Once I was back in my room, I gently placed the little bird on my bed. I noticed that tiny eyes were looking up at me.

“I’m going to do some work, so you can do whatever you want, ok?”

As I gathered up my bag, I sat at my desk, and started pulling out paper upon paper. Well, I didn’t expect all this work to pile up, but I guess that is what Fridays are for! Homework. As I rolled up my sleeves, I got to work.

About half an hour later, I noticed that the bird had hopped onto my desk, and looked down at my work sheet. I stopped working and stared at him, and I noticed that he looked rather sweet. Honestly, even though he might be just a baby crow, him being the size of a sparrow was incredibly cute. I poked his chest gently, with the end of my pen.

“You really are sweet. Well, I can’t keep staring at you all night, I gotta finish…”

Slapping my cheeks, I got back to work. The bird stayed there as I kept working now but, when I wrote something down, the bird made an odd sound. As I looked up at him, I watched as he patted the paper with his feet. Tilting my head, I got distracted with what he was doing, and leant back on my chair to watch him. It looked like he was trying to do something but, when I really paid attention, I noticed that he had smudged the writing which I just wrote down.

“Ah, no…” I fumbled forwards. “Don’t do that, now I gotta write it again!”

Picking up my pen, I started to write down what I wrote down there again but, as I started to write, the bird started to squawk at me.

“What?” I asked the bird.

The bird pointed, with his head, to something in front of him and, as I saw what he was trying to point at, I saw that there, in front of him, was a word. It was different to one that was just smudged, but it was there. The handwriting wasn’t mine, and it looked like it was written pretty fast.

“That….” I looked at the question again and then back at the word in front of the bird. “I wrote down the wrong thing, that’s the correct answer..” I trailed off as I looked at the bird, who looked quite proud of himself. “How did you even..?” I patted his head a little with my finger. “You’re a strange one...”

After that incident, the bird somehow ‘helped’ with my work sheets, sometimes making odd noises when I ended up writing down the wrong answer. But, eventually, he hopped off the desk, and went to sit on my pillow. During those hours, I tried to feed him again but, once again, he turned his nose up at the food, and he even turned down a slice of apple that I sneaked off to the kitchen to get.

After a few hours, I stretched and let out a long yawn. When I checked the time, I saw that it showed one am. Damn, did I really work through the night? Yawning again, I got up from my chair, and ended up telling the bird that I was going to change into my pyjamas. 

But before I went to the bathroom to change, I swear I could still hear the T.V playing. Was Ikky seriously still watching stuff? I made a beeline downstairs, as I thought to myself that maybe it’s best to check on him. When I got down there, I saw that the T.V was on, but he was sleeping on the sofa, but I wondered HOW he was even sleeping. Honestly, it looked like he was in a pretzel shape, as he was sleeping soundly on the sofa. I carefully picked up the remote, turned the T.V off and moved to grab the blanket that usually hung over the armchair, and covered him with it. The motion made him stir a little, but he didn’t wake up. It made me smile since, in some weird way, he reminded me of a cat.

“Goodnight, Ikky…” I whispered as I left him sleeping on the sofa.

As I made my way back upstairs, I continued with what I originally started out doing, changing for bed. As I was freshening up in the bathroom, and was just about ready to leave, I saw that the bird was in the doorway of the bathroom.

“You really don’t act like a normal bird…”

On the way back to my room, I picked him up from the doorway and headed back to my room. Once I was back inside my room, I lifted him up so his face was near mine. Yep, it definitely wasn’t a trick of the light before. This bird one hundred percent had odd coloured eyes, one was green and one looked like it was a blue colour, however, for some reason, it looked awfully like those ‘turquoise jewel’ eyes that Ikky had. As I stared into those eyes, that weird familiar feeling came again but, instead of pain, I felt sadness. I felt like I wanted to cry, and I don’t know why. I also felt like I wanted to protect those eyes, like I needed to. But, before I knew it, I was moving the bird closer to my mouth and, in a gentle motion, kissed the little guy on the top of his head. I was brought out of my weird trance when the bird started fidgeting in my hands, and I pulled back. I blinked several times, and the bird was pulling a very odd face, which made me laugh gingerly.

“I have no idea why I did that, but maybe it’s because you’re so cute.”

I felt the bird exhale in my hands, causing me to laugh a little, as I placed him at the end of the bed.

“I do hope that I can find something for you to eat, to be honest… But, goodnight…” I said with a smile, and got into bed.

No alarm was needed for tomorrow. Which, in truth, was a Godsend. Junie was never a morning person when she didn’t need to be, and Arlo respected everyone’s morning routines and, if he contacted one of us, it was always after midday. So I could totally sleep in tomorrow, as I turned my bedside lamp off, but I didn’t know what to think of the one sleeping downstairs. But I did tell him not to come into my room, so maybe he would respect that? I must’ve worked hard, since sleep came easy to me.

I awoke the following morning, feeling like something was touching my face, then I felt pressure on my front. Ah, it must be the bird, he could be awake and walking all over me for some reason. But I noticed that the pressure got heavier and then I felt breath on my face. Now, that was definitely no bird. As I opened my eyes, I realised that I was eye to eye with another pair of eyes. They looked half open, like they had just woken up themselves. I was in shock for a moment, before I opened my mouth to scream, but I barely got anything out when a hand covered my mouth.

“Shhh…. Don’t be so loud…”

The unfamiliar figure spoke and, as I tried to squirm away, I quickly realised that I couldn’t really move. This stranger was on top of me. Like, who the hell was this? From the voice that spoke, it didn’t really sound like Ichthys. As I squirmed again, the stranger moved to look directly at me. The eyes that I saw earlier were much more open now, but there was something familiar about them. Didn’t I see a pair like these on the bird? He moved his head a little and, as he tilted his head to the side in confusion, I saw dark hair, and he spoke again.

“Who are you?”

Did he seriously just ask me that?

THAT IS MY QUESTION!