The Grackle King — Attic Roost Dread

16:9 video, 8 seconds. A homeowner's phone flashlight, an attic, night — and a roost that has been growing for a week.

0-2s: Scratching has been coming through the ceiling for a week. The beam sweeps the rafters — and the attic is full of grackles. Hundreds of them, packed shoulder to shoulder on every beam, iridescent black feathers catching the light, utterly silent. Not one bird moves. Every single bird faces the same direction: the far gable vent.
2-5s: The camera follows their gaze. Perched in the vent's moonlit frame is a grackle the size of a grown man, its feathers oil-slick rainbow in the moonlight, its beak opening and closing without a sound. It turns its head with terrible slowness toward the camera. As one, every small bird turns its head toward the camera too — hundreds of beaks, hundreds of eyes, all at once.
5-8s: The giant bird spreads its wings — the wingspan fills the vent, blotting the moon — and the attic erupts in a single deafening shriek from hundreds of throats. The camera jerks; the flashlight dies; the last frame is black with the shriek still ringing.

Detail: the grackles' iridescent feather sheen, dust hanging in the flashlight beam, insulation torn and scattered, the vent's moonlit frame. Camera: handheld phone footage, the beam sweeping and shaking, panic in every move. Lighting: phone flashlight on feather-black, the moonlit vent as the only other source. Atmosphere: Hitchcockian swarm dread — the house is no longer yours. Style: found-footage, handheld panic, feather detail, abrupt black.