The creature hunched over the carcass, stripping the last bits of flesh from the fur and tallowed bones. Instinct whispered, ancient as the song of a beating heart, and she knew these morsels would sustain her final moments, her last plaintive thrust for a toehold on eternity. A mewling neigh escaped her throat and hung, like a tattered pennant, in the fog of her breath. Before her, the night stretched cold, dripping with stars.
Gathering strength, she stretched her wings and lifted into the sky, struggling to rise above the canopy of skeletal branches. Two antennae stretched above her head, guiding her clear of telephone poles and the roofs of houses, swiveling slightly in their search for one last place, a place where she might spawn…and die.
A heavy lassitude pulled at her wings,
