Oneshot. Set before the books and the flock, avian hybrid test one's life. Please read and review.
Disclaimer: Fan-fiction. Stress on the fan, people. I don't own Maximum Ride. As far as I know I do own this plot (tell me if i'm wrong).
Broken wings
A group of
whitecoats walked past, and I pressed myself further back into the
bars of my cage. One whitecoat noticed, and glanced over. I whimpered
slightly in fear, but she looked away, more interested in the
conversation.
"So,
explain," began one of the scientists, "Why are we joining the
avian DNA to the hybrids so early?"
"Because
it is hoped that by combining the avian DNA with the human during
early development the new batch will be better adapted," the
replying whitecoat looked at me, contempt on his face, "Then the
current avian hybrid." They moved on down the corridor, but not
before I heard him continue, "But of course, we haven't run the
final test on it yet. We still don't know if it can fly."
Fly.
I longed
to fly. Through the bars of my cage I could see the training ground.
There was a strange, wolf-human hybrid limping around it. Poor thing.
Some of his limbs were longer than others, and some of his fingers
were human while others were claws. A whitecoat was watching him,
writing notes on a clipboard. But it wasn't the ground I was
interested in. I could see a small patch of sky through the wire mesh
covering the ground, with a few birds wheeling in the sun. I could
feel my wings pressed against the sides of my cage, and I wanted
nothing more than to be soaring in the air.
Time
passed. I don't know how much. Occasionally I was taken out of my
cage, and was put through tests. Painful tests. My bones were too
brittle, snapping like twigs when put under more pressure than that
needed to walk, and I found it hard to breathe and move at the same
time. They never let me fly.
The new
batch of avian-hybrids had been created, but they were very young
–only three at most- yet they were stronger than me. Better. There
were three of them, two boys and a girl. I doubt they really knew I
existed, but I cared for them as much as I could through the bars of
our cages, giving them some of my food, stroking their hair. I was
the only person to do anything nice to them. I was proud of that. I
had nothing else to be proud of.
One day a
whitecoat fetched me, and I tensed, waiting for the dreaded tests to
come. But they took me to the training ground. I was outside! Under a
mesh, but still outside. I could see back into the cage-room. One of
the three young hybrids was awake, staring through the window. I
think it was one of the boys- the girl had longer hair.
"Fly!"
barked a whitecoat. I'd never been so eager to obey. I tried,
flapping my wings. I stayed on the ground.
"Fly!"
ordered the whitecoat again, whacking me across the back with a
stick. I ran a few steps as she raised it for a second strike,
flapped my wings and sprang forwards. I didn't land. I was flying!
I kept
flapping my wings. Flying! Nothing mattered now. Not my cage, not the
whitecoats. I was flying, I was free-snap. The worst sound I ever
heard. I was falling back to the ground, my wings broken by my own
weight as I flew. I landed hard, on my back, snapping my spine. I
cried as I looked up at the sky, the sky I would never belong to, as
I heard a whitecoat say coldly,
"It's
useless. Kill it. Complete failure."
I hoped the new hybrids would succeed, would be able to fly. For their sakes. It was too late for me. The child in his cage was crying, probably hungry, and even then I was worried that they, my little friends who didn't even know who I was, wouldn't be taken care of properly. I sobbed bitterly as an unfeeling whitecoat injected some drug into my blood to kill me.
I had never expected the world, my life, to be fair, to be perfect.
But I'd expected it to be better than this.
