Ch1: Prologue: The Past

(One Year Old)

"Mama, look!" she cried from the living-room. Her mother came over to the sight of her only child, at one year old, floating above the height of the table. Two small white wings flapped hard to keep the toddler afloat. "Honey!" she exclaimed before smiling widely. Her child didn't know any better and it wasn't her fault she was born only 96% human. The 2% avian gene and 2% canine gene was added before she was born by one of the doctors, who had been a part of the Apocalypse program that uses children as science experiments. Her parents had moved when she was born, even when the doctors saw her wet wings and to the day kept her safe from harm. Caitlyn had wings like a bird would, but her canine genes gave her a super strong senses; she had a keen sense of smell, great hearing, and amazing eyesight (added to the raptor vision, it made it amazing at how far she could see). "What is Caitlyn doing in the air?" her husband came up behind his wife. "I thought we weren't going to teach her to fly before her 3rd birthday." The tiny toddler smiled a wide gummy smile at her parents and flapped her arms in time with the beat of her white wings. "Fly!" she cried out happily.

"Honey, she's happy. Just let her be." she told her husband. They stayed in the room and encouraged their child to zoom around the room.

(First Day of Kindergarten)

Caitlyn woke up at five that morning. She ran into her parent's room and jumped on the bed. "Mommy! Daddy! Get up, get up!" she cried happily. Her parents laughed together, counted under the covers to three together, and at the same time lept up and tickled their child. She squealed happily and squirmed in their arms. "Stop!" she called and launched herself into the air and bounced off the ceiling and fell back down onto the bed. "Angel, school won't wait for you." her father told her. "I'm all ready, daddy. Look!" the kindergartener spun around for her dad. She was wearing her new bright green dress with a jean jacket over it. Two small horizontal slits were cut in back of the jacket and dress to allow her wings to stretch.

"Now honey," her mother started, plucking the flying child from the air into her lap. "Don't open your wings at school. Most kids don't have wings, so they might be jealous of you." Caitlyn nodded.

At school, Caitlyn sat nicely in her chair. Every so often she would reach behind her and scratch her back when her wings would strain against their prison of her clothes. The teacher thought this was very strange, but didn't say anything. One curly haired boy, who was sitting next to her, thought he saw something white on her back. "Caitlyn," he tapped her on the back and felt something move under his hand. "I think there's something in your jacket." The girl went pale and shook her head. "Nothing's in my jacket." She pulled the jean jacket closer to her. "My name's Nate." he held out his hand. She shook it. From then on the two were attached at the hip. Best friends for life. They told each other everything, but Caitlyn kept her wings a secret from him even though it hurt to lie.

(Middle School)

"This sucks." Caitlyn whispered to herself. Last summer Nate and their other best friends Shane and Jason had gotten a record deal at their uncle's camp. Now they had moved to CA and hadn't called her back or replied to any of her emails. It had been a year since she had seen them in person, even when she saw them in magazines or on Hot Tunes. Now she was alone because she didn't have any other friends.

"Watch where you're going, freak." Someone bumped into her. She looked up to see the sneering face of Tess Tyler, the meanest, most popular girl in school. At the beginning of school, Tess had seen her flying home from the tennis field, taken a video and sent it to everyone. Now she was a freak. The only people who knew of her wings and didn't think she was a freak were her parents. They treated her like any normal 8th grader. She moved to the side and put her head down and walked quickly to class. Sitting in the back of the room, as she did in every class, everyone ignored her. Even the teacher didn't acknowledge her.

After school she flew home from the parking lot. People watched in disgust, pointing and whispering to each other. Caitlyn ignored these comment, even when someone shouted "FREAK!" loud enough to hear from the air. Her white wings stretched behind her as she gained altitude. Smiling, she spread her arms out. 'Freedom!' she thought to herself. Inside a building was torture because it felt like a cage, but outside she could escape the mean comments and jabs and feel the air in her feathers.

She landed on her porch and unlocked her door. Stepping inside her room she sighed. Caitlyn threw her stuff on the bed and wandered downstairs. A note was attached to the fridge by a magnet shaped like a wing. There were many things in her house that looked like a pair or a single wing. Her parents collected stuff that made her happy. On the note it read:

Angel,

Your mother and I have gone out of town for a few days. We wanted you to come but you were at school and we didn't want to interrupt your learning. You can find our car by yourself, you're a big girl. We love you, our little Angel.

Love, Daddy

P.S. Mom found something in your scrapbook. It was a song, and we took it. Sorry, but it was really good! Love you!

She groaned unhappily. That song had been private. After Nate had left and she hadn't had any friends, she had written a song. 'Somebody' was a song about how much she wanted to be a somebody, not a nobody anymore.

She flew to where my parents said they would meet up with her until she saw smoke. A car had crashed into another one and both front ends of the car were totally destroyed. Sirens wailed in the distance and Caitlyn could see them rushing to the crash. She spiraled down and landed off in the trees. The car that had the most damage had a crunched up license plate. She went over to the crash and uncrumpled it using her super-strength. On the plate were the letters ANGEL#1, which was what had been on her parent's license plate. The metal dropped to the concrete. No one had survived the crash. Her parents were dead.

(On Her Own)

Now that her parents were gone, Caitlyn had no place to go. She quickly flew back to her house and gathered some necessities. She packed food in another bag, went up to her room, and flew off the porch and into the distance. She survived by stealing and eating out of the dumpsters and garbage for 4 years before deciding it had been enough. She flew away with the next strong wind. The brunette followed the highway until she came to an intersection of NJ (This is where I think Camp Rock is. Please correct me if I'm wrong!). One way pointed to the next city, and the other pointed to Camp Rock.

She had seen on the TV how Nate and his brothers would be going back next summer. She hadn't seen him in 5 years, well she had seen him on TV, but he hadn't seen her. She winged it over to the place. There she found a rundown abandoned cabin, it being only spring, and got to work. Her days were spent making it as nice as the other cabins. During that time, she started developing strange powers. She could talk to animals, she could breathe underwater, and she could even jump really high without even opening her wings. At first, being able to communicate with the creatures of Camp Rock was hard for her, but they were a lot of help when fixing up the abandoned cabin. Eventually, she wouldn't even speak English, but would speak to the animals in their native tongue. A few months later, if a human had come up to her she wouldn't have understood and wouldn't have been able to talk back.

On the first floor, she made it look just like any other cabin, using the money her parents had left her to pay for things, but the second floor could only be reached by wing. A glass window that could be opened by remote, like a garage, was set on the back side of the cabin. Her new friends had helped her paint the cabin the same color as all of the other cabins, but the second floor was made to look like a clearing in the woods. Caitlyn grew up into a young woman, the wolves and hawks raising her. Her best friends were a black wolf named Moonshadow and a russet colored hawk named Thundersong. The girl was no longer human; she was one with nature, a wild mutant.

When the camp was getting ready to open and staff started coming, Caitlyn started to get nervous. She had been isolated from her own kind for so long; she didn't know how to act around them. What were people going to think of the orphaned, deprived, wild girl?