Duck Lake little dark age

Filled to the brim with empty cardiac bravado, he sways on his feet. Distantly, he notices the stranger smiling, wonders if he's gone insane. He wants to yell, take his hair by the fists and dig his elbows into the dirt. Nausea, or hunger, or both, fills his mouth with saliva.

Two wings, he insists, vengeful. He was well aware that this could end with him facedown in the mud with no breath to call for help. He was not scared of death but he still flinched away from pain just like any other living thing. 

In a moment of disassociation he sees himself dead in the mud. Two wings, I leave, you never see me again. He felt very foolish when he bartered. Because in truth he'd never had anything in his pockets other than lint and the implacable need to stay alive. 

What was this? Vertigo? Hatred? His thoughts were congested, in gridlock. His face moved of its own accord.