OMIGOSH MICE THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!!! 

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEEEEEASE WRITE THE NEXT CHAPTER, IF YOU DONT I MIGHT DIE!!!!!!!!!! 

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Thanks, Windswift, I'm so glad you like it!!! Here's the next part of chapter one.

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Winston and Corn glared at each other for what seemed like forever; Corn glaring skywards; Winston glaring down. Each one sizing up the other.

Winston suddenly flared out his neck feathers; a mane of glossy brown. Corn did the same moments later, but his were tattered and not nearly as impressive or thick as Winston's.

The sun's in my eyes, realized Corn. Somehow I need to get behind him...

But too bad for Corn, because at that moment, Winston's feet shot out from under him and flew straight for Corn's eyes. Corn barely skittered back fast enough; Winston's spurs grazed the side of his neck instead.

"Ahah! You missed!" Corn knew better than to talk like that to Winston, but he couldn't resist at least one snide remark.

The two leveled out their heads again, neck feathers flaring. The staring contest. If Winston lifted his head, Corn would follow it, and Winston would do the same to Corn. Each one was searching for the right time to attack. It was a primal instinct that dwelled within the soul of each and every rooster; a connection to their ancestors that helped them survive in the wild.

Corn took a millisecond to glance behind Winston at the woods. A sudden, strange feeling swam over him, and Corn's insides turned to jelly. But before Corn could even blink, it was gone, and the young rooster wondered if it was just his imagination.

Winston, noticing Corn's slight hesitation, lashed out, shredding talonfulls of Corn's breast feathers. With a squawk, Corn flapped backwards, but Winston kept advancing, propelling the game cock to the edge of the arena. Corn knew that he would get cornered between the barrier of cheering chickens and Winston, but he didn't know what to do.

Corn decided to go offensive, and, ducking his head, he sped underneath Winston. It was a little bit of an informal move, but Winston couldn't be beat by his own trade, so Corn had to figure out a different way of doing things.

Winston was startled by Corn's sudden decision, and before he could spike his spurs inwards as Corn brushed past them, he was being bashed by Corn's sharp talons.

The two roosters were locked in deadly combat, spiking and tearing viciously at each other. Winston began aiming for Corn's eyes, and the game cock went defensive again.

"Stop...it!" Corn wheezed angrily. The Top Rooster was much older than him, and had much more endurance. The fact that Corn had tried this battle not five days earlier wasn't helping his stamina, either. Corn took another gasping breath, and began to feel that the battle was already lost.

Winston's spurs grazed Corn's tender comb, and salty, warm blood dripped down onto Corn's beak. Pride driving him onward, Corn kept retaliating, but his attempts grew feebler and feebler. Winston's spurs flew towards Corn's face again, and this time, they hit their mark. Fiery pain shot through Corn's face, and the rooster staggered backwards in shock.

The sun was now almost to the top of the sky, and, with the heat glaring down onto Corn's shoulders, the game cock fell to the ground. He knew he had to say something, or he'd die...Something like surrrrr...surrrrrr....

"I surrender," Corn mumbled.

"What was that, Corn?" Winston sneered. He leered down at Corn, left spur raised and ready to finish the battle. Faces looked on in anticipation from the sidelines, and Oleander was tapping his feet anxiously on the ground.

"I surrender!" Corn cried, submitting to defeat. His honor had been lost, yet again. It didn't matter anymore; Corn's only hen was now Winston's, and the young rooster's once-beautiful plumage was now matted, dusty, and mostly torn out. He was no more than a thin lump of feathers on the ground, prohibited by the code to move into the shade--or anywhere, for that matter.

Corn heaved a shuddering sigh, his hearing faded, and just as the other roosters ran out to congradulate Winston for his latest, he passed out.

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Not bad! Keep going, Mice! :)

Wow I kinda didn't expect this to be so good. But keep writing!

Wow Mice! This is really awesome! I've been wanting to read this for a while now! I just saw this because the lag is over (Yay!) and I can't wait to read more!

YAAAAAAAAY! Chickens! I love chickens! Keep up the great work!

How do you officially write a book?

Oooh! Keep going, Mice! I love this story already!

Keep going. Or, like windswift...

I might die. 

Sorry guys, I've been having AWFUL writer's block. Here's the end of chapter one, and part of chapter two.

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The sun was on the other side of Chicken Valley now, almost hidden by the rolling hills of tall green grass as dusk came nearer. Blearily, Corn hefted himself into a perching position and saw Marigold, a healer, approaching from the east side of Chicken Valley. She carried a bundle of herbs in her beak.

"Ooohngh," Corn groaned. His head was pounding, and with every throb his vision grew blurrier. He set his head back onto the ground. He still wasn't allowed to move. Not until the sun had set behind the hill. It was lucky that the arena was in a dip; the sun disappeared faster here than in your average meadow of West Valley. Corn shut his eyes and awaited Marigold's arrival.

Healers (who were always hens) had no rooster, but lived in a hollow log near where West Valley turned to East Valley. They had the job of collecting herbs and making sure the Valley was kept safe from dangerous plants. They also cleaned up after battles, and injured chickens were healed by the five mottled hens.

"Corn," scolded Marigold, having set down her bundle of herbs. "You just can't stop dreaming about being the Top Rooster, now can you?"

"My eyes...feel like they're on fire." Corn ignored the hen's remark.

"Oh, Winston scratched you up pretty badly, didn't he. Well, if you keep this wrap of herbs on them, they'll heal up just fine. Eyes heal quickly, you know, and he really didn't do too much harm to your actual eyes. It's what's above them he really tore up."

The healer gently touched a talon to Corn's head. The rooster winced. Marigold took her claw off Corn and bent towards her herbs. Carefully mashing them to a pulp with a rock and a stick, she laid them onto a large leaf and smushed the entire mask onto Corn's head, paying careful attention to his nares so that he could still breathe with the mixture on. Marigold arranged the larger, flatter leaf so that it completely covered the herbs, ensuring they would stay moist through the night.

"Thanks, Mary," Corn sighed, already feeling better. "That cold stuff feels good."

"Now, Corn, you know you have to stay the night in the woods. I'll lead you to a nice tree at the edge, and you can stay there."

The faint blue glow of dusk was almost gone. In the last few minutes of light, Marigold showed Corn to the edge of the woods. Though she was not allowed to help him any farther than the edge of the forest, she directed him towards a leafy tree about ten feet in that would shield him from the views of predators.

"It's straight ahead, Corn. No, straight. As in don't turn. Okay, good, now flap up the side of that tree...Use the bark as footholds. Now, when I say turn, turn to your right and there's going to be a branch there."

Corn found it hard to climb up a tree with his leaf mask on, but with Marigold's somewhat precise instructions, he eventually made it. Seated on a leafy, sturdy branch not too low to the ground, he huddled up and tried to get some rest.

"Thanks, Mary," Corn yawned. "See you tomorrow."

Marigold sighed to herself and started back for her hollow tree, where she would hopefully get some sleep for herself.

Chapter 2--

Corn found it hard to fall asleep in the woods. The previous night, he'd had to stay awake, which had been no problem for a wary, frightened chicken in a strange, typically avoided place. But he knew that his eyes would never heal if he didn't rest, so he tried to calm his frantic nerves. It took a while, but Corn eventually fell into a restless daze. He wasn't used to the unnatural sound of thousands of leaves swaying together in the wind, nor was he ever going to like the way the tree he was in creaked and groaned and shifted. Sticks kept falling on his still-tender comb, and every once and a while he'd hear something crunching in the leaves below him, only to bound off unexpectedly. Cool breezes disturbed Corn's feathers, swirling over, under, and all around him. And though his perch was large, Corn still had problems keeping his footing.

As sleep finally claimed him, Corn drifted into a dreamless slumber. Well, for the first hour or two, at least. But after a while, Corn suddenly found himself in a glade within the forest, far, far away from his sleeping tree.

Corn was standing, all wounds gone, in a grassy clearing deep within the forest. His view flashed from that of first person to that of third person in quick succession, but of course Corn found no fault in that, because this was, after all, a dream.

The wind blew, and Corn could clearly hear each gust as though he was right there in the treetops, swaying along with them. He saw fleeting glimpses of trees swirling deeper within the woods before his vision flickered back to his own eyes. The details of the scene were blurry. Cozy. Warm. Perfect.

Corn began to walk through the whispy grass of the small clearing. The only sound was the wind blowing; the trees' leaves beckoned him closer in a swift but silent flurry. He was in the forest; he was the forest; he was walking. He was aware of everything, yet nothing at all. 

His vision kept flashing farther and farther into the woods. Each glance deeper filled him with delight; however, all his thoughts were wordless feelings. His mind was empty...yet full.

Corn was still walking. The view changed from forest glade to deep woods. The sunlit leaves were so pretty, as were the dark shadows luring him in...

Dark shadows! For the tiniest sliver of a millisecond, Corn was overwhelmed with such a sense of wrongness that he nearly flung himself awake. It was scary, wrong, and...evil. Everything was. It was all an illusion!

But the spell immediately took a hold on his mind once more, and it was as though the frightening images of unimaginable terror had never happened.

Corn kept seeing flashes of the forest, faster and faster--until he saw it. A hole, black and gaping, in a large, leafy clearing amid old, enormous trees. It was the answer to all his problems! It was going to fix everything that had ever gone wrong...He needed to go there...

And then he was there. The hole was a deep pit; one with no edges; it sucked in all the light. Corn kept seeing images of himself getting closer and closer. Everything was happening faster now...The wind had stopped blowing, and strange muffled watery noises replaced it. In each image Corn saw he was closer and closer, but he knew he wasn't that close...Until he was. He was at the edge. He needed to go into the hole. He knew it. He had to. Jump into me, the hole seemed to say. Corn lifted his foot and prepared to fall in. Time slowed down and everything stopped as he pushed off, ready to fall into oblivion---when a scream pierced the air from somewhere far away.

Corn jolted awake with a start. To his surprise, he found himself screaming loudly into the trees. He also found that he was standing up on the ground, and that his leaf wrap had fallen off somewhere along the way...Icy fear suddenly speared his insides as he realized what had happened. Had he been...sleepwalking? The edge of the forest was nowhere in sight, nor was the tree he'd slept in. And his fear was being doubly fueled by the very unnerving dream he'd just had.

A hoot came from somewhere high above Corn.

Great Alvin! I need to get to safety before I do anything else.

Corn selected the closest tree to him and settled down on a branch towards the middle of the tree's height--not too low, not too high. That way, he wouldn't get hurt if he decided to go on another unconscious romp through the woods.

Okay...that was...a creepy dream, thought Corn. He shivered, remembering the strange perfectness of the woods. He shivered even more violently once he remembered the hole he'd almost jumped into.

Corn ruffled his feathers and huddled up among the leaves of the tree. He was tired enough to drift off, but something was nagging at the edge of his thoughts. It was something about the scream...that maybe he had heard something else, too...

And then Corn heard it again--he recognized it this time. A chilling scream echoed from deep within the forest--the death cry of another animal. Corn knew that noise from the countless roosters who hadn't surrendered at the arena in time. Suddenly, the game cock was wide awake. The scream was all too familiar. It was a chicken's.

It went on; panicked; pleading; afraid, for about ten seconds--and then everything was completely, mockingly, frighteningly quiet. And the forest was still.

Corn closed his eyes, which were just now beginning to throb again. He wondered which chicken would be missing in the morning. Had it been a hen or a rooster that had gotten killed? What had they been doing? Was it the scream that had given me such a nightmare? Had it been going on all that time while I was asleep? Could I have saved them had I woken up sooner? Corn felt queasy at the thought. Could he have saved them? Would he have saved them, had he been given the chance? Corn wanted to go back to his familiar sleeping bush and hide with his head in the weeds, but he'd have to wait until morning to do anything like that, so he settled uncomfortably against the tree's rough bark and forced shut his eyes.

As the young game cock finally drifted into a nightmare-filled sleep, the forest almost...sighed. The tension eased, and the crickets and katydids began to sing once more. The wind resumed its blowing; the trees now beckoned inwards, pointing Corn's feathers ever so slightly in the direction of the place one chicken had met its end. 

Whoopee, my writer's block has lifted!

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Morning arrived, and with it, the sounds of songbirds trilling, grasshoppers beginning their daily hopping, and roosters crowing into the rolling hills of Chicken Valley.

Corn had (thankfully) found his way out of the woods by using the sun, which had risen behind him. He simply walked away from the sun and found himself at the edge of the woods, near the blackberry bushes that most East Valley flocks frequented in the summer. Corn found Oleander and his single hen eating away at the newly-ripe blackberries and decided to join them, and also to share the strange news from his night in the woods.

Oleander looked surprised when he saw Corn approaching him. The silver-laced Wyandotte ducked his head nervously; it was apparent he was in no rush to speak with the game cock.

"Hey, Oleander!" Corn greeted cheerully.

"Errrrr...Hey, Corn," Oleander replied, tracing circles in the dirt. He glanced around warily as if expecting something in the trees or tall grass nearby to pop out and bite off his head.

"Um. Is...something wrong, Oleander?" Corn asked.

"No--No, I'm all good, nothing's wrong over here. Heh heh."

"Wellllllll...Good, then." Corn walked up to Oleander's only flock member, a black star hen, who was taking a dust bath nearby in the cool, dry dirt. "Hi, Blackberry. It's funny that you're here, eating blackberries, huh."

Blackberry, unimpressed, regarded Corn silently, having heard that joke too many times to count.

"Er...Okay. Good to see you, then." Corn looked around awkwardly, backing away towards Oleander, who was eating some clover to clear his throat of the acidic blackberry juice.

Blackberry continued swishing the dirt around, hiding herself in a cloud of dust. Obviously she was in no mood to talk to Corn. The rooster didn't blame her. He was practically lower than juveniles on the pecking order! Even Oleander, who was technically not a juvenile anymore, was higher than him with his one hen.

"So, Oleander, did you hear that scream last night?" Corn questioned curiously. He picked absently at a reddish, small blackberry, only to spit it out once realizing how sour it was.

"Aick, yes I did. And now a young rooster who challenged Bramble yesterday is missing," Oleander explained over Corn's hacking. "The flocks were hop--I mean, they thought it was your scream, though."

Corn finally spat out the bitter blackberry's remains, pretending not to notice what Oleander had almost stated, slightly curious as to how a rumor from West Valley had reached East Valley so quickly. "Well, it wasn't, but it sure scared me. I think I'll be having plenty of nightmares to spare."

Oleander kept chasing insects farther away from Corn, evading conversation.

"Say, Corn, why don't you try to get more hens today? It sure beats beating yourself up over an unfortunate rooster," Oleander said, changing the subject. All the talk of the mysterious noises seemed to be making the silver-laved Wyandotte nervous.

"Um, good idea." Corn had to admit, it sounded tempting to leave the dangerous mystery in the past. After all, chickens got killed by predators at least once or twice a season. It was probably just an owl that had seen the young rooster and carried it off. Still, there had been note of desperation and surprise in that scream that sent shivers down Corn's spine. He'd never heard a cry of terror like that before.

Corn found a ripe blackberry and wolfed it down. "Gosh, I'm hungry," he managed through the pulp.

Oleander didn't reply. He was now panting slightly, and his eyes looked a tiny bit panicked.

"Are you sure you're okay, Oleander?"

"Mmm," the young rooster mumbled weakly.

"I'm going to have to stay away from Winston today, for good measure. There's no telling where he'll be today. He likes to roam all over the Valley with that oversized flock of his," Corn continued.

Oleander, attempting to be conversational, said meekly, "Great idea. He was in a bad mood today."

Corn was surprised; Winston lived in West Valley and it would've taken him half the morning to get to East Valley. The sun had barely been up for an hour! Oleander would've needed to be up long before dawn to speak with Corn's enemy!

"How did you..." began Corn.

Oleander paled; it was apparent he hadn't mean to say that. "Nevermind," Corn said. He didn't want to make Oleander uncomfortable. The game cock continued on a topic he thought would ease his friend's discomfort. "So, I was thinking about trying to battle Tiny today?"

"Oh, yes," Oleander agreed, eager to change the subject. "He had a cold this morning!"

Corn looked strangely at Oleander. There he went again, talking about another chicken from West Valley. Was his friend hiding something? Corn opened his mouth to ask that very question, but Oleander had become quite interested in a dead leaf that had fallen among the moss. 

Corn left without saying goodbye, lost in thought about what could be bothering Oleander. He made a note to himself to assure Mary that he was indeed still alive, and maybe recieve some more ointment for his eyes. Oleander didn't seem to notice when Corn wandered off, although he did sigh with relief after Corn was long gone.

"What was that all about?" Blackberry had asked. Like any hen would have done, she'd been eavesdropping on the entire exchange.

"Oh, nothing," Oleander had lied. The two finished their breakfast and set out to forage the landscape like they did every day.