Three boys climbed into a zoo enclosure, stoning colourful birds with baseball-sized rocks, killing a sixteen-year-old flamingo in their attack.
The children, facing criminal charges, were ultimately exonerated due to their ages. Each boy: younger than ten.
On his sixteenth birthday, the eldest delinquent was found dead in a park, eyes gouged, corpse bruised and disembowelled.
When the next oldest turned sixteen, he was discovered, broken, at the bottom of a canyon.
The last boy also perished at sixteen. Drowned in his pool, fingers bitten free.
In the sky above each crime scene: a flamboyant flock, circling on scarlet wings.
Author’s note: This story is inspired by a real-life 2017 attack on flamingos at a Czech Republic zoo
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