Massive arms, strong as iron roughly took hold of me. I cried out, and bucked in the crushing embrace, but it did no good. A harsh voice growled into my ear.
“Today,” it said, “is a bad day to be here.”
All at once, I heard a great clap, as though of thunder, something at the edge of my vision flickered, then the sound again, again. Then I was lifting, moving away from the ground and through the canopy into the sky and light above. As the tops of the trees fell away beneath us, I became aware of another figure climbing alongside me, a large, unclothed, shaped like a man but apparently sexless, his skin an off-white colour tinted with an alien glow that seemed to shimmer a yellow or gold, nauseating to look at. Not only this, but from his back grew two strong wings, white from a distance, but as he drew closer, I saw the feathers were stained yellow and brown in places, like some diseased bird. From the arms clasped around me, I realised that he and my captor were very much alike. He drew alongside us, bringing his face as close to mine as his wings would allow, and grinned- not a friendly, welcoming grin, but the grin of a predatory beast baring its teeth, like so many glistening shards of broken glass.
“Going my way?”
