Murder on the Mischief Express {aHiT FtM TFTG}

*bang*

*bang*

*bang*

*bang*

“Ghhaaauuuuggg.”

Disappointed groans interspaced between many slams of a head on a wall, the breathing harsh and bright in the cold, snowy night. She slugged her way under a streetlight, before sitting on a frosted bench, shuffling her mitten-covered hands to flip down her dark hood, brown hair scattering over her now-scarred forehead. She growled, folding her arms around her body while shivering from the cold. Cynthia has been waiting for the train for seven hours, and it was five hours late in the middle of snowy December, and it had long since become night. A crowd had grown around where the train was supposed to be, and Cynthia shifted her eyes all around; in her mind, this scene could be a short film on its own right, probably a comedy, based around group insanity.

She stamped her thick boots on the ground, breathing out deeply; this train was supposed to be her lifeline to the south to visit her friends for the next few months, and she didn’t want to have a sleepless night. Hey eyes fluttered, drifting in between being awake and asleep due to how late it was, before jumping from falling forward, almost hitting her head; now she was awake. She stood up, her gaze wandering in a slight haze, before she finally decided to go back home for the rest of the night, to even get the slightest bit of sleep. She turned around and slowly stumbled her way through the icy streets back to the city. While trying not to slip on the thick ice, she jumped and slipped from a loud, cacophonous laughter erupting from the darkness around her. She crashed face-first into the icy concrete, gritting her teeth and slowly standing up again as she heard mysterious pitter-patters quickly sound past her.

She looked up, rubbing her hand from the cold nipping at them, before looking to the ally wall next to her, some other people looking at it as well in curiosity. She looked at the wall closely, adjusting her glasses and straining her eyes in the dark.

Extra, Extra! The Mysterious Murder on the Owl Express! Based on the true story of the disappearance of the signature train, and the brutal death of the very Conductor himself! Playing at the Annual Bird Movie Awards-

The sentence seemed to be cut off, and under it was a large, fluorescent yellow arrow pointing in the direction that she came from. “Annual Bird Movie Awards?” There wasn’t even a Mom-and-Pop’s store back where that train was, why should she trust this? She heard the laughter again, turning her head in the direction of the arrow to see a… strange folk. It seemed to be a tall man in a brown fedora and cloak, their face framed in shadow, and seeming to wear a beaked mask with a bright reflection. It laughed in the same laughter that she heard earlier, before running off, the people surrounding her running off after it despite the ice. She had no choice but to follow them; this could be a very interesting plot for a story! A group of strangers getting roped into an operation about who-knows-what! She ran off after them, holding her hood close and desperately trying not to slip again.

The trek back seemed much longer than it was beforehand, and soon she noticed a strange yellow haze replacing the blue of winter. It seemed to be too hot to be winter as well, resulting in her taking off her hood and tying it around her waist by its sleeves, and she seemed to be kicking up… dust? After some running, she skid to a stop and looked ahead; the train was finally here! This wasn’t a normal train at all, however; the sky seemed to have become an orange day, and the ground around the train was a bright, shining sand. It was bustling as well, and was managed by other beings looking exactly like the one that laughed, brown cloaks and fedoras, black… masks? This was suspicious, and she grabbed her phone camera to take pictures, managing to snap a few before one of the mysterious beaked people dashed over to her with what seemed to be cheer, with long, spindly yellow legs, covered in scales with only two toes each; bird legs.

“Oooo, oooo, oooo, are you the director that Velmer mentioned?”

Cynthia, taken aback by this, gulped and tried to compose herself again.

“I’m Cynthia, and I’m a writer, not a director. Who’s Velmer?”

The bird person clicked their heels together and cawed.

“Writer, director, close enough! Velmer’s a member of my murder and told me that we had an experienced director about, a scarred face like yours!” The bird, presumably a crow by the usage of the word “murder,” flicked their rear, showing a black feathered tail and gestured to Cynthia’s face, Cynthia covering up the scars in embarrassment. “Funny thing, really: we were supposed to make a movie, but we had completely lacked a director this entire time! Velmer wanted me to bring you aboard with premium access, miss director!”

The exited bird opened its beak and grabbed Cynthia’s sleeve, desperately trying to bring her with them, and Cynthia trying to resist. The other crows admitting people onto the strange train watched curiously, before another crow came along to help drag her on. The birds threw her onto the train, before picking her up and leading her deeper into the train. Cynthia tried her best to ignore the passengers, who all seemed to be large birds like the crows, but it mostly seemed to be crows and owls. The crows prattled on about them all being in some kind of film competition against a penguin disco… what? What kind of alternate dimension did she fall into to get herself literally dragged into this situation?

The two crows soon paused dead in place, the two energetic personalities seeming to freeze in front of one last door. One crow gulped, before speaking dully.

“This… this room is the catalyst for the entire idea of the film.”

The way the crow said this made Cynthia uneasy, making sure to rub her glasses again before opening the door. Ahead was a truly gruesome sight, and what seemed to be an actual murder. Blood was strewn all about, and what seemed to be a person lay on their back, in full conductor uniform, in a pool of blood. She gagged; what kind of wound could have caused this spectacular mess?

“The true story behind the film… except we don’t know what actually happened! We don’t know who on the Owl Express decided to kill our dear conductor…”

The crow speaking soon chippered up again, to the point of sounding cheery.

“…But with your skill, you could make a film out of this in no time! And we have no time!”

Why did they sound so happy? Before Cynthia could respond with any array of questions, she heard a metallic slam from behind her as the door was shut and locked. Cynthia quickly spun around and ran to bang on the door, yelling to be let out as the two crows looked through the glass.

“Chop chop, director! We don’t have all day!”

Cynthia hissed.

“Unless you replace one of those “chops” with “cow,” I will slay you where you stand!”

The crows laughed that horrible laugh again, before running off down the hall. She huffed, stomping her boots and rubbing the side of her head from an irritation headache. She closed her eyes tightly, before opening them back up when she felt she had the confidence to look at the widespread gore in front of her. She rubbed her fogged-up glasses, before going further into the room, covering her mouth and nose as to not smell the corpse. She slowly crept up to the corpse to get a better look at it, against her better judgement, and… it wasn’t nearly as human looking as it looked like from afar.

The corpse had a giant gash going straight through its chest, gushing red, but that seemed to be the only human-like thing about it. It looked no bigger than a ten year old, and some of the flesh looked purple. The body seemed to be covered in bright orange-yellow feathers, and had four-fingered, clawed hands, but that wasn’t the most unusual part about it. Its head seemed to be all one giant snout, a beak with large, jagged “teeth,” and it completely lacked eyes, even when she took its hat off. On the sides of its head seemed to be two feathery ears, and prominent cheek fluff, and a large purple-blue tongue hung limply from the side of its mouth. This seemed to be the only non-bird on here, but it wasn’t human either.

She looked at the corpse, and an odd through crossed her mind; she took the corpse’s tie and decided to adjust it, fixing up the collar under its jacket as well. She didn’t know why she did it, but it just seemed honorable to her; honoring the dead. She stood up, patting the corpse of the train conductor on the nose, before looking around; she needed to find a way to get out of here. She examined the room, before finding a walkie-talkie on a table near the head of the train. She didn’t know who it connected to, but she grabbed it and activated it, before speaking into it. Two familiar and detestable voiced squawked out through the static.

“Done with the movie yet?”

Cynthia growled and yelled through the device.

“No I’m not, you peck necks! I didn’t even want to get into this mess, I’m out of ideas-“

She jumped as a chill blew past her and crawled up her spine.

“-And I’m freezing me tail off! Get me out of here! Write your own, over-the-top drivel by yourselves!”

Cynthia slammed the walkie-talkie into the ground, causing it to shatter into a bunch of pieces. She huffed, now shivering and folding her arms around herself. She remembered that she had her hoodie around her waist, which she quickly put on and zipped up. She looked around, before whispering to herself: “Wait, I don’t remember having a Scottish accent…”

She noticed her change in voice, before her vision started to blur. She took off her glasses to clean them off, before noticing that her vision was clearer without the glasses. She looked at the glasses and laughed a bit, this time her voice sounding more masculine along with the accent. She squeaked and covered her mouth in surprise, dropping the glasses in the process. “I don’t remember that either…”

She felt an odd sensation at the end of her spine; looking at her behind, she saw that she was growing a tiny, yellow feather-covered tail. She jumped, crashing into a wall. “-And I don’t remember that at all!”

She scrambled about, trying to rationalize it while looking for her glasses again, as if it would stop some kind of hallucination. Her knees buckled, before she noticed her losing height, becoming shorter, but her clothes changing as well. She wheezed in pain, falling over and curling up as her gender changed, gagging and whimpering. “It feels like I’ve been kicked in me birdseed!”

“Me birdseed?” Really? He mentally facepalmed; again, that accent, and “birdseed?” That was the best he could come up with as a euphemism? A disgrace to creative writing everywhere. He weakly stood up, holding back the urge to vomit from pain, his skin almost feeling numb as a thick coat of yellow feathers grew all over. His breasts quickly disappeared entirely as the feathers crept across his body, both down and up. As the feather coat reached his hands, two fingers on each merged, giving him four-fingered hands, and gaining small, blunt claws on each finger. His clothing changed style and size, his thick jeans turning into thick black pants, and his boots turning into shiny black dress shoes. His long undershirt became a white collared dress shirt, held by the collar by a purple tie. His hooide reworked itself into a black coat with a popped collar, held together by four golden buttons down the center.

His hair shortened and paled, turning into a short coat of the same yellow feathers overtaking the rest of his body. His face pushed out, the snout rounding off and being covered by feathers. His ears and eyes vanished, yet he could still see and hear clearly, and he didn’t have any prominent nostrils on his beak. He lost his teeth, and the flesh inside his mouth turned into a bluish-purple, while his beak became pointed and jagged with sharp “teeth.” On the top corners of his head propped up two large, feathery ears, and the fluff on the sides of his cheeks was significantly longer and more unruly.

He heaved, feeling confused and in pain; he felt like he had been hit by three semitrucks and a freight train, and why was he at the front of the train? He crawled up, using the wall as support, before looking around and seeing blood everywhere; not a corpse, however. He fumbled around on the table, before he found his hat and put it on, adjusting it to fit squarely between his fluffy ears. He covered up the top of his snout and scoffed; what kind of peck-neck tomfoolery would allow this? He shook his leg to try and get the pain out, before he heard the sound of quick running. He ran over to the door, and right as the sound was at its loudest, he stomped down the door, leaving the crows reeling back absolutely gobsmacked.

“I am in intense pain right now!”

The small murder of crows was frozen in fear, before one meekly cawed. “C-Conductor? We through you were-“

The crow paused, as if to rewrite its speech, before continuing on.

“-on break!”

The Conductor yelled furiously.

“ON BREAK?! How could I be “on break” when I saw that you peck necks allowed this to be on me set!”

The Conductor stepped sternly out of the way and gestured to let the crows see the horror show that had been painted on the walls of the room. The crows shuddered and squeaked.

“And which one of you Moon Penguins danced your way into making this kind of mess?”

The crows all gulped and held their breath, none of them seeming to know or believe in the sight in front of them.

“And if you’re wondering, the movie is already finished! It’s in me room! We’ll show that DJ Grooves what a real movie looks like!”

The crows all let go of their breath as they all perked up, the Conductor barging his way through the murder and running breakneck down the halls.