November 19, 3254

Hello. My name is Emily. I am four hundred and thirteen years old. You think I am lying? Well, let me tell you my story. Maybe then you will believe me.

I was born in the year twenty forty-one. The date was June sixth, twenty forty-one. But there was something wrong. My parents were embarrassed by me. I was a mutant. But what they did not know was that my mutation was not genetic. When I was still in my mother's womb, she became ill and was taken to the hospital. When she told them she was pregnant, they decided to try an experiment. It had not yet been tested. I would be the first. All they had to go on was their educated guesses. It turned out my mother had had a benign tumor near the womb and saw it as the perfect opportunity to test their theories. They lied to my parents and told them that it was deadly and had to be removed right away. When they went to perform the surgery, they removed the tumor. But instead of just sewing her up like they should have, they spent a few extra hours splitting my DNA and combining it with that of an avian, a bird.

Six months after she left the hospital, she was back. That day was the day she gave birth to me, and discovered what they had done to me. My parents were never told the truth about the experiment. They took one look at me and….I do not like to think about it. The bottom line is that, from then on, I lived in a cage in a big, white, sterile building that looked and smelled remotely like a hospital.

The white-coats studied me, running test after test, surgery after surgery, eventually to the point where they were worried that they would no longer be able to perform tests due to the build-up of scar tissue in my body. I overheard them talking one day about other experiments. More cages were brought into my large and spacious room; big boxes of metal bars, large enough to place a small sleeping pad in. the cages sat empty for a few days, until one morning I woke up to find two kids, a boy and a girl, staring at me through the bars of the cages, trapped and scared; just like I was when they had first put me in here. The small girl had blonde hair and blue eyes. Her skin was a very pale peach, indicating that she had not been out in the sun very often, if at all. The boy looked much the same, as far as the skin color went. But his eyes and hair were a much different color than the girl's. His hair was jet black and longer than the short crew-cut look I was used to. It came down to his ears, and he had bangs that hung over his eyes, which were a shocking, electric, ice blue. The girl's hair was tied back in a long braid that hung down to her waist. They looked about four or five years old, about my age, or so I had been told.

You must be wondering how I can remember all these details so clearly if it all happened about four hundred years ago. Well, the answer is very simple, really. When my genes were altered, they did not just change my physical features. My mental attributes were changed as well. Things such as my long and short term memory have been enhanced to hold a so-far bottomless well of information and memories. My senses were better than average as well. My sight was magnified, my hearing keener, my touch was extremely sensitive, and I could sniff out poisons in what could seem like no time at all. My reflexes were also a lot faster than the average person and, on top of all that, my mile time was down to about four or five minutes. Swimming was like a second nature to me now. And, despite my age, weight, and size, I was stronger than most of the scientists here. They had had to place m in a reinforced cage after two years because I discovered that I could bend the bars and make a big enough gap to escape through. I broke the bars and escaped the cage. But I was captured again. My skin color always stayed the same pale peach color, no matter how long they left me in the sun. My bones were also lighter than the average person, more like a bird's than anything else. But then again, I am not average. I'm not ever sure I am a person anymore, all things considered.

Well, anyways, the kids sat quietly in their cages, staring at me with wide, seemingly innocent eyes. I had no idea what experiments they, but I was curious and wanted to find out. Slowly, careful not to make any sudden movements, I unfurled my wings which, over the course of about seven years had grown to a span of about eight or nine feet long. The kids stared on in wonder, their gazes following my wings as I unfolded them to their full length. When my wings were fully stretched out, I spoke to them softly, so as not to startle them.

"What are your names?" I asked them.

"Killian," the boy said.

"Akane," the girl replied.

"What is yours?" they both asked at the same time.

"Emily," I said. "Emily Gilraen."

"Hello, Emily," they said together.

"Hello, Killian. Hello, Akane," I said. Then a question occurred to me.

"Do you two ever speak separately?"

"Occasionally," they said, together once again.

"How do you know what the other is thinking, so as to say the same thing at the same time?" I asked, purely curious now.

"Psychic," they said.

Killian and Akane stared at me as if judging my reaction to the news. I simple shrugged and returned to my corner, folding in my wings as I went.

"That's it?" they asked me. "It doesn't bother you?"

"No," I said simply, shrugging it off. "I've got a few things up my sleeve, too."