Red.
Blood red.
It was everywhere.
"Take them and run!" he shouted over the alarms, the heavy sounds of rubber soles and angry animalistic grunts echoing behind it as a cruel countermelody. "T-the keys I gave you! Use them and run!"
"B-b-but Dad!" I shouted-or tried to anyway. There was blood from my head, and I distantly realized that it could cause a concussion, but I was more worried about the man before me. He was about to run for his life.
I was about to run for my life. My siblings and I were all about to. And that's why he was running for his.
"NOW, Max, run!" and Jeb was gone, but I still heard his voice calling me to be safe, and my brothers and sisters goading me to run with me, so I wouldn't be left behind.
"MAX!"
"Max, c'mon, hurry!"
"Please, we have to go, there's no time!"
"Max!"
"MAX!"
"MAX!"
I shot out of bed, panting.
"WHAT, GAZZY?" I called back after a moment, too preoccupied with the nightmare to immediately respond.
"I WAS USING A STOOL TO REACH FOR CEREAL I FORGOT TO PUT IT BACK AND IGGY CAME DOWNSTAIRS AND-" and I was out the door, brushing past my platinum-blond little brother ("I'm really sorry!" Gazzy cried as I passed) to reach my most likely panicking triplet.
"Iggy!" I called out, somewhere between brisk and frantic. I heard a whimper coming from the kitchen.
"Wh-who are you!?" Iggy called out as I walked in the room, strawberry blond hair whipping out of his milky, unseeing blue eyes as he turned to face my footsteps.
"Iggy, it's Max. Your sister, remember?" I said cautiously. Iggy shook his head furiously.
"N-no, it's not. You're lying to me! This isn't our house! WHERE'S MY FAMILY?" he screamed, and I ran forward.
"Iggy!" I pushed his hand to my face, and let it ghost over my features. He shook violently as I let go of his hand, but breathed out in relief as he recognized me.
"I-I'm sorry," he said slowly as he dropped his hand, and I shook my head, before I remembered that he couldn't recognize the motion.
"It's fine, don't even worry about it," I said gently, leading him into the family room to let him lay down on the couch. He immediately sank into the comfort and familiarity of it.
"I-it's just…after that-" I cut him off.
"I know, Iggy," I said, and I heard footsteps behind me. I turned to see Gazzy hesitantly walking toward us. He flinched slightly as I turned.
"I'm sorry for moving the stool, Iggy," Gazzy mumbled softly. It was so quiet that I could barely hear it, but it was enough for Iggy, who smiled slightly.
"It's okay," he said.
"It's just that I thought you were still asleep and I didn't want to bother you and I was really hungry, an-" Gazzy was cut off mid-rant.
"Did Gazzy forget to tell Iggy he was moving something again?" I twitched.
"Not now, Fang," I growled. Mine and Iggy's third whistled.
"Bad time?" Fang asked. Wide-eyed, I nodded slowly.
Fortunately, or unfortunately, Gazzy didn't really take as much notice to the exchange.
"I just miss Dad," he said softly. Fang went quiet with the words, and Iggy shuddered slightly. Hastily, I jumped off the couch.
"I-I'm gonna go wake Nudge and Angel up before the wonder what happened." I stutter, and run up the stairs and down the hall.
I immediately see the door with a pink, sparkly "Angel" sign posted on it, but I pass it to the door two doors down. I knock twice, before opening it.
"Nudge?" I ask as I peer in. I hear a muffled moan coming from the mass of curly, black hair occupying her pillow.
"What? I'm still asleep," Nudge said slowly, as she leaned up in bed. Her dark brown eyes were drooping closed with every word, mocha cheeks flushed slightly red from sleep. I raised an eyebrow.
"You managed to sleep through all the noise earlier?" I asked skeptically, and her eyes become more curious and alert, though only just.
"What noise?" she asked, as I was about to explain, a tinkling voice rang in behind me.
"Gazzy went to get cereal this morning, but since he's too short and everyone was asleep he decided to move the stool without telling anyone. Iggy was the next person to wake up, but when he stepped on the ground floor he felt that things weren't in the right place and he panicked." I spun around and I saw Angel, already dressed and ready for the day. She was smiling as she continued to tell the story. "So Gazzy went upstairs to get Max and left Iggy on his own where he continued to believe that this house wasn't ours, and it on-"
"Angel," I said softly, placing my hand on her little blond head. "Sweetheart, that's enough." She looked startled at the motion, before looking up at me and smiling again. I returned the notion, albeit smaller. Nudge looked at the two of us, a little concerned.
"O-oh," she said simply. "I need to get dressed, so, if you don't mind…" I nodded and went to leave the room.
"That means you too, Angel," I heard from the other side of the door. I sighed, and turned around to pick the little girl up and carry her downstairs.
Angel…perplexed me, in some ways. She wasn't normal. Not that the rest of us were normal either, but she was a different not-normal. A part of me constantly worried that something was wrong with her…
…but on the other hand, isn't that worth celebrating?
Four years ago, our family lost everything. Our old home, our father, and Angel was the only one who had no memory of it. She was too young-she was only two, and didn't remember who her dad was. She just knows her three "parent" siblings-Fang, Iggy, and I. Her only "sister" is Nudge, and her only "brother" is Gazzy, and she doesn't always want to talk to me or my fellow triplet brothers about certain things, just like any other young kid would. Luckily for her, Angel simply couldn't remember the old dynamic-to an extent, it's a wonder that Gazzy could remember at all-he'd been four.
Not a miracle, a tragedy.
A travesty.
The fire, the burning.
"Max?" I looked down at Angel. "Are you okay?" She asked, big baby blues shining in the artificial light. I smiled stiffly.
"Fine," I said shortly, not telling the truth in the slightest as I dropped her at the breakfast table. I caught Fang looking at my posture, a little concerned.
"You okay?" he asked softly. I give a chuckle.
"First Angel, then you!" I said overdramatically, throwing my arms in the air in jest. "Why can't everyone see that I'm perfectly fine?" I push my hands to my cheeks and press hard, trying to make my face look as strange as possible. Gazzy and Angel burst into laughter, and Iggy looked confused.
"What happened? What'd she do? What's going on?" he asks just as Nudge finally descends. I turn, my face still in my odd position. There's silence as Nudge takes in the scene, before joining in the laughter, Angel re-joining in as Gazzy tries to explain to Iggy between giggles.
I looked around to take in the jubilation, and see that Fang is still frowning, concerned. I was about to comment, but was stopped by two very cold hands pressing themselves to my face.
"What did you do with your face?" Iggy blurts, and I can't hold it in. I collapse and start laughing too, joining the three youngest on the ground as we giggle into oblivion.
In reality, it wasn't that funny (as Fang clearly expressed), but it relieved the tension well enough. We didn't have much to laugh at.
"Alright, alright," I say eventually, sitting cross-legged on the floor as the others' giggles subsided. "I know I promised this yesterday, but it rained. But today," I grin "we're going strawberry picking!" Fang smiles tightly, which is the most I could ask for from him, but the rest of the family cheers. It's all we could hope for, really.
(((((((
Knockknockknock.
"Dad, what's that?" I asked, a little fearful. The knocking was forceful, and it was just a bit too loud for me. I'd only been going downstairs for a glass of milk. We weren't allowed to go downstairs at night, but the knocking made me reveal myself. Jeb looked at me, startled.
"No," he said quietly, almost desperately.
"No?" I asked, curious. Jeb shushes me, and forces his ring of keys into my hands.
"Listen to me, take your siblings and run," he said to me seriously, gripping my shoulders tightly. "Go out the third-floor window-there's no easy access there from the outside. Just get out of here and don't look back." I stare at him.
"Wha-" Suddenly, I hear whirling alarms. They ring in my ears and almost deafen me. Suddenly, something hard hits my head, and I belatedly hear the harsh tinkling of glass from around the house.
Crash, smash "Gazzy, look out!" Crunch. "IGGY!"
"GAZZY!" I called up, desperately, and start tugging Jeb up the stairs, but he stands firm.
"They're after me, not you. But they will hurt you if you stay here. Just go with your siblings, before it's too late!" Jeb said, clearly about to cry. I already feel the tears running down my own face.
"D-dad…" I said, sniffling. He pulls me in for a quick hug, before sending me up the stairs. I tried to resist, but he tried harder.
"Take them and run!" he shouted over the alarms, the heavy sounds of rubber soles and angry animalistic grunts echoing behind it as a cruel countermelody. "T-the keys I gave you! Use them and run!"
"B-b-but Dad!" I shouted-or tried to anyway. There was blood from my head, and I distantly realized that it could cause a concussion, but I was more worried about the man before me. He was about to run for his life.
I was about to run for my life. My siblings and I were all about to. And that's why he was running for his.
"NOW, Max, run!" and Jeb was gone, but I still heard his voice calling me to be safe, and my brothers and sisters goading me to run with me, so I wouldn't be left behind.
"MAX!"
"Max, c'mon, hurry!"
"Please, we have to go, there's no time!"
"Max!"
"MAX!"
"OKAY!" I shout desperately, and I run to them. Fang and Nudge, the latter weighed down by a wailing Angel, hurry me to the third floor landing, and I look at the damage caused. The first thing I noticed was a large metal object in the window, and little Gazzy crying as an injured Iggy keeps his head down, bleeding tremendously from the eyes.
"I-I-I c-can't see…" Iggy whispers in horror. I shook my head, and start to wrap Iggy's bleeding eyes in one of Jeb's old t-shirts as I quickly take charge.
"Fang, I need you to lead Iggy where I go. Nudge, same for you, but keep an eye on Gazzy, because he's new to this. Angel goes with me," I say as sharply as a frightened ten-year-old could, taking Angel from Nudge's wavering arms. "I don't know where we're going, but I know it has to be far away from here. We'll be going for at least two hours before that. Gazzy, stay above and behind Fang and Nudge, theirs are darker, and yours stand out a bit too much. Otherwise, everyone save your strength, especially you, Gazzy. You're new to this, and if you get tired, tell Fang or I and we'll go down. We aim," I say, pointing out the window. "For the mountains. Everyone clear?" Everyone nods shakily, and I take a nearby chair and throw it out the window to make the hole bigger.
"Wings out! We're going!" I call out, leaping out the window with the now snoozing Angel tucked into my arms. I hear the wing beats of my brothers and sister behind me, content when I count all four distinct sets.
I don't look back until we land when the sun goes up.
((((((((
Yeah.
Hi, Maximum Ride Fandom!
So, I kinda started thinking about a thing. What if Jeb was forcibly taken from the Flock's home, rather than just disappearing? And then this happened. A possible first chapter for what The Angel Experiment would've been like maybe probably not.
It's mostly just me trying to see what their reactions would be.
Max: would probably be a lot less snarky and a lot more motherly. She'd probably be/act just as fun-loving, as her goal is just to try to get her family through the rest of their lives without any more trauma, essentially becoming a mother to their little family. As such, she tries to spread her attention as evenly as possible, not having a "favorite" as she did in the books.
Fang: would be, on the surface, exactly the same. However, he'd be a lot more worried and concerned for the future of the family-a much more pessimistic counterpoint to Max's lovingness. Fang is the snarkiest and the most like his Canon counterpart, but his clear (if somewhat hidden) concern and paranoia for the safety of his family lead him to acting more like an overprotective older brother than anything else. Despite this, he and Iggy share a father-esque role to the younger ones, mostly due to the similarity in age to Max.
Iggy: would be a lot quieter, I feel. My interpretation for this would be that Iggy started out being able to see, and instead went blind trying to protect Gazzy during Jeb's kidnapping, which would also explain the closeness of their friendship despite the six year age difference. His blindness coupled with his paranoia (which is worse than Fang's) lead him to be very particular with the world around him, and he'll get very worried if he senses something that could mean that he or his family are in danger. He and Fang share a father-esque role to the younger ones, though I'd think that most of them would think of him somewhere between that and a cool, if skittish, older brother.
Nudge: would be similar to how she was in the books. I would think that she would be, out of all of the Flock, the most willing to act like a "normal" teenager. On the whole, however, she tries very hard to be a good older sister figure to Gazzy and Angel, who don't have as good a memory of the incident with Jeb. She'd treat the older three more as siblings than parents, and actively tries to treat everyone exactly the same, even if her attention isn't split as evenly as it is with Max.
Gazzy: wouldn't have a very clear memory of the entire night-only that Iggy leapt in front of him and that, in doing so, he lost his eyesight. Gazzy feels very responsible for the accident, as, in a lot of ways, it's his sharpest memory from when he was little. Because of this, he tries very hard to make up for it by being very close to Iggy, the latter becoming his personal hero. As such, whenever something happens to Iggy, Gazzy feels the most need to step in, and when aforementioned something is due to Gazzy forgetting something, he'll withdraw from the world. This version of Gazzy is still vaguely pyromanic, but not as much as his Canon counterpart-while what happened with Jeb didn't eliminate his fascination, it did curb it somewhat, and he's just as afraid of it as he is fascinated by it.
Angel: would be the only one without memory of the incident. Despite Max's concern that something is wrong with her, Angel is a very genuinely sweet and happy girl. Given that her family in this version is simultaneously is more normal (in terms of having family roles) and more unorthodox (in terms of having family roles being filled by people less than ten years older than her), Angel grows up with five people who are all very concerned for her safety, and as a result, she can get somewhat annoyed with the helicoptering, particularly from her "parents" (Max, Fang, and, to a lesser extent, Iggy). This version of Angel is a lot closer to Nudge than she was in Canon, though her closeness to Nudge here is nowhere near as dramatic as her closeness to Max was in the original books.
This is probably gonna stay a One-Shot, unless people tell me otherwise. It might still be a One-Shot though-it takes me a while to write these, after all.
Anyway, if you have any comments or critiques on the characterizations, writing style, plot, etc., please feel free to tell me. Remember, I can only improve unless I know what I'm doing wrong.
Thanks for reading!
esbmusic42