Buried Alive, a maximum ride fanfic

Don't panic, I'm not going to abandon all my other stories for this one. At most this'll be a three-shot.

A songfic style piece to the song Buried Alive by Otep.

Disclaimer: Don't own the School, Jeb or any of that stuff. I do own Broken and the other new experiments. I also don't own the song.

I speak in verses, prophecies and curses,

I speak in verses, prophecies and curses.

She had no idea who or what she was. All she knew was what she could see and feel and hear and taste and smell. Beyond that was nothing. She knew no independent thought and she hated it – a deep, primal part of her hated, loathed, despised it.

She had looked in her water bowl and seen a distorted image of a thin face, lumpy thing –bones, hissed the part of her that hadn't been broken- sticking up under the skin, which was sallow and scarred. She had seen eyes of a clouded colour – the murky water made it impossible to tell the colour. Her hair, hacked away in places from where the people in bright white coats had stuck circle shaped things to her head, was dirty, greasy and black.

The only thing that made her happy was the feel of the soft things on her back –wings, snarled the unbroken-her – the soft, folded things that she cold fold and unfold like the torn material of her clothes.

The unbroken-her that hissed and snapped and screamed in her head was getting stronger by the day, and she was starting to think about things other than what her senses told her. To think about things like: why am I in a cage? Who are those strangers opposite me?

'Who are you?' she called, loud as her vocal cords would let her. The person in the box with wires – cage – raised their head. The head was long and blocky, with thick black fur and long teeth sticking out of it. The eyes were wide and looked like her own.

'I….don't….know,' growled the person, 'who….are…you?' The furry-head person had trouble speaking around the huge teeth in their mouth.

'I'm me. I have soft wing-things. Do you?' She asked, wondering if she should be…..should be…what? More than a number, more than a thing…a name, the unbroken-her whispered.

'No….I have…..pointy-sharp teeth-things….and…rough-furry…all over,' the furry-head person replied.

At the sound of the conversation, the other mixed-up people in the room shook their cages and roared.

'I should have….a….name,' she said softly, and then louder, 'I should have a name.'

'What is a name?' asked a bumpy-lumpy skin person next to the furry-head person.

'More than a number, more than a thing,' she said, repeating the words from the unbroken-her, 'It is what you are.' What you are is broken, snarled the voice in her.

'Broken,' she cried, 'my name is Broken and….' She drew in a breath, a strange, red-hot feeling in her stomach,

'I hate my life,' the words were a whisper, and she felt the red feeling spreading.

Just then, the door hissed open and a white coated man came in, pushing a trolley full of new things to put into them with the sharp pointed things they called needles.

The strange mixed up people around Broken looked out pitifully at the man, as if pleading for a miracle from him, that he would let them out. He sneered at them and laughed,

'No miracle is coming,' he began filling the needles with different coloured liquids, 'not for you lot, anyway.'

'Hate you…' the whisper echoed around the metal room, all of the people hissing at the same time.

The man came over to Brokens' cage, and pulled her hand out to the needle. She flinched away and tried to pull back, but her the small amount of strength in her bony arm did nothing.

'Come now, it's just a hole in your hand, just one more. Surely it doesn't hurt now?' the man said, smiling fakely. They all hissed again, the feeling of loathing spreading through their blood,

'Hate you…'

He frowned,

'Hush up, nothing's wrong with you,' then he laughed, 'tell a lie, there's plenty wrong with you, you little freaks, and guess what: hate you too,' he mocked their words. Broken felt the red feeling grow and throb.

Must maintain control, the hiss in her head was almost painful.

The metal door of the room hissed open again, and another man came in.

'How is the new infusion affecting them?' he asked.

'No immediately obvious effects, Dr Batchelder. But it seems that they are communicating with each other now.'

'Hmmm, should we change the dosage, or perhaps try a different infusion?' The man who had first come into the room frowned and turned back to Broken, pulling the now empty needle out of her hand. Before he turned away she heard him mutter,

'…everyone's asking questions about this lot. If they're so interested about what I'm doing why don't they do it themselves?'

'What was that, Dr Morris?' the man named as Batchelder snapped, 'Am I going to have to re-assign you for being insubordinate?'

Morris glared at him, 'No sir. No need for that.' He filled some more needles and began using them on the other experiments.

As Broken watched the other mixed-up people try to hide in the back of their cages she thought, no place is safe from them, not even if we got out of the cold hard place with the needles and cages. The voice in the back of her head was coming forward, becoming her own thoughts. If I died, I'd forfeit resurrection to escape the pain in this place, I really would.

She felt the red-hot thing in her build and build, sparking and glowing until,

'I HATE MY LIFE!' she screamed, throwing herself at the bars of her cage. The other experiments responded, the furry-face one first,

'I HATE MY LIFE!'

Batchelder and Morris looked shocked and angry at them, but Broken didn't care. The sound of their shouts was reverberating off of the walls, and she liked the way their faces looked.

'I HATE MY LIFE!'

The others picked up the chant again, their voices rough and gravely from under-use.

'I HATE MY LIFE!'

Each time they yelled they threw themselves about in their cages, or shook the bars. They screamed all of their pain and suffering into those few words. Broken buried herself in the chant, rhythmically pounding her feet on the floor of her cage and violently shaking the bars.

It appeared that Morris and Batchelder had had enough, as they filled the needles with a new liquid and put it in the experiments, causing them to fall into blackness one by one. Broken struggled against the feeling, but was overcome and slipped into oblivion, one word echoing in her head; HATE.

Love it or loathe it, let me know. The next part will be the next verse. R&R.