8 people, 1 cup ( multiple collab see authors note)

After not hearing from Miranda Wright for several days, her family reported the petite 28 year old woman missing. Thirteen days after filing the missing persons report, Miranda's father and brother went to her house on Halloween and noticed there was a foul odor coming from the living room. The police had gone through everything in her house as well, but found no signs of struggle. Miranda's brother noticed that the odor seemed to increase when he went toward the couch. Something told him that he should lift up the cushion. As he lifted up the cushions, he stood there in shock, seeing a rotting raccoon staring back at him.

That was not the only thing that was odd. Right beside the raccoon was a box of kibbles and bits.  Her pet raccoon was Miranda's prized possession.  And possessed did she become. Her backyard was the new frontier of rabid animal scum. Alone in the wilderness, her whereabouts were not noted. The teeth marks of her closest friend, with blood still on the carpet. Her house rotten with lifelessness and decay. Finally, her family noticed the house's basement, previously forgotten, brought a chilling surprise.

There were cages that were empty and at their bases you could see strange symbols and marks, as if someone — or something — had tried to write a message. Behind a dusty dresser, an old diary belonging to Miranda detailed her growing paranoia and fear of insidious winged beings and their thoughts that she could clearly hear. And in the corner, a pile of blood-stained feathers dispelled Miranda's family's worst fears.

Looking underneath the feathers were the remains of what appeared to be a half-eaten heart. With a perfect circle drawn around the ravaged organ that sit precisely in the center of the circle. Beside it were words carved into the floor revealing an ominous message. It read: She knew too much.

They pushed aside the possibility that the remains of the heart could belong to her and kept searching for answers. Her brother was still going through her diary, reading aloud how she had found the concealed cellar behind the dust-covered piano, where horrifying acts had been done and corpses were scattered across the floor. He read of her determination to stop the danger they were plotting against humans.

She had written a brief poem a few days earlier that haunted:

When will darkness again fly
eclipsing the daytime sky
a shroud of black, sooty wings
foretells all the evil it now brings

Miranda's brother was captivated by the quatrain. His sister was never one for poetry. Yet, this was unmistakably her. He analyzed it line by line: What "darkness," was it real or metaphor. How could the darkness eclipse. "Black, sooty wings," were they birds, or something not of this earth. The last line gave him chills, "the evil it now brings," the evil was already here.

Life and circumstances have a way of educating, changing, and bringing new opportunities that seem strange or bizarre at the time; but in the big extensions of life, what she was learning and experiencing was a whole new world. The benefits and lessons gained will depend on how she handles them.

Will evil infiltrate the intricacies of her heart that beats to its own madness?
Will she drown beneath the suffocating weight of all her sadness?
Will she succumb to those dark thoughts of despair?
Or will she sing like a triumphant swan over the black, reciting the lords prayer?