Blackfeather Woods stage 3: bargaining

His running ended when the last of his energy was expended. Collapsing beneath the black spires of trees as a light snow began to fall; empty trees, the forest was soundless around him. A void. All he could hear now was the pounding of his racing pulse and he was lulled in to a stupor.

When he came-to again, Titmouse opened his eye and stared at the white. It was everywhere! The trees weren't black any longer, they stood as if carved of ice, and shining, while the ground was glimmering static. It felt almost peaceful here. It was wrong, though - he knew it as immediately as anything else. As he lifts his head and tries to rise, a heavy force restrains him; a taloned bear paw pins him down. Each digit reaching around a part of his body, hooked and black like a raven's claw, sinking in to the white. He tries to rise again, again, again! Paralyzed, somehow awake and not.

He cries. The only sound in this empty place is the shuddering of many winged things. He is certain they are here, that revenge must be taken. He's given an eye, a voice, a life, a future — but there's always more, always something to be pulled loose and offered up. Titmouse squeezes his eye shut as the feeling persists, crushing weight upon his lungs and then the cough of a raven's call.

He wakes, suddenly, with a punch and kick to the air and a freedom to his body; the world is normal again (or as normal as his mind can make it); and while he does feel watched, the white is gone.