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A Series of Myths and Legends: Storks
There had been various requests from African citizens about their children going missing. More than 10 children had been missing per day as of the last 2 months. Police and investigators hadn't found a single clue as to where these children may be. They had searched throughout the continent at a fast pace but still no sign of the children.
Officials could had had a step further towards this investigation, but the witnesses they met suffered from some sort of trauma, saying that the situation of the children before getting lost was too horrifying.
This is quite an unlikely catastrophe.
The United Nations had taken this as a serious case and asked the CIA to have this as top priority.
We've searched all over the nations of Africa. People don't seem to understand how dire the situation is and merely shake it off as some sort of coincidence.
There were a few leads but they ended up coming to a stop when blood trails started dripping all over one place. All the blood stains happened to be done at the same time, meaning they rotted together. It was almost difficult to continue.
Luckily, just yesterday morning, my co-workers found new trails of blood. They were able to get samples of every single stain as the rest of us helped. It took us the whole day to collect every single puddle just to confirm them. What we also found at that time was a flock of birds standing on a rotting tree. They seem like scavenger birds so they were disregarded.
Today, we wait for the results of the blood samples. The scientists are doing the tests and quickly and carefully as they can. My fellow investigators and I ask questions to the nearby village.
Children are inside their houses while the fathers prepare weapons ro hunt down potential culprits.
There are lots of trees with less to no leaves. Various birds including the scavenger ones we saw stand still. Some of those scavengers look through the trash bins and piles.
While the others continue to interview, I halt that action and proceed to observe the birds. I do nothing other than observing how they act.
There were some that goes inside houses. Others were breeding. And some just resting. I could only tell the vultures. The animals next to them were the other scavenger species. They have white legs, bluish-gray and white feathers, long dirty yellow beaks and red heads with what seems to be sacks. They were pretty similar to the vultures, feeding on dead or dying animals. Though fellow birds species just looked through the garbage.
I never thought I could see such animals.
The vulture and this sack-faced bird are much cooler to observe. They are both scavengers. The only difference is that the latter seems to have no soul or remorse for its sins.
I continue to observe them until a kid comes to me. She lends me more than half of the cracker she was eating. I refuse so she can eat more. She looks at the cracker and smiles at me.
She heads to the pile of garbage to throw the wrapper of the cracker. She throws it near the sack-faced scavenger.
Both of us are startled as the bird squeaks sharply and pecks at the kid. As I run to help her, his friends circle around her as she cries in pain. I take out my gun and shoot at one of them.
The birds present all fly away as I carry the girl to safety. Other investigators and villagers approach us as they treat her wounds.
We agents wait for the villagers information on the girl.
One of us got information about the case. The witness said that it wasn't human that killed the children. They seemed to have their throats "pecked" and carcasses left unfinished. The village chief and his close workers secretly hid their bodies in boxes or cloths. Everyone in the village knew and had contributed to this actions. But they were told to kee it a secret from outsiders as it may be a curse from their Gods.
I tell them what I witnessed earlier and the way the kid almost got killed was similar to how the others were.
We ask the witness where these boxes and cloths are. Apparently, when no one is watching them, they vanish. They deemed this as curse and in order to satisfy the god, they had offerings until the case diminishes. They continue to disregard children playing although hoping theirs do not get offered.
After she had said all these, she goes back to her house as the doctor treating the kid informs us of her death. The village chief orders to have her body put in a box. Although we despised and went against this order, they threaten us to either leave or die.
We need to solve this case to stop children from dying so we chose the former.
That night while my fellow agents check on the test progress, I sneak out to go to the pile of garbage where the box with the girl inside resides. I observe from afar as to not disturb the animals.
While checking my binoculars, one of the scientists had sneaked out and startles me, almost to death.
I lend him the binoculars.
"Leptoptilos crumenifer. Marabou Storks. One of Africa's most vicious scavenger birds. Eating almost anything from animals such as deers and small birds to flamingos to human garbage. They do not fear humans. They are highly aggressive and territorial. And their favorite place to find food is the human garbage pile. That's why they don't fear humans anymore."
He answered all the questions stuck in my head. As expected from my childhood and best friend.
"The pouches under their faces are used for mating so their basically useless in hunting. Their legs are white because they defecate on them to cool down."
There it is!
He adds one more information that made me more suspicious of both the birds and village chief.
"There's an urban legend that states that children get put in a box because they got to close to these birds."
It's possible that these storks are smart enough to either find full boxes or build them. Also wrapping children in cloths would also be a smart move for them.
But the witness admitted that they, villagers, put those children in boxes and cloths.
We stop midway our conversation when we see a lone marabou stork approach the box. It walks away as if looking for something. It grabs a cloth and takes it time to spread them over the box. It successfully covers the box with the edges of the cloth on it beaks as it flies away.
We follow that bird.
It stops the place with blood stains where we grabbed the samples. There, it opens the box and eats the dead kid inside while blood sprays everywhere. We keep a distance but it starks packing the box again when it hears my friend puke.
It flies away and we follow after I quickly treated him. We arrive at its nest where we see a flock of birds taking care of their own families.
Underneath the trees are boxes and cloths with blood stains.
Using the binoculars, I watch how it feeds its chicks. It takes small pieces of the body and carry it her nest as she allows other families to take. They are feasting on the carcass.
We hold our pukes in at the sight. I grab my camera and take a picture of this horrifying sight.
We head back to headquarters where some villagers including the chief tells us about a villager's suicide. When we checked the body, it was the witness. On a piece of paper that I immediately found, it translated that she couldn't take it anymore. The sight was too horrifying for a mother who has to watch her son being eaten and abandoned just to offer to some unknown God.
I keep the piece of paper and head back with the others. I show it to them and decided that we keep this secret.
The scientist and I share what we have found. The other scientists scolded my friend for a moment for leaving with no permission and goes back to the main topic.
Early in the morning, we head to the Marabou nesting sight. There in broad daylight, we see the boxes and cloths and bones of victims. The village chief followed us and they were horrified at the sight.
They help us retrieve the bones, having a few tendons and muscles left. After days of testing, it was confirmed that the remaining evidences were indeed of the lost children of Africa.
We inform our leader back at thr main headquarter in America. The United Nations have also been informed. They give us the order to help the villagers start anew with proper shelter and needs. The birds are kept under legal custody to avoid endangering or poaching them. They are to be kept at their original venue as to not disturb natural cycles, except the part of feasting on humans. To make this happen, children are no longer allowed to go near dumping sights where sights of these birds can be found.
This whole case was intense and horrifying especially to the parents of those children. We continue to observe the behaviors of the birds while maintaining peace in the village.
The sight of the female kid still haunts me until now. But there's still hope in forgetting this scenario and saving the children.
But I don't know how much I can take it any longer.
© All Rights Reserved
© livinghEartimes
Officials could had had a step further towards this investigation, but the witnesses they met suffered from some sort of trauma, saying that the situation of the children before getting lost was too horrifying.
This is quite an unlikely catastrophe.
The United Nations had taken this as a serious case and asked the CIA to have this as top priority.
We've searched all over the nations of Africa. People don't seem to understand how dire the situation is and merely shake it off as some sort of coincidence.
There were a few leads but they ended up coming to a stop when blood trails started dripping all over one place. All the blood stains happened to be done at the same time, meaning they rotted together. It was almost difficult to continue.
Luckily, just yesterday morning, my co-workers found new trails of blood. They were able to get samples of every single stain as the rest of us helped. It took us the whole day to collect every single puddle just to confirm them. What we also found at that time was a flock of birds standing on a rotting tree. They seem like scavenger birds so they were disregarded.
Today, we wait for the results of the blood samples. The scientists are doing the tests and quickly and carefully as they can. My fellow investigators and I ask questions to the nearby village.
Children are inside their houses while the fathers prepare weapons ro hunt down potential culprits.
There are lots of trees with less to no leaves. Various birds including the scavenger ones we saw stand still. Some of those scavengers look through the trash bins and piles.
While the others continue to interview, I halt that action and proceed to observe the birds. I do nothing other than observing how they act.
There were some that goes inside houses. Others were breeding. And some just resting. I could only tell the vultures. The animals next to them were the other scavenger species. They have white legs, bluish-gray and white feathers, long dirty yellow beaks and red heads with what seems to be sacks. They were pretty similar to the vultures, feeding on dead or dying animals. Though fellow birds species just looked through the garbage.
I never thought I could see such animals.
The vulture and this sack-faced bird are much cooler to observe. They are both scavengers. The only difference is that the latter seems to have no soul or remorse for its sins.
I continue to observe them until a kid comes to me. She lends me more than half of the cracker she was eating. I refuse so she can eat more. She looks at the cracker and smiles at me.
She heads to the pile of garbage to throw the wrapper of the cracker. She throws it near the sack-faced scavenger.
Both of us are startled as the bird squeaks sharply and pecks at the kid. As I run to help her, his friends circle around her as she cries in pain. I take out my gun and shoot at one of them.
The birds present all fly away as I carry the girl to safety. Other investigators and villagers approach us as they treat her wounds.
We agents wait for the villagers information on the girl.
One of us got information about the case. The witness said that it wasn't human that killed the children. They seemed to have their throats "pecked" and carcasses left unfinished. The village chief and his close workers secretly hid their bodies in boxes or cloths. Everyone in the village knew and had contributed to this actions. But they were told to kee it a secret from outsiders as it may be a curse from their Gods.
I tell them what I witnessed earlier and the way the kid almost got killed was similar to how the others were.
We ask the witness where these boxes and cloths are. Apparently, when no one is watching them, they vanish. They deemed this as curse and in order to satisfy the god, they had offerings until the case diminishes. They continue to disregard children playing although hoping theirs do not get offered.
After she had said all these, she goes back to her house as the doctor treating the kid informs us of her death. The village chief orders to have her body put in a box. Although we despised and went against this order, they threaten us to either leave or die.
We need to solve this case to stop children from dying so we chose the former.
That night while my fellow agents check on the test progress, I sneak out to go to the pile of garbage where the box with the girl inside resides. I observe from afar as to not disturb the animals.
While checking my binoculars, one of the scientists had sneaked out and startles me, almost to death.
I lend him the binoculars.
"Leptoptilos crumenifer. Marabou Storks. One of Africa's most vicious scavenger birds. Eating almost anything from animals such as deers and small birds to flamingos to human garbage. They do not fear humans. They are highly aggressive and territorial. And their favorite place to find food is the human garbage pile. That's why they don't fear humans anymore."
He answered all the questions stuck in my head. As expected from my childhood and best friend.
"The pouches under their faces are used for mating so their basically useless in hunting. Their legs are white because they defecate on them to cool down."
There it is!
He adds one more information that made me more suspicious of both the birds and village chief.
"There's an urban legend that states that children get put in a box because they got to close to these birds."
It's possible that these storks are smart enough to either find full boxes or build them. Also wrapping children in cloths would also be a smart move for them.
But the witness admitted that they, villagers, put those children in boxes and cloths.
We stop midway our conversation when we see a lone marabou stork approach the box. It walks away as if looking for something. It grabs a cloth and takes it time to spread them over the box. It successfully covers the box with the edges of the cloth on it beaks as it flies away.
We follow that bird.
It stops the place with blood stains where we grabbed the samples. There, it opens the box and eats the dead kid inside while blood sprays everywhere. We keep a distance but it starks packing the box again when it hears my friend puke.
It flies away and we follow after I quickly treated him. We arrive at its nest where we see a flock of birds taking care of their own families.
Underneath the trees are boxes and cloths with blood stains.
Using the binoculars, I watch how it feeds its chicks. It takes small pieces of the body and carry it her nest as she allows other families to take. They are feasting on the carcass.
We hold our pukes in at the sight. I grab my camera and take a picture of this horrifying sight.
We head back to headquarters where some villagers including the chief tells us about a villager's suicide. When we checked the body, it was the witness. On a piece of paper that I immediately found, it translated that she couldn't take it anymore. The sight was too horrifying for a mother who has to watch her son being eaten and abandoned just to offer to some unknown God.
I keep the piece of paper and head back with the others. I show it to them and decided that we keep this secret.
The scientist and I share what we have found. The other scientists scolded my friend for a moment for leaving with no permission and goes back to the main topic.
Early in the morning, we head to the Marabou nesting sight. There in broad daylight, we see the boxes and cloths and bones of victims. The village chief followed us and they were horrified at the sight.
They help us retrieve the bones, having a few tendons and muscles left. After days of testing, it was confirmed that the remaining evidences were indeed of the lost children of Africa.
We inform our leader back at thr main headquarter in America. The United Nations have also been informed. They give us the order to help the villagers start anew with proper shelter and needs. The birds are kept under legal custody to avoid endangering or poaching them. They are to be kept at their original venue as to not disturb natural cycles, except the part of feasting on humans. To make this happen, children are no longer allowed to go near dumping sights where sights of these birds can be found.
This whole case was intense and horrifying especially to the parents of those children. We continue to observe the behaviors of the birds while maintaining peace in the village.
The sight of the female kid still haunts me until now. But there's still hope in forgetting this scenario and saving the children.
But I don't know how much I can take it any longer.
© All Rights Reserved
© livinghEartimes
