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There are birds circling over his head, stark black against the grey sky. The caw, croaking calls sent out from deep inside their throats. He is alone in the snow-dusted woods with these birds, these crows. Harbingers of doom and his constant. His lips are blue and he can’t move his fingers. He is six years old.
He does not want the birds, he wants nothing to do with their screaming cries and dead, dead eyes. He does not want his constant. He is seven and he is drowning in foreboding.
Crows, bringers of death, carriers of plague. One is perched on the windowsill of his math class. His classmates are crowing around it, taking pictures with their phones, But Kdin stays as far away from it as he can, pushing his back up against the farthest wall. The crow cocks its head and Kdin freezes as it stares into the very fabric of his soul and the very essence of his being. He is eleven years old.
Thirteen and he should be doing his homework. He has so much, he’s so advanced, and instead he’s staring at the ceiling and thinking about the crows. He refuses to claim them as his, he does not want them, he does not need them, not in the slightest. Crows, small things, like him in the aspect of their intelligence, much higher than anyone expects. Labeled early on as signs of death and despair, even though he is far from that. Maybe fate was setting him up, trying to clue him in on his destiny. But why does fate get to decide who he’ll be? He doesn’t even want his soulmate, he’s lived without them this long, he can live alone until he dies. There’s something downright unappealing about the whole thing. Something hits his window screen and Kdin jumps out of his skin. The crow flies away, cawing indignantly, as if the window wronged it in someway.
Fourteen and there is a girl sitting across from him in a restaurant. Her name is Emily and she’s not her soulmate, but she plucked up the courage to ask him out, so Kdin felt like he owed her at least one date. They probably went to middle school together or something like that, he doesn’t really remember, he never remembers people. She sighs.
“This was a bad idea.” He did not want to say it, he didn’t, he didn’t.
“Getting the courage to ask me was a good idea, I’m just not really the ideal person for a long-term stable relationship. Don’t stop looking though, yeah?” She smiles at him and they leave the restaurant to go their separate ways. He can’t help but feel that there’s something wrong with him. From a non-biased standpoint, Emily was attractive, very aesthetically pleasing, but he just didn’t want her company. Maybe as friends they would have worked out. In the cool air, he believes deep, deep down that something is very, very wrong with him.
Fifteen and it’s staring up at him from his phone, his word, his word. Aromantic and it fits like a glove, well, so well. There’s nothing wrong with him. He looks out the window of the bus and sees a line of crows perched on a telephone line, beady eyes watching him, observing him. This only reassures him that he never needs to find his soulmate.
He is seventeen and he meets her, completely by accident. He’s walking down the sidewalk and then a crow caws, loud and harsh. He sees her on the other side of the street, head tilted upwards, looking for the crow responsible for the noise. And then she locks eyes with him and the world spins out of control. He can do nothing to steady his head, but when it stops, she’s smiling nervously across the road at him. The girl that she’s holding hands with is talking animatedly, waving her free hand around, though Kdin can not hear what she is raving about. Kdin nods at her, returning the small smile, and he continues walking. They will never see each other again.
He is eighteen when he first kills, an impulse decision, spurred on by fear and adrenaline. He is behind a bar, he’s underage, and in hindsight, sneaking in probably wasn’t a good idea. He’s being held up against a brick wall and the man is drunk, Kdin can smell the alcohol on his breath. The man leans down toward him and Kdin can not stop himself from plunging the pocket knife hidden in his sleeve deep into his heart. The man coughs, once, twice, and falls. A crow caws overhead, a warning come too late, a siren song for death, an urging to run. So, he does.
He is too young and he flees. The crows follow him, driving him on and not letting him rest until he reaches the coast and collapses in the sand.
He gets up and forges a new life for himself.
Kdin learns how to shoot a gun, he picks up on it quickly. He takes potshots at the crows on telephone poles and they squawk at him.
He tries not to think about his soulmate, but it’s hard and he finds his mind wandering often. He’s never wistful, he just hopes that she’s found someone, maybe that girl that held her hand. He’s not sad about it, not really, he just feels kind of apathetic towards it. That’s all.
He gets hired and he makes money and he’s not lonely, not at all. He’s fine, so fine, completely and totally fine.
He takes jobs and he gets hired more and he remains unattached, a one man rebellion, a one man fire fight.
Crows take flight when he fires off shots.
A crew hires him for just a couple heists and he falls into them.
“It’s not that oatmeal doesn’t taste good!” Kerry says. “The texture is just horrible!”
“I’m not arguing!” Meg protests. “I am literally agreeing with you!” Kdin laughs in the living room, comfortable in company that he hasn’t had in so long. A crow runs into a window, noise echoing around the apartment. Kdin knows that it’s time to move on and for the first time in a long time, he doesn’t want to leave. He tells this to Lindsay on a quiet night, he can’t sleep and she’s staying up with him.
“Stay, then.” She says, voice quiet. “No one will mind. We all love you.”
“That’s not how it works, Linds. I can’t just stay.” Lindsay sighs.
“Yeah. I know. Just… Come back, okay? From time to time? You’ve become part of my family, whether you meant to or not.” Kdin doesn’t tear up, he doesn’t.
“That means a lot. Thank you.” He says. “I’ll- I’ll come back, I promise. I just can’t stay here forever.”
“Loyalties to us first, yeah?” She’s joking, but then on another level, she’s not.
“Of course.” He’s not joking either. “As soon as you call,, I’ll be here.”
“1-800-magic.” Lindsay says and they laugh. “I’m going to hold you to that. You know that, right?” Kdin nods.
“I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.”
He leaves the next morning, weapons tucked into a duffel bag slung over his shoulder.
The crows watch him as he walks through the streets. This city is old, too familiar, he wants to leave, so he does.
He finds a new city, unfamiliar streets beckoning to him. He runs through the city, doing jobs and shooting, shooting, shooting.
And then he moves on, migrating like the crows that he can’t seem to shake. He never stays in one place too long, he gets restless, and then he disappears and reappears somewhere across the country.
But when ‘Lindsay’ pops up on his phone screen, he drops everything and goes back, crows dotting the sky above him.