"There goes another one," Evans said to himself. He had watched the mysterious stairs to nowhere for hours now from the park bench. The strange stone stood, foreboding, in the middle of the park, while a dark snake, easily a dozen meters long, carefully lowered itself from the top. Evans watched as the pitch-black, scaly creature wove its way across the grass and down a city block. Nobody else reacted, nor did they seem to notice the massive creature even as they somehow avoided walking into it.
 
The snake reared its head back, then pressed itself against a building, steadily climbing the wall. Evans followed it with his eyes, and saw a young man balancing on the edge, laughing with a woman. On one side, safety and a friend; on the other, a long fall to a lonely alleyway. The snake coiled up on the roof, watching. Evans's heart beat faster as the serpent tensed and relaxed, as though making up its mind on whether to strike. Neither man nor woman noticed the massive creature, and the three continued the morbid dance.
 
Silently, suddenly, something shifted. The woman tensed, the man panicked, and the snake struck. The man's body convulsed once in its powerful jaws, then hung limp. In a rather unsnakelike manner, the creature flicked its head back and tossed its catch to the back of its mouth, hiding him away behind a sea of inky scales. The woman ran to the edge and stared at where the man had been, but continued to ignore his killer. The serpent wrapped itself in its coils and rested, just like some of the others had.
 
Evans's focus snapped in front of him, reacting to some apparent movement, but nothing was there. He looked back at the snake, but it had vanished, just like all the others had. Sighing, he shook his head, silently chastising himself for not paying more attention and depriving the snake the opportunity to disappear. Some colored lights played in his peripheral vision, but what really caught his eye was a woman slowly climbing the stairs. Thinking to ask for her reason, Evans stood and approached the base of the stone, but the question never came. He stood a bit away from the stairs when she reached the top, and the scene played out once more.
 
The very world seemed to lose its color, sucked away to nowhere as the woman sank to her knees and sat. Her hands rested calmly on her thighs; her back straightened and bent slightly as she inhaled and exhaled. One, two, three, four times, and then it happened. Where there had been a human woman, there were now a mass of small crows, which quickly took flight. A minor ache panged in Evans's head when it happened, both too suddenly to deny the birds used to be her, and too smoothly to define when the flock had stopped being a woman. Upon a second look at a couple stragglers, Evans realized they were not crows, but rather pure black pigeons; feathers, beak, feet, and eyes were all a midnight black, but in shape they were certainly pigeons.
 
The pigeons soon landed on some trees Evans had not seen before. They were a small spot of color admist the strangely still-grey world. Unconsciously, Evans took a step, watching the scene unfold. A woman on a bench was trying to throw peanuts in her mouth, missing most of them, but occasionally catching a couple. The pigeons idly twitched their feathers, jerking their heads in that uniquely bird-like manner. Suddenly, one took flight, diving from the tree directly at the woman. Evans flinched as he anticipated it gouging her throat or pecking out her eyes, but it merely flew past. On returning to its branch, the bird flicked its head, trying to stuff something down its beak: a single peanut. After a while of trying, it gave up and let the nut fall to the ground, just in time for the confused woman to glance over and see it. She shrugged, looked into her now-empty peanut bag, stood, and walked away. The flock followed closely, so closely they blended into her shadow and vanished into the darkness. Just like some of the others had.
 
Evans looked down at himself and realized he had been ascending the staircase without noticing, trying to get a better view of the pigeon girl. With a mental shrug, he took the last few steps. For some reason, he didn't think he could climb back down safely, so he did the next thing that came into his mind. Calmly, he sank to his knees and sat, resting his hands on his thighs. Curious as to what the others had felt, he closed his eyes and breathed. In, out... In, out... In, out... In, out-
 
His eyes opened, seeing in full color once more. Evans looked around the park, then leapt from the top of the staircase, spreading his feathery wings to glide to the ground and land on all fours. Striding along a sidewalk, his gait caused a strange rhythm, near-soundless steps from leonine feet interwoven with the audible clicking of eagle talons on concrete. The rest of the world slowly filtered into his awareness, including a blaring siren and flashing blue and red lights. A human caught his eye, sitting on a bench and staring into the distance, likely daydreaming. The griffon's keen senses picked up the man's voice through the sirens, a curious "there goes another one." He seemed familiar somehow, unlike the person in front of that man. The second human was pointing a gun at the first. Evans decided he didn't like the second man.
 
The flashing lights and screaming siren revealed themselves to be police cars, and a number of officers all stepped out, training their own sights at the gunman. Black-furred tail lashing, Evans circled the familiar man and the threatening one, letting out a low growl and instinctively fluffing out his feathers. Nothing had happened, but the gunman was still pointing his gun. With an avian shriek, Evans launched himself forwards, digging his pure-black talons deep into the gunman's body, only letting go once the human had crumpled to the ground and lay lifeless. He turned, regarding the familiar man; the man had finally been shaken from his daydream and was looking with shock and mild horror at the corpse in front of him... or possibly at the griffon next to it. He shakily got to his feet and stumbled away.
 
Evans watched the police holster their still-warm guns and approach the dead man, then turned and quickly trotted after the familiar man. The daydreamer needed someone to watch his back, after all, especially if something like this happened again. Catching up to the human, Evans shifted his wings and resolved to stick by him. And, like the cat he partly was, he slunk smoothly into the man's shadow, to stick by him always.
 
From http://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/55850368#55944200