AN: This story is co-written by BookHunter, and the following conversation is between BookHunter and me, in backwards order because to put it otherwise would be incorrect grammar.

Hunter: (ignoring this and referring to the order above, that is why we're friends |D)

CZ: So...neither of us are very good updaters, as you can tell if you've ever followed one of our stories. But we've got good news.

Hunter: I don't know what she's talking about. c;

CZ: ...We have the first three-ish chapters written and the rest planned.

Hunter: Oh, that good news! Yeah, for once we're not pulling a surprise "improv" on you guys XD

CZ: I know that there's not much romance in the beginning, but it should come later.

Hunter: Enjoy, fangirls ;)

"Hatreds are the cinders of affection." ~Walter Raleigh

In the beginning, there was hate.

Not a feeling of intense distaste, disgust, or even a strong lack-of-affection, but one in which your heart burns as if drenched in acid, your emotions intensify as if pain becomes your sole source of feeling, and your blood boils as if passed through the fires of hell.

The small winged girl sat in her cage, one leg curled under her body and the other splayed out in front of her-a lame attempt at trying to sooth the swelling in her thin ankle. Her eyes traveled around the laboratory room, over the black countertops filled with eppendorf tubes, micro-pipettes, autoclaved needles, animal DNA transfection protocols, and more —but of course, she was not aware that it was a lab and what she saw around her were the utensils of her creation.

All she knew was that there were beings that sometimes came in to poke her with sterilized needles or force her to bring her body to unbearable limits-and it was so painful. They were always clothed in white—a word she had learned from listening to them speak—coats—another learned word, and she had already begun to call them "whitecoats" in her mind. She was thirsty for knowledge—she wanted to put a name to everything. Words were power, but no one wanted to educate a "mutant experiment," which a whitecoat had once called her out of spite. She didn't know what it meant, but judging from his tone, it was sure to be something negative.

She was always so frustrated, not able to communicate with the others or place a name to the objects she encountered and the feelings she felt. Why could they know, but she couldn't? Why could they speak, understand, and call her names when she couldn't say a word?

She knew nothing.

So she accepted it.

There was no other choice, and she didn't know how speak, to move, to live—didn't know the way out. She barely knew who she was; just that she was abnormal.
Although the winged girl did not understand this concept, she could feel that she was different. Not like the whitecoats who constantly surrounded her, or like the little, furry animals they brought in. Not only that, but she felt isolated in such a way that she felt dead inside.

The girl was nothing but flesh and bone made for the satisfaction of curing curiosity. The ability to think was there, but her brain was never trained to do so. She was alive, and yet...she wasn't. She felt...and yet, she did not truly feel. To know oneself, to know the world was a privilege-one she didn't even realize she was deprived of.

And yet, she knew she was lacking something. She knew that there was a "nothing" inside of her mind and her body.

She knew she was nothing.

The whitecoats loved to remind her.

Although, there was one...whitecoat, that is, who didn't seem to hate her as much. He spoke to her every now and then. She couldn't understand the words, but his tone was pleasantly soothing and she liked it. It gave her hope.

He always visited her alone and liked to sit and talk to her. She wondered why he even bothered-she could barely communicate to herself with her own thoughts, much less talk to anyone else. He had brown hair and a kind smile, but he would never get too close to her cage, as if he was afraid to touch her.

As his visits became more frequent, the girl realized that she was looking forward to them more and more.

Her head automatically snapped toward the sound of a door opening, and without realizing it, her eyes had widened in excitement. She turned the rest of her body around toward the noise, grabbing the cold, rusty metal bars with her small hands, hoping that it was the nice whitecoat who had come to see her. He had been bringing her extra food the last few days, which she desperately needed since the allocated amount of food that each experiment received was barely enough to keep her alive.

Instead, it was a whitecoat she had never seen before. His hair was a shocking yellow color, and he was tall, very tall. Before she knew it, his long legs had quickly brought him to the foot of her cage. He gave off a bad vibe, and even a girl who wasn't usually attuned to other people could feel it.

She let go of the bars, scrambling away from the man. As she huddled in the corner, he ignored her fear and pulled out a piece of metal from his pocket and used it to not-so-gently throw open the door of her cage. Letting in one of his abnormally long arms, he took hold of one of her thin wrists, wrapping his fingers tightly around it.

He dragged her out of the cage roughly, the jagged edges of her metal cage catching her skin in several places. She could feel tiny beads of blood run down her back and neck, and as she looked up at the man, her forehead slammed into the door of the metal box. Her head snapped back sharply.

The whitecoat didn't even glance at her.

Dizzy and disoriented, the feeble girl tried to curl herself up into a ball to protect as much of her body as possible. Unfortunately, the maneuver was not successful, seeing as she had just jarred her knee against the cold, tiled floor.

Suddenly, the man jerked her upright. Momentarily, she felt her arm pop in and out, and she bit her lip to contain the scream from the pain that had just shot down her shoulder. He placed his hand on her back and herded her toward the door, ignoring the limp in her walk, the angle in which she held her neck, and her sagging shoulder. The girl walked slowly, careful not to place too much weight on her injured leg. She tried not to lift her head too high, still waiting for her body to overcome the blow taken to her skull. She attempted to keep up with the man, but it was no use.

"Hurry the fuck up," the whitecoat grumbled, pushing her harder. The girl stumbled and almost fell down, but the whitecoat jerked her arm again, and once more, the joint popped in and out of its socket. She squeaked in pain, and small droplets of water streamed down her face, but she was ignored, as always.

They eventually ended up in another room with white walls. And white sinks. And white shelves. Whenever they took her out of her cage, she never felt like they ever actually went anywhere. No matter how long they walked, they always ended up in the same, white room. So far, the only differences between any of the rooms were that each had a special device used to hurt her.

Despite the fact that, in reality, she should be used to this procedure, her heartbeat increased, and her breathing became rapid. The girl's body was created in such a fashion that, when stimulated, it released more adrenaline than a normal human being. The results of such a change caused the girl's body to become more energized than one's should-her heart rate beat at 260 bpm, her diaphragm contracted rapidly, and her endocrine system fired, increasing her body's sensitivity to the environment to the point where she could hear, smell, and feel even the smallest of things. Any normal being would never stay sane under such conditions. Interestingly enough...she did.
Before she knew what was going on, she was lifted and pushed onto a table with straps for her arms and legs. Before she could get used to the uncomfortable position she was thrown in, she was strapped to it, unable to move.

Trapped.

Not a new concept to her, really.

Horrible, nonetheless.

Whether she was strapped to a table, locked in a cage, or shut in a room, she was always trapped. Nowhere to run, nothing to hide behind. It wasn't just in a physically sense, either. They had also trapped her on the inside-her mind was limited and molded by the scientists. Her heart and soul controlled by what they allowed her to feel.

One must understand, that in the lab, they created you. You didn't hold responsibility for yourself or your actions. You were not your own person. Merely a place to store the brain they taught, the muscles they built, the lungs they transplanted, and the soul they forgot to steal.
Wincing, the girl's wings fluttered pathetically underneath her frail spine. The whitecoat had stabbed a thin, 1 mL needle into her flesh, the purposely mutated protein slowly unfolding as it smoothly seeped into the warm temperature of her blood. The needle kissed her skin. Satisfied with himself, he plucked the empty syringe out from her upper arm and threw it into a sharp's box.

He walked out of the room, hands in the pockets of his lab coat, laughing.

The door shook the room as it fell shut.

She had never made that sound before. Laughing, that sound of pure, unadulterated glee. That choking-like, loud and harsh sound. She wondered what that would feel like.

Sometimes, she would almost feel as if she was at the precipice of something bigger than herself, but maybe she just wanted to imagine that precipice to ameliorate the endless pain. Whenever a needle dug too hard or whenever a knife cut too deep, she imagined herself running, running, running toward an edge she couldn't see. In front of her, there would be blackness, but she knew that there was something there-an boundary, an end, a perimeter. And what would happen when she fell over it, unfettered by the constraints of her own livelihood? Well, she didn't know. But it gave her hope that this would be over someday, somehow.

They had placed her in her cage again, and she sat there, rubbing the spot where a needle had entered her body. The area around the small point was slowly swelling up, and the girl rubbed it experimentally to see if it would hurt as much as she thought it would. Unfortunately, it did.

She sighed, leaning against the side of her cage and tried to relax. There was no point in being tense and worked up when she had this small reprieve in between torture sessions. They had placed a small portion of food in her cage-bread and a soup that looked suspiciously urine-esque. She shoveled the food into her mouth, careful not to taste it too much. Throwing up wasn't exactly high on her list of "things I want to do." She knew from past experience that if she vomited, they wouldn't clean it up for ages, preferring to let her live in her own filth.

She shut her eyes, trying to get some sleep before the next day hit her like a freight train. She was just settling in to a fitful sleep when the door of the room opened again. She bolted up, surprised. She tried to run-a natural part of the animal portion of her, but the cage seemed to close in on her even more, as if it anticipated her actions. Her wings fluttered open ineffectually-even if she had enough room to fly away, she wouldn't be able to. The whitecoats had never seen much benefit to teaching one of their experiments how to fly when it would easily use it against them and escape.

It was the nice whitecoat who had come to see her.

The girl held her knees against her chest and cowered away from him. When he approached her with those kind eyes, she wanted to believe in his sincerity, but he was a whitecoat and all whitecoats were evil, evil, evil. Proven fact. So why would this one be any different?

"Are you okay?" he asked her. All the girl could hear was an incomprehensible rumbling noise coming out of his mouth. She only knew a few words, after all, and they were the words that the whitecoats said around her. "Are you okay?" were certainly words not generally spoken to her.

She just continued to stare at him, and after a while, he seemed to realize that she didn't understand a word he said. He sighed and approached her cage. He took one look at her scared brown eyes and seemed to make a decision, straightening his shoulders in resolve.

"My name is Jeb. I'd like to help you," he said. He reached out, trying to touch her arm, but she jerked it away before he could make contact. Her eyes tried to gauge whether she should trust him or not, but she couldn't figure it out.

"Can you say that? Can you say my name? "Jeb"?" he asked.

No one had ever wanted her to talk before. Mostly they just wanted her to keep quiet, lay still, and not scream when they hurt her for the sake of science. Maybe the novelty of the request was why she suddenly found herself saying, "Jeb." Her voice wavered, and there was an uncertainty and strangeness to her voice, like she was unaccustomed to stringing disconnected sounds together to form words. "Jeb," she said again, with more conviction in her voice.

He smiled, knowing he was winning her over. And then, he had a request.

"Trust me."

The girl knew that word. "Trust." The whitecoats were always saying that word before hurting her, telling the other whitecoats to "trust" them with whatever experiment they were about to perform. Telling her, every time, to "trust" them with whatever it is they were about to do.

The girl sat still, not knowing what choice to make. This whitecoat seemed to be the only one who could, and would, help her in his place, but what if he betrayed her? The girl was hungry, cold, and tired. Not in the right state of mind to make wise decisions. He had never seemed inclined to do anything bad to her before, but what if it was just a well-planned act? A phony performance to get under her skin?

There was a part of her that wanted to trust someone, anyone because trusting someone was such a hard thing to do in this place. All she knew was that she wanted out. She couldn't stay in this horrid place any longer. She had to leave. Maybe her desperation skewed her decision-making skills. Maybe it wouldn't be the right decision after all.

But she didn't care.

So she nodded.

AN: Review?