Angel of Night: A Maximum Ride Fanfiction
I was running, jumping, leaping, crawling, anything to distance myself from those Erasers.
I would stumble then pick myself up again, on and on in a panicked frenzy, until my foot hit a tree root the wrong way and my ankle twisted painfully to the side. In an instant I was tumbling head over heels, crashing through the underbrush, more roots, twigs, and pine needles scratching my face and arms. Where was everybody? Were they together? Had they left me behind?
I rolled to a gradual stop. I was nearly blinded by the dirt and debris that clouded my eyes. I stumbled forward into a clearing, tiny feet snapping more twigs, alerting more Erasers to my location, shooting a jolt of pain up my leg with every step on my injured foot..
I unfurled my solid-white wings, small enough that they could have belonged to a large chicken. I flapped them up and down, as hard and fast as I could, just as I had been instructed to do.
Nothing happened.
I wasn't even an inch off the ground.
They were closing in. I panicked, and, still flapping, I dashed forward, hoping to catch some air.
I skidded to a halt, one foot dangling over the edge of a ginormous cliff. Of course, it was my good foot. My other leg, unable to support my weight because of my twisted ankle, folded so that I was down on one knee. I pulled my other leg up, clasped my hands together above my head liked a diver, and used my good foot to hurl myself over the cliff edge.
I screamed.
Wings still unfurled, I tilted them and soared upward.
But they were waiting for me.
Something harsh and rough wrapped around my ankle the instant I shot up past the cliff edge. It caught me off balance, and the rope was pulled taut.
I was being dragged down; back to the place I had longed to get away from. Back to the place I tried to escape. Back to a life of cages and Erasers and - . Three more ropes caught me and I cried again as they stretched my broken ankle. Tears flowed down my face as I thrashed around wildly with every ounce of strength I had left. The Erasers pulled me down easily, hand over hand. When I resisted, an Eraser raised his gun and aimed it at me.
A second later, the red dot of light against my white wing became a bullet hole.
My screams were cut off, and my body went limp. Blood dripped down onto my shoulder. The ropes went slack as I fell, about a twenty foot drop. I slammed into the ground. Hard.
A grotesque, hairy-faced Eraser leaned over me, smiling horribly, revealing rows of jagged teeth. I vomited. He hoisted up my limp figure by the collar of my shirt and whispered, hairy lips brushing against my ear.
"Gotcha."
"Looks like they only caught one." Thud. The sound of a cage being shut and locked, accompanied by a small moan. The sound of receding footsteps. Ari peered out from behind a partially closed door. The doctor was gone.
I don't need to hide, he thought to himself. He stepped out of the room, looking both ways before crossing the hallway.
Ari hesitated before the door of the room the doctor had just left. Jeb had always forbid him from going into these 'storage areas'. But Jeb wasn't here.
Ari pushed down on the handle, just low enough for him to reach. Yes! The doctor had forgotten to lock it. He knew they kept all kinds of animals in there. Maybe it was like a zoo. He'd only been to a zoo once, and he'd had a lot of fun petting the animals. He'd ask Jeb to take him again next week. He had to be back by then, right?
He went in and quietly shut the door behind him. Ari was surprised – It was so dark in there. Why would they keep animals in here? he thought. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. There were a few dog crates stacked in neat rows ranging from medium to large. He peered into one of them.
"Helloooooo," he half-whispered. "Antybody home?" He heard a soft noise near the back of the room. He ran back there and got on all fours, looking into one of the smaller cages. There! He caught a glimpse of a small, white wing. He stuck his fingers through the bars of the cage.
"Here birdie!" He grinned. "Ow!" His lip trembled; the thing had bitten him. He stood up. "You – stupid – bird!" he screamed, kicking the crate hard with every word, and stubbing his toe in the process. Tears welled in his eyes. He hopped up and down, clutching his hurt toe and yelling, "You stupid birdie! Thingies like you made my daddy go away!" He put his foot down and, crossing his arms, glared at the cage as though he expected a response. When one didn't come, he sat down and tucked his knees into his chest. Tears spilled down his face.
I'm sorry, a voice whispered to him softly.
Ari looked up. "Wh-what?" He was startled – the voice hadn't been spoken aloud.
I'm sorry you are in pain. You were left behind. Me too. Tiny, slender fingers grasped the bars of the cage. They weren't Ari's.
A figure moved toward the front of the cage. Ari realized that she had been the one speaking to him. An empathetic, thoroughly bruised face stared back into Ari's wild eyes.
I'm so sorry.
Ari unlatched my cage. I pushed it open and crawled out.
"Thanks." I said, gratefully. I stood up and extended my wings slowly. It hurt, a lot, but I knew he was dying to see them. He gaped.
"Your wings are so cool!" He grinned. I pulled my wings back in, to his great disappointment. It wasn't my fault that my wings hurt so badly. They didn't do a very good job of patching it up. Just a few sloppy bandages, and to clean it they rubbed some kind of liquid that really burned. I didn't like extending my wings anyway; I never even got to use them. Except for today. Stupid, useless wings. I didn't even need them. Unlike the other bird kids, I liked small spaces – just not my cage. I wanted to be somewhere soft and warm, like a blanket made of my downy feathers. That is, if I ever –
"Hey, I told you my name, but you didn't tell me yours," Ari tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy.
I didn't respond. I didn't know how.
"You don't have a name?" Was he reading my mind now? "Well," he circled me slowly as he talked, hands clasped behind his back. "I went to church once, and there was this huge picture on the wall of people with white wings, like yours," he paused in front of me, and looked me in the eyes. "My daddy told me they were called angels, so that can be your name too, if you like it."
I liked it.
"It's wonderful." I said, returning his gaze. His face lit up with excitement.
We talked for hours. I had never connected with anyone like this before. Neither had he. I told him all about the other bird kids, and all sorts of things that I had heard from the whitecoats' thoughts.
"Whitecoats?" he asked. "You mean the scientists?
"We – I – call them whitecoats."
"Why?"
"Well," I paused. "They all have big, white coats – and they're really mean," I added. Ari thought about this.
"I guess they do."
He told me about everything he could think of: Games, playgrounds, T.V., parks, zoos, movie theaters, and his parents.
"What's your family like? Who are your parents? Did they leave you here too?" We were both sprawled out on the floor. He was sitting cross-legged, and I was lying on my stomach, hands on my chin, feet in the air. I don't think I'd ever relaxed like this before.
"I don't have any. At least I don't think I do." I finally answered. He was shocked.
How can anyone not have a mommy or a daddy? I guess I don't have any right now, but daddy's coming right back. He has to, doesn't he? The thought wasn't directed at me, but I replied to it anyway.
I don't know, Ari. But we don't have to be alone. We have each other, don't we? He had a lopsided grin; I liked that about him.
"Of course we do!"
I heard someone's thoughts. It startled me; I had gotten so used to listening to Ari, I'd let my guard down.
Shhh, someone's coming! You have to hide! He jumped up, and I scrambled back into my cage, closing the door softly. He locked it hastily and hid behind some crates.
Seriously don't see why I have to look around the whole dang building for some stupid little brat. He'd better be worth it. I could make out the voice now. The whitecoat was looking for Ari!
Ari, watch out! A whitecoat's coming, and he's looking for you!
Now it makes sense! He gasped. Since I first came here, whitecoats have been looking at me funny. Now I know that if you are a bird and a kid, then they must test on humans too. So that means…
They want to test on me!
The door opened soundlessly and a whitecoat stepped in, pausing just inside the doorframe.
"Who's in here?" he called out sharply. Ari, concealed behind a row of dog crates, crawled to the front of the room as the man went to search in the back. Hardly daring to breathe, he managed to slip out the door. He knew that he wouldn't be able to return, at least until Jeb came back.
Sorry, Angel, he thought. He would only be gone for a short while. At least, that was what Jeb had told Ari before he left. The whitecoat stared straight ahead, and spoke tonelessly into his walkie-talkie.
"He has been located."
Ari ran toward the front of the building, doing his best to sneak under the cameras. He glanced over his shoulder to check that he wasn't being followed. As he turned a corner, Ari was thrown onto his back. He had run straight into a whitecoat. She looked down at him coolly.
"Get up." She held a walkie-talkie in her right hand. Ari rolled over onto his knees, and was on his feet in one fluid motion. He dashed toward an exit. The whitecoat started to follow him, but was restrained by another.
"Let him go. He has nowhere to run."
Breathing heavily, Ari reached up and pushed on the door as hard as he could. He managed to stumble out into the courtyard, where he was met with many tall men. They all resembled handsome actors from a movie he had seen. They all stuck their noses up in the air as though they were a pack of wolves that had just caught his scent. One by one, their perfect smiles morphed into grimaces of hatred, dripping fangs poked out of their muzzles, perfectly manicured fingernails elongated into claws.
It must have been a horror movie.
The door swung shut.
The Erasers advanced toward their weak, human prey. Ari, who had started to run along the side of the building before he had noticed the Erasers, backed against the wall in terror. Before they got close enough to harm him, the door opened just a few feet away from Ari. Yes, a miracle! A whitecoat stepped out.
The horror show had come to its climax.
Ari fell to his knees, shivering uncontrollably.
"Come." The whitecoat said coldly.
He did.
I was exhausted. This night had been particularly gruesome. I'd been dragged, beaten, cut, and tortured in every other way imaginable. I held my breath and balled my hands into fists as a whitecoat drew blood from me for the umpteenth time that night. The instant the needle left my skin, I threw myself against the back of my cage.
Earlier, I had been experimented on by a sadistic whitecoat with a love for needles and a desperate need for a hobby. Apparently, he was trying to test the amount of pain my nervous system could hold, obviously not taking into account the unhealed wound in my wing that was pressed up against the hard, metal operating table, which also caused me a significant amount of pain.
I bit my lip, hard enough to make it bleed, in a desperate attempt not to scream. The only thing I could think of was to hope that Ari had made it out, and that he would not have to endure any of this.
Ari cried out in pain. He was facing upward, eyes wide open, in a too-brightly-lit operating room. His vision blurred slowly, and his pain-crazed mind conjured images that weren't there. He felt the whitecoat's eyes boring into him hungrily, and was reminded of the Erasers from earlier that day, who had given him that same look; The look of a predator ready to devour his prey.
There was something cold and distant in this whitecoat's face that chilled Ari to the bone. He was the same one who had stopped the Eraserss from devouring Ari.
Ari had glanced over to the side, praying that, by some miracle, the door would open and allow him to escape. It did, but the instant that whitecoat stepped out, Ari knew that he had been issued a death sentence.
It was going to be slow and painful.
He'd sunk to his knees, right then and there, as though the crushing weight of the entire world had suddenly fallen onto his shoulders. After that, it was as though he'd been put on a leash. He wasn't a human child anymore. He was a beaten puppy, numbly following his cruel master. Ari followed behind the whitecoat , into the building, through several long corridors and narrow hallways, and finally into a large operating room. If the bright lights above hurt his eyes, he didn't show it.
Rather than going straight to the long operating table in the center of the room, he was led to a small cage off to the side. He crawled inside obediently. What was the point in resisting? There was no fight left in him at all. There was no point in causing himself any unnecessary pain.
Click. The door was swung shut and firmly locked. That was it. There went the last shred of his humanity.
He sat there, hunched over in the small space, legs crossed in Indian style. He didn't move at all. Didn't think or feel. He was nothing but an animal.
The whitecoat came back several hours later. Great. He had brought a few friends along to join the party. One of them unlatched Ari's cage. He looked over at the door. Should he run? Could he? An Eraser appeared. Seeing them together, the whitecoats and the Eraser, reminded him of his sealed fate. He stayed put.
He was ordered to climb onto the table. He did.
He was ordered to lie down, perfectly still. He did.
Hands at his sides, chin toward the ceiling, feet together. He had no will of his own. He was staring straight at the much-too-bright ceiling. Another whitecoat injected a needle into the side of his neck. He barely flinched. A few moments later, he cried out. The drug-induced pain had become too much for him to handle. It increased, and he found himself calling out a name.
"Angel! Angel!" His lips didn't move. His body was still. He was mute, yet he continued to call out for her. He didn't get an answer. His vision was blurring, his thoughts were foggy. Finally, a voice echoed through his head, the response to his plea. A voice from a lifetime ago.
I'm sorry you are in pain. I'm so sorry.
No! You're not sorry! You're not sorry for me! You're sorry for yourself! You missed your chance to be with your friends, your stupid bird friends and my dad! I hate you! I hate you all!
Dark spots bloomed in Ari's vision. The lights above him morphed into an angel. They became a little girl, with a sweet face and white wings. They turned black. As black as the hatred that had settled into his heart.
Black as night itself.
I looked through the bars of my cage over to the one next to mine. There was a horribly grotesque frog-like creature with whiskers and tufts of fur in patches all over its body, and its skin was missing in places. It was horribly swollen; I doubted whether it could even move. Feeling suddenly nauseous, I lowered my head and tried not to gag.
Looking around, I saw that many of the creatures here were deformed: Various skin diseases, crippled limbs, even one poor little guy missing both of his eyes. One question came to mind: Where were we going?
My cage had been put on a cart along with several others. I was facing a wall and couldn't see where we were going, so I was surprised when the harsh chemical scent of the school was replaced with a cool night breeze. Eyes adjusting to the darkness, I recognized that we were out in the courtyard. My heart raced. Being brought out here could only mean one thing.
The cart stopped, and the whitecoat came around to quickly unlatch each cage. He then dashed back inside, leaving the cart behind. The door clanged shut, and the noise reverberated across the yard. I barely heard it, because as soon as my cage was unlocked, I, like every other able-bodied creature, had leaped out and ran without hesitation. Seconds later, screams echoed behind me.
The race was on.
I made it under the cover of the woods. All I needed was to find a clearing – unlike the one I had just left, which was infested with Erasers. Panicking at the sounds of mangled screaming behind me, I tripped over a tree root. I felt something hard and slick beneath my fingers when I threw my hands out to catch my fall. I looked down, and my heart skipped a beat. Bile churned in my stomach.
It was a head – one that was still oozing blood.
Half its face had been shredded. It was covered in poison, saliva, was oozing a thick liquid from glands on its face. Its face was twisted into an agonized expression and its eyes had been gouged from their sockets. There were only two words I could use to describe it.
Bloody Murder!I thought. I choked back a scream. I stood shakily.
The Erasers had already been to that area. I turned around and sprinted off in a different direction. Moments later, the trees thinned in front of me. I heard movement behind me.
"Aaaaah!" I gasped sharply and fell forward, catching my fall with one hand. I grasped my shoulder with my other hand. Just a little further,I thought. I wouldn't let them stop me now. Not this time.
I broke through the cover of the trees, coiling the muscles in my wings.
Oh no! No! No! No! My heart thumped wildly in my chest. I spun around, and threw my arms up just in time. I was thrown onto my back. Blood dripped onto the ground from my fingers.
He licked his lips, and stared at me hungrily. I noticed that he was much shorter than other Erasers. He stalked forward, and I briefly glimpsed his deformed face in the moonlight. My heart sank to my stomach.
Ari, I thought. What have they done to you?
For an instant, he paused, and I saw the kid who had been my best friend yesterday. He grimaced again, bearing his curved fangs. He grabbed a fistful of my hair.
"What have they done to me?" He pulled me up, and I tried to stifle a shriek. He growled in my ear, "They've made me a whole lot stronger!" He threw me to the ground. "That's what!" Resuming his hunting stance, he pounced on me.
His weight nearly crushed me – I struggled for breath. He pinned my arms down with both of his hands, and lunged for my neck, fangs gleaming. Adrenaline coursed through my veins. I kneed him in the gut as hard as I could. He loosened his grip enough for me to slip out of his grasp. I slid underneath him – he was much larger than me now – and rolled away. I got on all fours, and as soon as I looked up, a furry fist connected with my eye. I sprang up and jumped sideways, hoping to catch him off guard. When he tried to stand, I took advantage of his clumsiness and leaped onto his back. I wrapped my arms around his neck to prevent him from throwing me off. He gripped both of my arms and pried me off of him. With one hand, he sent me flying as though I weighed no more than a teddy bear.
After that, everything happened in slow motion.
I extended my wings, a second before I would have slammed into the cliff wall. I surged upward; an updraft lifted my wings.
My eyes met Ari's as he whirled around. His expression was filled with rage, but his eyes were tormented.
I swooped downward, his eyes boring into me. Maneuvering easily, I shot upward, higher into the sky than I had ever dreamed.
I didn't look back.