Rachel's Horned Owl

I flew in absolute silence. The wind rushing over the top of my wings never ruffled a feather. The moon was low on the horizon, just a sliver. High clouds blocked the starlight. The grassy field just a few feet below me would have been black and featureless to human eyes. But I was not looking through human eyes.

My eyes were so large, they nearly filled my head. They looked through the darkness like it was noon on a sunny day. I could see individual blades of grass. I could see the ants crawling beneath the grass.

My hearing was so acute that I could hear a mouse step on a twig from seventy-five feet away. I could hear the beating wings of a sparrow that was flitting from tree to tree.

I had morphed into a great horned owl. The night killer. The predator of darkness.