Hello my wonderfully beautiful readers! It feels great to be back again on the Young Justice fanfiction section! I have seriously missed writing this story! And I'm sorry that it took so long to get back!

To all my followers, thank you for sticking with me! I hope I didn't disappoint anyone!

And, to anyone who didn't get the memo that this is a SEQUEAL, you might want to go back and read The Sparrow Chronicles. I know it's pretty long, but you could probably start reading around the 70th or 80th chapter to the end and still get most of the storyline to understand this one better. I guess you could read this one alone, but I'm probably not going to reiterate my character's life-story, so you may get confused!

Anywho!

I know this chapter is a bit shorter than my normal quota (sorry about that!), but I think it ends on a good note to set the mood for this installment of TSC, so I don't want to hear any complaining!

Thank you all for coming to my story!

Disclaimer: I don't own ANYTHING! Well...except for my own original characters...and my own plotlines too...

And, without further ado, I give you THE SPARROW CHRONICLES: A YEAR WITHOUT BIRDSONG!

Hope you all like it!

~AvenJackel

"By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest."

– Confucius

The soft glow of a full moon illuminated the rain spattered streets. Cold wisps of wind floated through the dingy, brick alleyways, mingling with the barely noticeable sound of shuffling feet and feeble coughing. Every so often, the whisper of cars in the distance echoed off the walls.

On the edge of a building's roof, a lithe black figure perched themselves, crouching and staring intently down at the huddles of homeless people below. It was a humanoid, all features indiscernible and covered by dark colored, skin-tight armoring.

With cat-like grace, the figured straightened up, revealing the crimson marking against their chest. It was a backwards 'K', encircled by a simple crosshair. Their face was covered by a blank, black mask, the light from the moon skimming across the surface and masquerading as a mere shadow.

A glove clad hand reached for the slim belt resting on their waist. With a quick, practiced flick of the wrist, a menacing dagger was sliding into the figure's palm, fitting perfectly with a worn grip. One last cough rose up from the ground below, and then the person was on the ground, easily melting into the surrounding shadows.

Silent steps brought them to the source of the coughing, a group of travel-worn men, nearly ten of them, all in their mid-forties. Their clothes were haggard, as were their weary faces and broken eyes. They crowded around a meager fire, freezing hands held out towards the flames in a futile attempt to ward off the cold.

One man, whose ashen eyes seemed to shift with lingering suspicion, turned with a fretful crane of the neck and faced the dancing shadows behind him. Before a single lungful of putrid air could be taken, a deft blade struck out, slicing the delicate skin of the man's throat, his fresh blood spilling onto the icy concrete.

The smothered thud of the homeless man's body met the ears of the others, and their heads snapped in the direction almost simultaneously. Eyes widened before drowning in unconcealed fear and the men struggled to move back, their feet too numb to provide much help from the oncoming terror.

If it was any consolation to the local police, the men managed to have a fast, and rather blissful, death. At least, that's what they'll have the luck to think. In reality, none of the men were spared until their final screams echoed through the night sky. What the police wouldn't know was that the very thing that had killed these dispensable men was preparing to kill some of the world's most influential people.

This thing, now stained in sticky blood, stepped away from the bodies which littered the filthy ground, picked up the single dagger that had caused all the mens' deaths, and slipped into the darkness, relaxing in the coolness of the shadows as if it was home.

The image flickered, grainy specs of gray scattering across the footage. An irritating buzzing noise only added to my already high frustration and my hand curled into a tight fist, my nails digging into the flesh of my palm.

Before I could really help myself, my fist broke through the glass screen, shattering with a harsh sound and burying itself into my knuckles. The sharp, cloying scent of blood reached my nose before the sound of liquid spilling onto the white-tiled floor echoed throughout the laboratory.

My teeth grated against each other in an attempt to calm myself. I shook my injured hand, droplets of blood falling to the ground. The anger roiling in my stomach and boiling my blood kept the pain away, and I opted to simply ignore the wound for now.

In that surveillance video, the very figure that had murdered several men in cold-blood, that was the person that I, more than anything else in the world, hated. That was the person that, nearly a year ago, had killed me. The figure was the person that was willing to hurt anyone just to get what they wanted. And more than anything, I wish that I could kill them.

Because that person was me.