Yes, I do realize that I should be updating my other stories, not typing up yet another oneshot. But I just randomly got this idea, and I couldn't resist...
Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride or the story you'll see later on (you'll find out soon)
The children--my children, as I had and will always think of them--clustered around me, begging for a story, any story.
"All right," I said, and began with one that they've probably heard a hundred thousand times, but one with a special meaning for me alone...
"Hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his two children. The boy was called Hansel and the girl Gretel. He had little to bite and to break, and once, when great dearth fell on the land, he could no longer procure even daily bread…"
Yes, I was young and broke when I first became a whitecoat. Broke and naïve, thinking that the Institute was simply a research building. It was Valencia Martinez's urging that finally convinced me to take the leap from undergrduate to research assistant. So imagine my surprise when I found out that one of the requirements was to hand over any children to the government, as a "safety" policy.
"'I'll tell you what,' answered the woman, 'early tomorrow morning we will take the children out into the forest to where it is the thickest. There we will light a fire for them, and give each of them one more piece of bread, and then we will go to our work and leave them alone. They will not find their way home again…'"
First one child, then the other. Given with hesitation and sadness by me, and obliviousness from both Valencia and my later wife. They had thought that the children had died, a story they believed with the same trust and certainty as with everything else I told them.
I was ambitious, I realize that. But I needed the money, needed the job. What could I have done?
Eventually, I gained the Institute's trust and was promoted to researcher. Only then did I realize what I was actually helping them do. Only then did I realize where they were keeping my infant son, what they did to my first child, my daughter.
The moment I knew, I demanded to be transferred to the Californian School, to be able to take care of them. The Institute was not happy, but they granted me transfer anyway--I was too valuable for them to lose.
"The father, however, rejoiced when Hansel and Gretel retourned home, for it had cut him to the heart to leave them behind alone…"
Valencia had left me two years ago, and of course, my wife had wondered why I was escatic all of a sudden. But I told her that it was because of a raise, not because I could finally see my (lost) children. I hadn't known that I had told my wife too much until it was too late.
She was found murdered one night in a dark alleyway.
"The old woman had only pretended to be so kind. She was in reality a wicked witch, who lay in wait for children…"
I was distraught, of course. But, fearing for my life, I continued to work at the new School. But after a while, it was a very different incentive that encouraged me to continue working…
"Gretel began to weep bitterly, but it was all in vain, for she was forced to do what the wicked witch commanded"
I was a slave to the Institute until the very end. But who wasn't? Not even Ari, who had far more freedom than any other experiment was beyond their greedy reach.
And especially not Max. She was six when she first met Fang and Iggy—it was all planned perfectly.
"…The witch was miserably burnt to death. Gretel ran like lightning to Hansel, opened his little stable, and cried, 'Hansel, we are saved. The old witch is dead.' Then Hansel sprang like a bird from its cage when the door is opened. How they did rejoice and embrace each other and dance about. And as they had no longer any need to fear her, they went into the witch's house…"
Not miserably burnt to death, but temperarily defeated, at least. I had to do at least something to stop my guilt, to balence the scales. And so, I helped the Flock escape.
Ari, I had to leave behind in my hurry and with great sadness, but what would they want with him? I figured that they would treat him the same as they always did: indifference. And indifference was the best you could hope for from the Institute--it meant that you were safe.
At that moment, the escape of the Flock in one piece was the most important thing.
"…when they had walked for a short time, the forest seemed to be more and more familiar to them, and at length they saw from afar their father's house…"
"And them what happened, Jeb?" Max interupted, her little eight-year-old face peaked out from under the blanket.
Fang yawned. "They go home and live happily ever after, that's what. That's what happens every time." Max poked him in the arm, while Iggy and Gazzy snored on her other side.
I told them the ending with a heavy heart.
My story would never have a happily ever after, but maybe theirs will, someday. Someday, it will be time to right some of the wrongs in my life.
Someday. But in the meantime…
"C'mon guys. It's time to go to bed."
Yes, the story is Hansel and Gretel, and can be found on: www (dot) eastoftheweb (dot) com (slash) short-stories (slash) UBooks (slash) HanGre (dot) shtml
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