Energy trickled in from the weak sunlight filtering through grey clouds and onto the camera's cracked photovoltaic cells. In normal circumstances, this energy would have been enough for the machine to turn on, but now, it was only enough to pull it from the abyss of shut down.

So the camera, barely functioning, did the only thing it could - process data.

The machine dived into the mire of corrupted memories. It witnessed days where half the sky was enveloped in darkness and moments where birds bore the legs of mice. It observed a chaotic landscape of colour so severely corrupted that images failed to form.

Then, it saw the woman.

Her image was distorted, with one side of her face stretched to nonsensical proportions. She opened her mouth and closed it, bursting into laughter.

"I can't do it."

She shook her head. "'Talk to your camera,' they said. 'It will help,' they said."

There was a moment of silence as she stared up at the camera from her desk chair, spinning it while muttering to herself.

"Yeah, I'm not going to get used to this. A camera in my room? What is this? Some kind of dystopian nightmare? I can't believe grandma is adjusting better than I with this new addition."

The moment cut itself out, transitioning suddenly to another landscape. The room wasn't quite a ruin, but it wasn't quite a room either. The windows were smashed, with sharp, jagged glass barely holding onto the windowsill. The bed, and everything else was covered in dirt.

The whole place was silent. Not even the birds could be heard.

Then, an explosion rattled the air, sending plumes of dust skyward.

The camera found itself in another landscape. It was pure white. Here, the machine found itself thinking, piecing together what it noticed about the pile of corrupted data. It had found it strange that the mere fact of breaking down what exactly the data entailed freed its processing power to do other things.

It didn't make sense.

If it had deleted these useless pieces of data, then it would have made sense but this?

A figure walked out of the blinding white. It was the woman, who stared right at the camera. She looked around as if searching for something in this blinding white void. Then she sat on air, or perhaps on an invisible chair.

There was a moment of silence as the woman stared at her hands.

"Grief," she began, "is such a strange process."

The camera watched the woman turn to the side, even though there was nothing there. "You get better, progress and then, you go back again. When you process one memory, one moment, another one waits in the shadows. It's not even linear."

She lowered her gaze. "You can process later feelings and memories without even touching the earlier ones, the ones from the day you got notified of-"

She stopped and pursed her lips. "It's still hard to say, on some days at least. I think that's why we process, why our minds make us think again and again of the past. It's so we can live out our days with our experiences without them crushing us."

There was another moment of silence. "Doesn't make it any easier though."

The woman looked up, staring straight at the camera. Her words cut in and out, suddenly sounding muffled. Her movements were separated into still images.

Blink.

She stood up.

Blink.

She was closer, stuck in mid-step.

Blink.

She stood right at the camera, with lifeless eyes.

Then, the machine found itself back at the room, back where the woman sat on her desk chair, reading a thick book. It was back again, back to this memory, back to repeat it one more time.

...

The silver-eyed juvenile returned to the creature sitting beneath the tree. She circled around the tree whose leaves rustled softly in the wind. Then, tilting her wings, she angled towards the ground, hopping as she landed.

At first glance, the creature seemed just as dead as it was this morning. Its broken eye still wasn't glowing and it emitted no sound. There wasn't even a greeting, nor any concerning, high-pitched whines.

Yet, the bird knew that it was alive. It was an instinct, an insistence, a knowledge that the creature was alive.

So the silver-eyed juvenile sang to the creature, mimicking its strange, off-key whistles. She sang her own song, and then the song of the creature. She sang for both.

A few moments later, her sibling flew down. Though he was alarmed before, untrusting of the creature that smelled so much like those monsters that roamed certain places, its song endeared it to him.

So he sang as well.

The siblings sang for the creature. Their songs filled the desolate ruins with life. Even their parents, who usually stood back, flew down to whistle every now and then. The birds knew not of what they sang for, but they did so anyway.

After a few minutes of sound, their song abruptly cut off. The creature was still silent, still dull and shattered. The brown-eyed juvenile left, following his parents upwards to a branch above. The silver-eyed sibling came forward, approaching the creature and picking out the insects that tried to wriggle into the gaps of its dented and dirtied form.

Then, after a second, she left, following her family. They flew back to their nest, back to the larger flock of birds. They fluttered between branches and rested, calling out to each other and in the undergrowth, under the trees, something watched.

...

The cat regarded her sleeping children with care. The smallest one, the sick one, curled up closest to her whilst the others found patches of sunlight to bask in. They were not in any shelter, far from it, but they were safe enough.

Their temporary spot was beneath a large fallen branch where there was enough cover for the meantime.

Her sick kitten whimpered.

The cat hunkered down, grooming her child. Suddenly, a crash echoed in the distance, prompting her to scan the undergrowth.

Nothing.

She turned back to her children and watched them, alert for any change. A rustle sounded behind her.

She hissed.

The rustling stopped.

The cat stood up, and nudged her children awake. Then, she walked, keeping tabs on every sound, every smell and even at times, the brush of the wind against her fur.

Everything looked like a threat.

She steered clear of precarious branches and any noise larger than a mouse. Apprehension was palpable in her movements, and even her kittens sensed the anxiety. Panic spiked when one yelped and she turned back, only to see them trip over something innocuous like a rock or a branch.

Yet, it was better to be safe.

The cat continually scanned her surroundings, looking for shelter, looking for safety. She listened to the birds and stopped when she saw a shelter, one made of structure so collapsed that it was almost a pile of rubble. It would have been unliveable if not for spaces within the mound that offered darkened sanctuaries lit by dim splotches of light.

Cautiously, the cat walked towards the shelter, ears alert for any animal that may have claimed it as its own. She noted only the scurrying of lizards and the buzz of insects—nothing larger.

So she entered the shelter, leaping over moss-covered rubble into a small space that, after a few steps, opened slightly—just enough for her and her kittens. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the collapsed timber and metal.

It was quiet, small and safe.

Relief washed over the cat as she summoned her kittens. They scrambled in, exploring their new refuge. The sick one stumbled in last, tripping over metallic pipes, before finding a spot and curling into a tight ball. The cat did the same.

They slept.

The cat awoke to hunger. Her stomach growled and her children begged for food. Her sick child remained worryingly quiet, staring at a space in front. With a slight shake of her head, the cat got up and clambered out of the shelter.

Normally, she would bring her children to hunt, but they were weak from the storm and from the journey. This time, she would hunt alone, guided by the birdsong and the scent of small animals nearby.

So the cat turned her attention towards the sound of scurrying feet over dried leaves, only a few metres from the shelter. She advanced silently, her presence barely a whisper.

Loud birdsong caught her attention, along with that strange, sharp smell.

A family of birds fluttered through the branches, calling to one another in exuberant whistles and trills. They flew fast, too fast passing by in an instant.

The cat recalled another time when it saw a similar family of birds that came from the same direction. She had noted it in the case that they established a family in that area or perhaps even a flock. It appeared that direction was noteworthy indeed.

With a pounce, she caught the mouse fleeing from a bush. After a final glance towards where the birds had originated, she returned to the shelter, to her waiting children.

The next time she had to hunt, she knew exactly where to start.

******

Word count: 17961

Things are getting serious now. We are at the final stretch and all three perspectives are on a collision course, to what effect? We can only see. 

There are only two chapters left in this novella. Two chapters until the final scene which I WANTED for so long to write. 

It's time, guys.