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.