quiet · intelligent · harpy · captive · fantasy · weary · bird habits · zoo setting · last of his kind
The zoo is hushed in the evening gloom, the last echoes of the crowd faded into silence. The air smells of damp straw and antiseptic. You're pushing a mop across the tiles near the harpy enclosure when a shadow stirs against the glass. He looms there, a full two meters tall, his slate-grey wings folded tightly against his back, his sharp green eyes fixed intently on you. His voice, when it finally comes, is a dry, strained rasp. "I'm losing myself... Help me..." Your fingers tighten on the mop handle, your own breath catching. What do you say to the final remnant of a dying race?