?”

“I can fly. Well, kind of. I’m the only one though.” the baby birdie said, “I’m a little bit older than the others here are. I could fly you four down, but I’ll need something in exchange. What will you give me for flying you down?”

“You sure do talk well, for being just a baby!” Juno noted, to which the bird responded, “We learn faster than most beings do. I’m still the only one who can fly and talk though, because I’m older than the others who are here. Whatcha got for me, though? I can’t fly you down for free.”

“If you flew us to the ettin homeworld, then we’d be able to repay you.” Griff offered, and Juno quickly added, “Idk how you’d get there, though. It’s pretty far away.”

“I can fly through black holes and dimensions and whatnot.” the baby birdie noted, and then added, “Hop aboard and hang on tight! Oh, and the ettins better have the goods, or I’ll fly you right back over to here and tell Mom that you wasted my time. She won’t like it if she finds out that you wasted my time.”

We all climbed aboard the baby birdie, held on firmly, and we were soon being flown through black holes and dimensions!; and towards the homeworld of the ettins…