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Attempting to leave the disabled toilet seemed harder than it should have been. As she washed her hands, the light flickered obscenely on and off through multiple mauve hues. The drone of the pipes continued its mantra like an obese siren of the walls. Despite this sensory assault, she attempted to move towards the door. The door seemed to have become was a metal monolith, its surface cold and unforgiving. Her fingers fumbled with the handle, a useless appendage in this claustrophobic tomb of porcelain and steel. With a final, desperate heave, she pushed, and the world outside rushed in.

She was out on the library floor once more. The books, the shelves, the empty computer stations. All as it was and quite quite silent; where had she been? A solitary student at his laptop, half hidden on a single desk behind shelves, peered up at her momentarily, curious as to why she lingered so long and lost looking at the restroom entrance. Aware of her awkward moment, she smoothed her dress and then, unable to resist, turned round, opened the heavy door of the disabled toilet, and peered back in. All looked normal. Even the pipe drone sounded normal now. She breathed out, made a note on her phone and headed up to check the same cubicle on the next floor up.

This cubicle seemed identical, a sterile white box with a single, unforgiving window high on the wall. Sunlight filtered through, casting a sterile glow on the porcelain. There was no drone, no flicker. Just the hum of fluorescent lights and the soft rustle of pages turning. A sense of unease crept over her. Had she imagined the other? But why could she hear pages turning from within the cubicle? Mind beginning to race she suddenly also wondered: where did the sunlight come from? Why was there a fucking window here? How did she so blindly accept its presence? The disabled toilet was deep in the middle of the building far from any external wall. Exhilarated and terrified at the dreamlike impossibility of it, she went to the window and peered out.

There was no window. The sunlight was a blinding, ethereal glow, emanating from within the cubicle itself. It pulsed and shimmered, casting grotesque mauve shadows on the walls. A cold dread seized her. This was the same restroom that she had failed to exit. She stumbled backward, her heart pounding in her ears. A voice, distant yet clear, whispered in the darkness beyond the light.

Then her phone fell to the floor, to be picked up later by security.

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“If I am a witch, then what are you? Mr uses-a-magic-stone-to-transform-an-old-chicken-into-a-young-girl-just-to-fuck-her? Does that not smack of sorcery a teensy bit? Does summoning all of this out of nowhere…” she gestured to the grand castle and grounds “…not constitute some form or wizardry?” Aniello the cockerel looked around with rapid head movements that chickens do, in a shifty kind of way that suggested don’t-know-who-you’re-talking-to-nothing-but-a-cockerel-here and said no more. He then began to scratch the ground and peck at it.

Rachel shook her head in exasperated disbelief before shouting “Aniello! Hoy Aniello, come take this creature away!” Aniello the cockerel looks up, not really understanding what’s going on. What, or rather who should he see coming out of the castle doors but… another Aniello! The cockerel looks at Rachel then the approaching Aniello, back to Rachel, back to Aniello! “What creature my love?” enquires the new Aniello. “This one!” she gesticulates harshly at the cockerel Aniello, who now is caught in a kind of stunned inertia.

Oh cockerelo, cockerelo, too late he reacts and the obedient, ever loving Aniello is on him. “Well my fine fellow…” says Aniello, “…you will make a good addition to tonight’s dinner.” And away with him, clutching cockerel-Aniello by the legs upside down. Rachel blows the new Aniello a kiss from her claw, which the new Aniello looks slightly perturbed by but still receives pleasantly, before heading back to the castle with the cockerel, with a mind to take it to the kitchen. As Aniello walks through the long stony corridors, so eventually some kind of sense emerges from the shock and the cockerel-Aniello begins to find his voice.

“Aniello, Aniello!” he crows, and Aniello stops. “You can speak?!” “Yes, I can speak Aniello and you must listen to me before you send me to slaughter.” “Go on.” Says Aniello, though he does not put the fowl down. “Aniello, I am non-other than your beloved Rachel and have been transformed into a cockerel. The Rachel that called you is not Rachel but one of the two wizards whom you turned into asses many years ago; somehow they are back, how I do not know. You must free me and save our child, but beware, for whilst the wizard does not have the red stone, he does have a new black stone, which is yet more powerful than the red one. If you do not believe me, look in the branches of the scots pine trees near the courtyard. There, if you wait a while you will see hovering a winged egg. This winged egg is our child, not yet ready to fully hatch. Get the red-stone and whilst the wizard does not yet know that you know it is he, see if you can disarm him of the black.” “Well, this is a strange tale you tell me for sure!” said Aniello, “Go, go, go to the window until you see the egg, then you will know I am not lying. Our poor child needs our help!”

So Aniello altered his route until he reached a window on the correct side of the castle, and from there (all the while holding the cockerel-Aniello) he peered out into the lofty branches of the scots pine trees. He looked and he saw nothing, but the cockerel bade him look a while longer, and then sure enough there was something. At first he thought it a bird, but then noticing how it hovered and yet how it could not be a kestrel; he focussed his sight upon it and saw it did indeed look like a winged egg. His mind whirled and he did not know what to think, for he had heard of the ancient tales of the winged egg Kneph and its strange symbolism. He did not know what to believe and his mind was filled with serpents, cockatrices and mysteries. Yet the cockerel did seem so earnest in its explanation and has he watched his wife cavorting strangely below in the courtyard, he did begin to feel there was something sinister and off about her.

Round and round the black stone she danced in eccentric circles and chanted as she spun. Beneath her, her claw-like feet scratched at the dirt to form a pattern where she stepped. Gradually, her turns became sharper and her birdsong became louder until it was no more than a whistling shriek which deafened the Aniellos’ ears so that neither heard the words she spoke next. “Black stone, black stone, I beg thee, hear my plea! I ask you to curse the peasant-man who dared make a mockery of me!” Now of course like all fables and fairy tales, Rachel’s words certainly didn’t go unheard, though she was not aware that the outcome of her invocation would not be as she intended. Had she not been blinded by her enthusiasm, she may have noticed that she had fumbled her words and instead of “mockery” she had said “cocker-ly”. Regardless, the Freudian slip had been made and the avian-reptilian overlord had heard her wishes and sealed her fate.

When at last the ringing subsided, the Aniellos realised that Rachel had been concealed from their view. The dust that had been churned up from her feverish dance now formed a cloud around her which Aniello surmised was to ensure that the next act of her nefarious machinations would remain undisturbed. Little did they know that they were lucky to be blinded from the horrors within. 

“Do you believe me now?” The cockerel Aniello craned his neck to face his upside down (from his perspective) human counterpart. “We must make a plan at once to extract the black stone from her villainous claws! You must help me find the winged egg or else we may never defeat her! You must let me go at once before it is too late!” Understandably, this was a lot for the human not-Aniello to take in. His knowledge of the egg and its strange and unknown powers frightened him but somehow he knew that the cockerel was telling him the truth. He looked yonder towards the Scots pines and for a moment, thought he caught sight of the winged-egg of which the cockerel spoke and an uncomfortable sensation stirred within him. Strange as it may be, the truth was clear before him. Though what might he gain from this transaction? A cockerel might not offer him much but a bargain is still a bargain. He pondered for a moment, considering what this hapless bird might offer him. For a brief moment, a mischievous smirk darted across his features for he had finally reached his conclusion. In his most booming and authoritarian voice, he announced the terms of their mutual companionship.  

“Is that so, my bird friend? I could very easily help you since you yourself are.. inhibited in your current form. But naturally my aid would come at a price, perhaps the price of a certain red stone…”. He trailed off without finishing his point. Aniello, still securely hanging by his feet, flapped his wings furiously. “You damned fool! Do you not know the powers which you meddle with!? The red stone is one of the most powerful artefacts in the known world and you want to use it for your foolish desires! Pray tell, what exactly do you intend to do with it if it falls into your possession? Tell me honestly what it is that you want most in all the world.” A lengthy pause saturated the air between them. Not-Aniello inhaled deeply and levelled his gaze with one of (for he could not meet the gaze of both) cockerel/original Aniello’s deeply-unsettled orange eyes. “I want to start a folk-rock band”. 

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Written by the CEO in conjunction with Jessica Lightfoot-Toye

In a sad twist of fate, as Aniello attempted to anticipate the position of the egg Aniello lunged towards where he perceived the egg was heading, unfortunately the egg, sensing that it was his protective father who sought to help him, swooped towards where it perceived the strange humming net would be. This resulted in mutual failure an ungainly and unsuccessful swipe at the ovoid offspring that sent Aniello teetering and ultimately plummeting off the high window ledge onto the hard stone parquet floor below with a sickening crunch.

“Oh dear, oh dear…” Said Rachel quite nonchalantly before swinging herself off the windowsill, from where she half flapped her way safely down to where he lay. Aniello was quite, quite dead, that much was clear. With a half comedic reproach, Rachel lifted her fist and shook it faux angrily in the air at the hovering egg “Now see what you’ve done to your father!” she shouted up towards it. The egg floated a little closer and appeared to bob remorsefully in the air. Rachel then peered down to look closer at her deceased husband. Her avian eye scanned him up and down for several moments before focussing on his caved in head. Then, taking out of her dress a small pair of scissors, she began to make a series of swift incisions, (which, if one were asked for a simile for them, one would say they resembled a pecking motion) into the wreckage of his head.

The blood spattered over her hands, up her sleeves, small bits grey matter flew hither and thither. Then, her eyes acquired a beady triumphant look, and she plunged her hand into the cavity and, after a moment of squelchy rummaging extracted a blood-soaked glistening black stone. Seemingly now oblivious to the hovering child-egg, she held the stone, peered at it intensely, then wiped it clean on her dress. Now with a wide-eyed look of concentration she focussed again on the stone. 

Upon doing so for just a miniscule amount of time, an incredible transformation began to occur. A blue light of a strange pulsating hue began to emanate from Aniello’s corpse. The air around it shimmered in an unearthly azure haze and an ineffably aural hum filled the air. The hum intensified, the light intensified until blue light and noise became one in a quasi-synaesthesic PHZZZZZZZZZZZZT! When this phenomenon subsided, there standing on the court floor was a very large majestic looking cockerel.

For a moment, the bewildered beast stood entirely still as though his incredible transformation  had somehow suspended him within a psychic trance. Rachel, who was already experienced in inhabiting a poultry vessel, rolled her eyes and released an inward sigh. Kneeling down to inspect him more closely, she cast a critical eye over his admittedly beautiful rust plumage which formed a brilliant copper cape which only further accentuated his vividly regal tail feathers. Having made this necessary assessment, she concluded that he was far more visually impressive in this form. Throughout the duration of this process, Aniello/the cockerel had not moved at all. Rachel, unphased, waved a clawed hand back and forth before him but his expression did not change, that is of course assuming that a cockerel would be capable of showing any expression at all. After a couple more pitiful passes, she sighed once more. 

“You really are useless. I see where our child gets it from”

At this remark, the egg-child, which had been quietly hovering above Rachel’s shoulder, swiftly retreated into the canopy of a nearby tree and concealed itself within the dense branches. Rachel pretending not to have noticed, concerned herself solely with the matter at hand. Having briefly pondered how she might break her husband’s trance, she reached behind him and harshly plucked one of his lustrous tail feathers to which he responded with an almighty shriek.

The cry (which was so loud it caused the surrounding palace walls to tremble as though disturbed by seismic activity) sent an unexpected shockwave throughout the kingdom which very much disturbed the many courtiers and local avian population alike. Rachel, wholly displeased by the unnecessary noise, shoved Aniello’s head into a nearby bucket of water. 

“Fool! Stop making such a terrible racket! You only have yourself to blame for this!”

In a dire state of distress, the squawking bird fruitlessly flapped his wings like the proverbial headless chicken, haphazardly striking his clawed toes behind him in an attempt to dissuade the perpetrator of his unjust treatment. When Rachel finally relented and released her grip upon his elongated neck, the drenched Aniello, surprisingly not dead, withdrew his head from the water and appeared to gasp for air. Croaking and choking out of the way, alarm shook him deep within his hollow bones as he caught his reflection within the rippling water. The shrieking then resumed.

“You witch! What have you done to me!?”