November 21, 2036
9:30 am
George Lane
Jason’s Editor
“The birds are back, but they’re not the same birds,” is what Jason told me when he called back 15 minutes later.
“If they’re not the same birds, then how can you say they’re back?” I asked, wondering why he sounded so scared but also, as his editor, wondering how such a good reporter could be telling me something like this without realizing how it sounded.
“Because they’re coming out of the egg, George. So it’s gotta be them. Ever since all of them disappeared inside of that thing they’ve all been gone. But now there’s hundreds of them. Hundreds. But the way they look…something’s not…”
“What? Jason, when you say…”
“I gotta go. I gotta go now.”