AN. Hey, this is just a short story that I thought of. I know, I know, I am cruel to poor Max, but it's fun. Now, if you'll excuse me I have other stories to write.

I am running.

I am running.

Escaping from hell.

Then I am flying. In a burst of power, I leap.

I beat my wings hard, and I am flying. I am up in the sky, my pursuers a small blot in the landscape.

Then suddenly, they get closer. The blobs become shapes again. I put on the speed, a burst of speed gets me away.

But they are still tailing me. My sharp ears pick up faint sound of people shouting, a whirring. Oh great, a chopper. I burst away, soon, I realise, I have to try out my power properly. They are getting nearer.

I beat my wings, then I fold them in with a huge push and zoom through the air, faster than sound, at the speed of light.

I see a large rock down below and dive down. I swoop close to the floor, it is huge, bigger than I thought, but I have another skill, I five times as strong as a normal person my size. I pick up the rock and swoop up.

Soon I find my hunters and sweep past them, faster than light obviously. I am soon well above them, and I aim. My positioning must be just right to hit the chopper in the rotor blades to make it drop to the floor. Aaannndddd...aim, fire! I drop the rock in just the right place and the chopper stops flying and starts falling. I don't savour the moment too long and dash off, before they even know what hit them.

A while later I see a flock of birds, far away. I swoop closer, to find out what kind, I always was a bird freak. I nearly stop flapping as I see they are not birds, but people, with wings. Like me. I cautiously approach them...

We circle each other, slowly, carefully. I was opposite six bird-people and a dog. Why they had a dog I don't know. There are three older ones, a girl and two boys, and three younger ones, two girls and a boy. One of the older boys was holding the dog and didn't look to happy. Bit by bit, the oldest girl approached me, she seemed confused, like she had never seen anything like me. I wasn't that much different to them, Ok, so their wings are normal coloured, while mine are gold-yellow, with gold specks. They have normal (i.e. shoulder length or short for the boys) length hair, while mine flows down to my waist. And they wear normal (normal being t-shirts and trousers) clothes, while I wear long shorts and a v-necked no-sleeved t-shirt and a streamlined zip-up jacket.

"Hey." I try to sound casual. "Who are you?"

"Max, Maximum Ride. This is the flock." She vaguely gestures toward the others. "And who are you?"

"Erm...experiment 16. I haven't got a name but-"

"Are you a spy?" She interrupted bluntly.

"No, I just escaped from the School. I just destroyed a chopper chasing me and I was just thinking of what to do next."

"Well, you're not coming with us, we have other things to do."

"What? I didn't ask to. Maybe I don't want to! Maybe I was only talking to you because I thought, that, maybe someone the same as me might want to talk to me because I have no idea what the hell I am going to do now. Wait, you're the ones who escaped years ago with Jeb, aren't you? You're the ones who killed Ari...you killed Jeb."

"What? No we only tried to kill Ari. And we didn't kill Jeb."

"Yes you did. Ari never fully recovered from what you did and he was practising fighting with erasers, but he fell and broke his neck, because it was weak form where you broke it before. They couldn't save him." I babbled. At this Max and one of the boys high-fived. I looked at them disapprovingly.

"No, Maximum, it's not good. Jeb was so sad and depressed that he killed himself. Now erasers run the place, killing all the experiments. Soon there will be none left. But scientists do work there, they are just too afraid to stand up them. I heard them talking, they want to escape but they were too afraid and they were happy with the arrangement. Erasers won't eat them if they work hard. Happy now? The School is ruined and all the experiments will die. And after all I heard about you, I respected you." I spat the word out.

"I heard you were brave and fearless, kind and strong, everything I wanted to be, I looked up to you. The white-coats loved talking about you, about how brave you were, how they had never seen anything like it. They became my friends, my helpers. Those two white-coats talked to me, like I was human. They got me out of some of the worst tests, by writing me sick notes, they can't experiment on you if you are ill, and they'd get the wrong results. Now they are dead. The erasers found out that I was being spoken to normally; they killed anyone who even tried to talk to me. I lost my only friends, and there was nothing I could do. The erasers had been trained by Ari, who was ruthless because he had died once and didn't want it to happen again. Anyone who was better than him was killed instantly. Then he died. But the ruthlessness and cruelty carried on."

"But what did I do wrong?" Max asked.

"You willingly killed someone. You snapped his neck. If you hadn't killed him then he would still rule, and anyone would be killed if they got too brutal for his liking. But now anyone, anything goes. However, I thought to myself, she must have had a good reason; after all she is good and kind and would never kill someone. Then I asked and eraser, 'did someone kill Ari?', he snapped that an old experiment called 'maximum ride' had done once and what happened was an accident but that it was Maximums fault, because she had weakened his neck. I was shocked. Then I decided to leave. I couldn't take the brutality of it all. I burst out when I was training new erasers. I thought, maybe I could find this person, ask her the truth. After all, you were special to me." As I spoke the 'flocks' jaws dropped further and further down.

"Special? I am special to you?"

"Were, Maximum, you were special. But you will always be special to me. Because, you Maximum Ride, are my sister." That shocked her. She looked like she had been hit by a large flying cow. Or something like that. And the flock, this news hit them like a rock.

"You...what? But...you, what?"

"I am your sister Maximum. And now I am going, because you have shown me that you aren't the compassionate, caring, strong and fearless person I thought you were. Goodbye, maybe we'll meet again sometime. Or then again, maybe not."

With that I turned and flew, fast, at the speed of light so they couldn't catch me. I have tears in my eyes as I fly away, anywhere except toward the School or them. I slowed enough for me to turn around. Max sped dup next to me and caught me by surprise. I didn't know she could fly as fast as light too. Time for the chase, I turn and soar faster, faster the speed of sound then the speed of light, but I am still going faster, I didn't know I could go this fast. I guessed, maybe twice the speed of light? Everything seemed to merge into a blob of white around me. I carry on for another couple of minutes, and then I slow down gently. I spin around, good, I've left her behind.

Now to find somewhere to rest for the night, I circle the area slowly, finally settling on a small clearing. I take one last spin around to check for any followers. I must not sleep for too long, but how do I control sleep? I can only hope that no-one finds me. In the morning I will find someone's credit card to steal, well they won't miss one of their thirty or so credit cards, will they? Right, time for sleep. I curl up and am soon dead to the world.

I wake up because my head is being shaken like a dog has hold of its favourite toy and is playing 'kill the squeaky toy'. (AN. Sorry, random moment) I saw red and realised it was blood. So I scream and try to escape, but it is no good, the creature just has too hard a grip on me. Pain sears through me as my legs and arms are torn at. I recognize this behaviour, this is how wolves eat their prey. Then it hits me, I am being eaten alive. I don't want to die, so I hit out, hard. My skill should help me here. My hand makes contact with a muzzle and instead of a yelp from a dog of wolf I hear:

"Shit. She's awake. Tie her down boys, we didn't do enough to kill her quickly, so we'll tie her down and leave her to die."

This makes me shout out with horror and anger. I lash out at anything, everything that I see. Ok, so that's not much (mainly because there is so much blood I can barely see) but I can see shapes. Take that bloody eraser, and that, and that. Oops, now there is not one, but two, three, five, nine, more than I can make out. They are too strong. My eyes are heavy as I start to run out of energy. I am fighting a losing battle. I struggle against erasers and my own will, a will to curl up and sleep, to curl up and die. I must fight, I must. I have to free myself. But it's so hard, so difficult to get away, so hard to escape. I start to tire, my actions slowing, my reactions become sluggish. No, I think, I must fight. I force my weak body to react, but I can't do it anymore, I can't...I can't...

Max POV

I keep following the girl after she sped off at, what, twice the speed of light? I keep my distance (easy because of her speed) and followed to where she lay in a cave. She is in a cave and lies down to sleep. I am waiting for about twenty minutes, then, suddenly about ten erasers swoop into sight and head for her cave. Oh no, they must want her back.

I start to back off when I see what they are doing to her. It is horrible; they are tearing at her like dogs, first her head, then her limbs and the rest of her. It is disgusting, blood everywhere and I start to see flashes of white on her head, oh god, they have got down to the bone. Oh no, their trying to kill her.

I start to faint and I faintly hear Fang's voice in the distance.

Fang POV

As Max flies off, I make a decision:

"Iggy there is a cave there, settle down and wait for our return, Ok?"

"Ok, boss."

Iggy sounds irritated, probably because he doesn't know what's going on and wants to help.

I fly off, looking for Max and/or the girl. After about twenty minutes flying, I see Max hovering. I swoop down to say hi. She is stock still apart from her wings and her face is stone white. I gently wave my hand in front of her face and say:

"Hello? Max? Is anyone in there?"

She carries on staring. I try to follow her eye line and look at what she is seeing. When I see I am shocked. The girl is being torn limb from limb by erasers. Blood is everywhere and I turn around just in time to see Max faint. I catch her and bring her back to the cave. After about ten minutes, she wakes up.

Max POV

Ouch, my head hurts. I suddenly wonder why I am lying on the ground. Then it all comes flooding back, I see it all, the horror and the terror. I clutch to the nearest shapes and held on. It is Fang.

"Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, it's Ok, I'm here. Forget what you saw."

"But...but she was my sister, Fang." I stutter out a sentence.

"Maybe she was, maybe she wasn't, but it doesn't matter now."

"Did they...?"

"Yes, she died."

At this I break out into sobs. She might have been real, my actual sister. The flock and I are so close, we could be brothers and sisters, but, somehow, a real sister seems almost better, like a proper blood relative. Who knows, maybe she knew our parents and could tell me about them. The thought of being so close to knowing my parents (maybe) brings out new tears. I sob until Fangs shirt is soaked and I have no more tears.

"Why didn't I save her? Why did I let her die?"

I suddenly realise it is my fault she is dead, I let her die, I watched her die. I could have called the flock, got them to help me rescue her, but I just stood there, watching in horror as she was torn to pieces. More pictures invade my mind and I try to cry again, but I have no more tears, just regrets.

"There was nothing you could do; it was her fault for sleeping in such an obvious place. Don't cry Max, it was not your fault."

Fang is being so nice. I just hug him and try to forget, to overlook the pain of losing a sibling (maybe) and knowing my parents (maybe) while trying to get up. I wobble onto my knees and fall down again. Oomph that hurt. I am too weak from fainting and crying to move far, so Fang lays me down how I like to sleep and cradles my head. I drift off to sleep, knowing I will wake up to the hurt and wishing it never happened. Oh, if only wishes came true.

AN. Don't ask for more, because I have no more ideas on this story. Please review!