Zoey did not understand. The strange smells and sounds scared her. She was only two.
Zoey sat with her brother Liam, who was eight years her elder. Zoey wanted to laugh with him, as she often did, but her brother was uncharacteristically solemn.
Double doors flew open, and Zoey looked up hopefully as a woman in a white lab coat hurried into the room. Zoey frowned. Her parents wore white lab coats when they came home from work. This lady did not look like her mommy, and was certainly not her daddy, so why was she dressed like them?
The woman walked up to an older man sitting behind a desk and spoke to him, paying no mind to the children seated in the uncomfortable chairs. Zoey decided enough was enough. She walked up to the strange woman dressed in her mommy's clothes. "Ahem", she said.
The lady looked down at Zoey as if the toddler was a treat the neighbor's dog had left for her. Zoey tried to act brave like her brother. "Mommy? Daddy?" she asked.
The woman ruffled Zoey's hair, a gesture the girl did not like. "Oh, they'll be okay," she said, "Your parents will be back before you know it, and with a little friend for you to play with! Won't that be fun?" Zoey found the jolly expression on the woman's face disturbing, and decided to go back to convincing the puke green chair not to be so uncomfortable.
Sometime later, Zoey was shaken awake by her older brother. 'Wake up!" hissed Liam, "Mom's coming out!"
Zoey sat up and rubbed her eyes. The double doors opened again, this time as her daddy led Mommy into the room. They were accompanied by several people in white lab coats, all of whom were sobbing passionately. Zoey noticed a sign over the doors with strange lines on it. Years later, Zoey would learn that the strange lines were letters, and that when the letters were put together, they would spell MATERNITY.
One of her parents' companions was attempting to talk to Liam, but he wasn't listening. He was shaking his head and crying. This scared Zoey. She had never seen her brother cry, and never would again.
Zoey's parents were the only ones with dry eyes. Their faces were emotionless. Like they didn't care one way or the other. That was Zoey's first hint. Had she remembered it, her story could have been very different. Nut alas, she forgot. Within a few years she would have no recollection of the event. Zoey was, after all, only two.
AN: Okay, I know what you're thinking. "What does this have to do with Maximum Ride?" Several Maximum Ride characters will guest star in future chapters. A warning: elements from the TV show Buffy: The Vampire Slayer may appear later in the story. If that happens, I will change this into a crossover. You absolutely do not need to watch Buffy in order to understand the story.
R&R?