Second Maximum Ride fanfic/oneshot/thing! Just a short little scene of Max meeting Fang for the first time. Enjoy! (At least, I hope you will xp)
Don't forget to review!
I thought it had been funny when I punched the guy, but apparently the whitecoats didn't. Not one bit. So I almost killed him, what's the problem here? They kill off more of their experiments every day. Why can't I just return the favor?
Sitting in the too-small cage, I suddenly regretted what I had done. Having to curl my six year-old body up inside with enough room for my eight-foot wingspan was out of the question. Instead, my wings were folded uncomfortably against my back, the feathers limp and dull. Getting enough food and water was always a challenge, something I could remember as far back as I could. The only exception was when I had been much younger. They were fattening me up for everything, building my strength until they were able to knock me down with one experiment after the next.
They were cruel and unrelenting. Blood and infection was hardly a rare occurrence. Pain wasn't a foreign subject as well. I could feel it now, reverberating from my arm where a slice of flesh was missing. I ignored it. The wound would scab over soon anyway and would be healed tomorrow.
Though, by the time tomorrow's trials have been finished, I'll have another chunk of flesh missing. Or I could be dead. I like the second option better. In fact, I hoped that they ended up killing me. It would be the end of the suffering. After all, what am I besides another body to add to the growing number of deaths?
The spacey room around me was sparkling white. Everything was in the wretched place. The metal counters, the walls, and even the carts that wheeled crates in and out of the room. A jail for mutant children.
Few crates remained after today. Brushing my dirty, blonde hair out of my eyes, I surveyed the other experiments that had survived today.
The lizard boy, covered in dry greenish skin was to the right of me, holding a mangled hand close to his chest with his eyes closed. The only indication that he was still alive was the faint rise and fall of his chest.
Another boy's crate was positioned in the corner. His skin was a bright hue of blue and scales covered every inch of him. Though he was sleeping with his eyes closed, I knew that his eyes were a frightening shade of red with vertical slits. I had no idea what the whitecoats modeled him after.
But, from as far as I've seen, there has yet to be another experiment that is like me. With wings, I mean. The farthest that they've come up with is a poor girl huddled in a cage to my left. She doesn't have any wings, but a yellow beak in place of her mouth. Whenever she speaks, all that comes out is what I assume is the squawk of a bird.
For a brief moment, I knew that I was special to the scientists. But that only dampened my hopes for death. For once, I wished for another like me. I knew that I was probably not going to get what I wanted, but all I had was hope.
/LINEBREAK/
The mechanical opening of locks encourages my eyes to peel open, blinking in the dim light of the holding room. Staring through the gaps in the cage walls, I see the door to the room swing open and the squeaking of wheels as a cart is being pushed into the room by one of the whitecoats. They all looked the same to me, but his furious expression was what caught my attention. He wasn't too happy and his glare was directed to the newest addition to the room.
With a sniff full of disdain, the whitecoat deposited the crate a few inches from my own before stalking from the room with his long, hooked nose raised in the air, giving me full view to his nostrils. He really needs to clean them out more often. The whitecoat swung the door closed and a moment later I heard the locks clicking back into place.
Very carefully, I shifted my weight farther onto my side, avoiding movement to my broken ankle. My plain white dress I always wore was splattered with my own blood from the earlier session where I had to fight the Erasers.
After several minutes of silence from the new arrival beside me, I turned my head to the crate, peering in at the experiment, only to recoil slightly in surprise.
This one had wings.
I could see the pure black feathers poking out of the white outfit he was dressed in, contrasting against his olive-toned skin. My eyes widened in amazement as I lifted my gaze to his face. He was lacking a beak and, besides the feathers, seemed relatively normal looking, except for the almost-black eyes that glared at the roof of his cage.
"Hey," I said, trying to get his attention. He didn't even spare me a glance. I spoke louder. "Hello? Can you hear me?"
He still didn't answer, though I saw a few of his fingers twitch at his side.
I grinned. "I know you can hear me."
No reply. I pressed my hand against the side of my crate. "What did you do to that whitecoat, huh? He didn't seem too happy with you."
I should have expected by now for him not to answer. Narrowing my eyes at him, I huffed and crossed my arms across my chest and shifted so that I was facing away from him. "Fine, don't answer me, then. I was only trying to be nice."
I fell silent and soon, I felt the weight on my eyelids return and I yawned. Sleep pulled at my senses and I closed my eyes…
"I bit him."
The words were so quiet that I wasn't sure if I had actually heard them and not imagined it. My eyes snapped open and I turned back to the boy, only to find that the only thing about him that had moved was his eyes. They were now trained on me, but were somehow softer, not as harsh.
"So you can talk," I said and he surprised me by rolling his eyes. Then his words caught up to me. "Wait…you bit him? Doesn't that seem…I dunno, a little extreme?"
He shrugged. Yeah, great answer, I thought sarcastically, lovely conversation we're having, right?
His gaze trailed down to my ugly dress stained scarlet. "You're bleeding," he said, almost as if he were informing me of that rather than sounding concerned.
"I stopped hours ago," I told him. I fingered the hem of the dress where it reached my knees. "They'll probably give me a clean one tomorrow anyways." No doubt having belonged to some other experiment before me.
He shrugged. Again.
I narrowed my eyes at him. Again. "Can't you at least try talking?"
"Not much to talk about." That was the longest statement I'd heard him say so far. We're making progress.
"Well in that case," I said, "What's your name?"
"Never needed one."
I rolled my eyes at him. "Don't you at least have some imagination? Creativity?"
He just stared at me. I'll take that as a no.
"Mine is Max," I told him, in a matter-of-factly manner. "Short for Maximum Ride."
He raised an eyebrow, prompting an explanation.
I leaned forward, shaking my wings through the slits in the back of the dress the whitecoats had cut for me. How generous of them. I didn't expand them all of the way, but I stretched them a little bit, stroking the brown, tan, and white feathers.
Looking back at the boy, I saw that his eyes were stretched wide as he stared at my wings. "I…I thought that I was the only one."
I snorted. Typical whitecoats probably kept us apart for a reason. "That's what I thought, too. Until you showed up, that is."
He opened his mouth to say something more, but the locks on the door hissed and clanged and his mouth snapped shut as his head swiveled around. My gaze flickered to the door as it swung open and a whitecoat strolled in with an empty cart. One of us would be leaving on it.
Holding my breath, I realized with a twinge of fear that it would be me leaving. So soon? What else are they going to do with me?
The whitecoat grasped the handle on top of my crate and hauled me onto the cart, hardly caring to set my down gently on the metal slab. I couldn't bite back the cry that escaped me as the sharp jolt sent pain rippling through my leg with the broken ankle.
The whitecoat ignored me. As he began to wheel me out, I turned my head and looked at the boy. But he wasn't looking at me anymore. His eyes were shut and his face angled away from me. I frowned. I thought that we had been getting along nicely. Now he doesn't care about me.
I looked away as the door cut off my view of him and the whitecoat steered me away from the room, off to an uncertain fate.
/LINEBREAK/
Turns out that they had me change a bit early. Of course, only to continue with the next experiment. Let me tell you, running through a maze of electric shocks, trap doors, and bloodthirsty Erasers with a broken ankle is not fun. At all.
When they wheeled me back into the room and positioned by my silent friend once again I was still slick from sweat and my ankle was swollen now. Whenever I closed my eyes and stayed still I could feel my heart pounding in my ears.
The whitecoat left immediately and I just laid out on my back, gingerly positioning my ankle in a safe position. I closed my eyes and focused on clearing my mind to go to sleep. I would need the rest to heal faster. I could feel myself gradually slipping, falling asleep…
"Max?"
Of course, my amazing neighbor decided to grace me with his presence. Note my sarcasm. The whitecoats used it all the time to each other so I thought I would give it a try and it turns out that I'm pretty good at it.
Sighing, I opened my eyes to the dimmed light of the room. I could see just fine, though, turning my head and peering at the boy's crate next to mine. "What?" I asked, trying hard to keep the impatience from leaking into my voice. I have some levels of politeness, after all.
"Goodnight."
Surprised at first, I didn't say anything. Then, my senses returned and I murmured, "'Night."
After that, I was out.
I think I'm gonna make a little oneshot series out of this…how 'bout it?