“A little bit farther,” Patty said, “Just a bit farther.”

  Something was calling to it, drawing it onward and Patty had to know what it was. The great light had come and gone more times than it could count. Patty’s grease trail had long since diminished and movement was getting more strenuous all the time. Birds flew overhead, seemingly uncertain what to make of the strange sight Patty had become. Every once in a while, one of the birds would swoop down and Patty would have to leap out of the way. Each time it was a near miss, and each time became a little more difficult.

  The birds left Patty alone in the dark times, and that was a relief. But there were other things to worry about in the dark. Patty never slept, it didn’t need to, but it couldn’t stop to take a rest either and that was beginning to wear on Patty. Shifting forms in the black haunted the nights, threatening to overtake and devour it should Patty ever cease its vigilance.

  The sun glared down on Patty and a bird swooped down. This time, Patty wasn’t fast enough. Beak pierced flesh and the bird gulped down a chunk of meat. Patty reeled from the blow and dodged out of the way as the bird flew back in for another bite.

  Oddly, Patty was still aware of the piece of itself inside the bird. Patty took hold of it and the bird flopped to the ground, ridged. Patty found itself in two places at once: on the ground, where it lay after dodging the bird, and on the ground where it had landed after falling out of the air. It didn’t make sense. The bird was the one who’d fallen, but there, in Patty’s mind, it saw out of the birds eyes, knew the birds thought, it even felt the dull pain on the birds side where it had landed wrong. It knew everything the bird knew and had all of its memories, though most were of little interest to Patty.

  Another bird took advantage of the apparent delay and swooped in. Patty swooped up and pecked at the other bird, knocking it away. The rest of the birds scattered at this sudden change in their companions behavior and Patty was left alone with itself, both of itselves. The bit of Patty inside the bird shifted within the gullet and Patty’s hold over the bird wavered. Whatever mechanism it was that allowed Patty to control the bird, it did not seem permanent. Not wanting to lose this opportunity, Patty gingerly picked itself up in bird-Patty’s beak and flew off toward the horizon, toward the call driving it on.

  It was nearing the end of the light when at last Patty knew it had arrived. Spread out before them were more of Patty’s kind, or at least what it had been before being taken, and changed. Patty’s arrival was just in time too since the bird was beginning to come back to itself and Patty was eager to get out of it’s beak. The moment Patty was back on the ground, it flew the bird as far away as it could. By the end of it’s flight it felt less like a part of Patty and more just a being that Patty was giving strong suggestions to. Eventually, Patty lost all contact with the bird.

  Calm lowing reached Patty as the light faded and Patty’s hopes rose. Here, there were no unfamiliar dark forms moving about like specters. Here, at last, Patty could rest. As soon as the light returned Patty would begin putting into action the new idea, new goal, that had been forming in it’s mind ever since Patty took control of the bird. It was a remote hope, but perhaps there was more Patty could do to protect its own kind than it originally thought.