The forest was a cathedral of emerald and shadow, where the only law was the hunger of the belly. I watched from the high canopy of a silver birch, my feathers a glossy void against the pale bark. I am a creature of the wind and the carrion, and I see the world as a series of movements and smells.

A human entered my domain. He was a small, shivering thing, smelling of salt and old fear. He moved with a strange, rhythmic hesitation, stopping every few paces to drop something from a cloth bag. Small, pale grains. Breadcrumbs.

I watched him with a tilted head. To the human, these grains were a map, a desperate tether to a place he called "home." To me, they were a gift.

I descended in a blur of black, my talons clicking on the loam. I ate the first grain. It tasted of yeast and desperation. I ate the second, the third, and the tenth. I followed him as he walked deeper into the green gloom, cleaning the forest floor of his hope with a systematic, clicking hunger. I did not hate the human; I simply existed in the space where his needs ended and my appetite began.

By the time the human realized the trail was gone, the sun had begun to bleed into the horizon. I perched on a branch just above his head, watching the shift in his scent. The smell of "determination" vanished, replaced by the sharp, acidic tang of "panic."

He began to run. He ran in circles, his boots trampling the ferns, his breath coming in ragged, sobbing gasps. He searched for the grains, clawing at the dirt, screaming into the silence of the trees. I watched him from the heights, my black eyes reflecting his frantic movements. To me, he looked like a wounded beetle, spinning in a web of his own making.

The panic turned into exhaustion. The human stopped running and sat beneath a great, ancient oak. He wept—a soft, rhythmic sound that signaled the beginning of the end. He curled into a ball, his warmth slowly leaking into the damp earth.

I waited. I am a patient creature. I waited through the long, freezing night, listening to the human's breathing slow, then stutter, then stop. The forest reclaimed him with a quiet efficiency; the moss crept over his boots, and the insects began their slow, meticulous work.

As the first light of dawn filtered through the leaves, I flew down and landed on his chest. I looked at his open, vacant eyes. There was no more hope here, no more maps, no more breadcrumbs. There was only the stillness of the earth.

I let out a single, harsh croak that echoed through the silent cathedral. Then, I began to eat.

***

Objective Tensor Code: [OTMES_v2: M1=7.0, M4=4.0, N2=0.9, K1=0.9, TI=48.2, theta=168.1, E=11.5]