Tystnad

You walk back to your raft, happily followed by your vulture and gently caressing your cave birds, which you wrapped again to shield their eyes. You make it all the way to the beach before you stop, realizing that your owl is still out somewhere. You glance at the sky, looking for it, but it’s nowhere to be seen. You frown. It’s been a while, but you’ve been in the cave, so maybe it hasn’t found you. You decide to unload your other birds, get them settled, and worry about the issue in a minute. As you reach to take down your boat lantern, you startle. On top of the mast is your owl, staring at you patiently. You grin and untie its equipment. You look around and see at the back of the boat a naturally colored finch 1, bedded down between cans of soup.

Your mighty flock will be quite the sight back at the ornithology lab! You begin paddling back to the mainland, noting that the sky is still bright and clear, and soon you’re oddly traveling without a need for the paddles.

You wash up on shore with nothing in sight, save for a small service door to the back of the large building you passed the first time you were here. You go to close it, as there’s no human presence in sight, but something stops you. Inside, right by the door, you see all the items you browsed through before leaving. Any behind that.. the plentiful chirps and squawks of many birds.