Flee
The Beginning
It was happening.
I sat up in my cage and listened intently, my head cocked in the direction the noises were coming from. They sounded. . . like. . . a group of people. Soft, padding footsteps, hushed voices. And then there was a scream. I jumped. Or tried to. I was in no shape to be startled. I sagged instead.
Another one, I thought. Another kid, another cage. I looked around in the dark at the sleeping figures of the others, the other kids who I knew were dreading the morning. Corliss stirred in the cage beside me. Wait. I squinted in the dark. There were shapes moving there. No. No. Please, please, no. The glass wall that separated us from the world drew open, bright light filling the room, so clean and white it was painful. Sunbursts raked my eyes, blinding me momentarily. The shapes I had seen before came closer, stepping into the room. Was it Them? They were coming for us again, like so many times before. . . No. They were. . . kids?
They gasped softly, looking around. My vision focused. A tall girl with long blond hair. Two tall boys, one dressed all in black. Strange. I frowned. A shorter boy with spikey blond hair, another girl, and another who could be the blond boy's sister. She was walking closer. She stopped in front of a cage a few down from mine, and the tall girl with blond hair followed her. I watched them silently. They're kids. What are they doing here? I asked myself. As I watched, the tall girl put her hands on the smaller one's shoulders. The small girl sniffed, and wiped away a tiny, tiny tear. And then she locked eyes with me.
I took in a quick, sharp breath and shrank back into the shadows of my cage. She looked away and I let it out, just as a blinding pain stabbed through my head. I hissed, trying to keep quiet and refrain from swearing at the same time. I clutched at my head and curled into a ball in the corner of my cage. I could hear sounds, but I couldn't transfer them to words. A blinding white light exploded behind my eyelids. I saw everything. I felt everything. I was everything, for a moment. And then the pain stopped, just as quickly as it had come. But I think what came next was actually worse.
Hello, Maven.
