AMBER

She ran, arms pumping, breath hoarse from running, pain in her legs, but she kept at it. It was how she stayed fit, and didn't waste away in the alley she called home. She blinked at a little, old lady who was watching her from the other side of the sidewalk and the woman turned away. She shrugged, her dark hair whipping behind her. It wasn't new, that whole turning-away-when-you-look-at-me thing. She knew her amber colored eyes unnerved people, and in all honesty; she was glad they did. She was safer that way.

Her name was Amber, had been since she was five years old. She felt tears pricking in the back of her eyes and she slowly wiped them away, almost feeling guilty that she had, that she hadn't let them fall. Before she was Amber, she had been Experiment 34 Version 1. She had even thought it was her name, but then again, she'd only been four.

Many of the scientists had smiled a bit whenever she called herself that and she was eager to please them. All but one man. He had never smiled. She felt her heart throb painfully against her ribs as she remembered him.

FLASHBACK

One day, he had come to her room, where she had been playing with the live hawk they had given her. She had killed it, and had been delighted. He opened the door, and she had looked up, expecting the praise that always came when she did this. The man frowned at the dead hawk and gently pried it from her fingers. Experiment 34 Version 1 was confused and surprised to see a woman she had never seen before. The woman crouched down and pushed a strand of Experiment 34 Version 1's curly, black hair behind her ears. The little girl noted that the woman's own fair hair was falling into her eyes and reached up and mimicked the move. The woman laughed and looked at the unsmiling man, who at the moment, was smiling.

"What's your name, sweetie?" The woman asked, blue eyes like the sky, which the young girl had never seen.

The girl looked at her with a smile that could've cracked her face. "Experiment 34 Version 1," she said confidently. To her dismay, the woman looked slightly put off and the man's eyebrows had drawn themselves together.

"No darling," the woman said. "That isn't a name." Her voice was friendly, but firm. "That's your title."

"Oh," the little girl looked at her. "Then what is my name?"

The man chuckled and leaned over. "It's whatever you want it to be."

The girl thought for a couple of moments. "Can I have the Mirror?" She asked finally. She had seen it a couple of times when they took her on her walks, and always found the face she had seen in it curious. The woman looked at the man and he shrugged.

The woman turned back to the girl. "Of course you can," she said as she slipped out a mirror from her pocket.

The girl put the handheld mirror on the floor and crouched over it. Her hair stuck out at all sides, her tan face too angular for her age, her strange eyes glittering dangerously, even though she blinked again and again to make them look happy, and just visible were tiny little black wolf ears sticking out of her hair. She looked back at the woman, who was watching her closely.

"What color are my eyes?"

The woman hesitated. "Well," she said. "Some would call them orange, but I think amber is much prettier."

"Amber," the girl whispered, her eyes wide with awe. "I want my name to be Amber."

The woman nodded and took back her mirror. The man walked behind Amber and slowly took a key from his pelt. The woman also stood up.

"Look, dear," she said, leaning down and cupping Amber's face in her hands. "We're going to take someplace much better, all right?"

Amber nodded and stood up also. She wanted to go with this nice lady.

The man put the key in a little hole in the wall, and immediately her shackles fell off.

"Are going to take me for a walk?" Amber asked. The woman scooped her up.

"Yes," she said. "We're going to take you for a long walk."

"Okay," the girl said eagerly. "I can walk for a long time. And I can run too." She bragged. The woman was nodding and Amber had a feeling she wasn't really listening.

"Are you ready, Jeb?" She asked.

The man looked at her, beads of sweat sliding down his face. "The key won't come out!" He cried.

"Then leave it!" The woman said sharply, in a much different voice than the one she had used with Amber.

The man took long strides across the room. "Fine." He said. "Let's go get the rest of her pack."

And then the doors flew open. The woman let out a choked gasp as she was seized. She let go of Amber, who fell to the floor, but immediately got to her feet, shaking. The man grabbed her and began to run.

Amber pushed herself out of his arms and began to run on her own, heart beating in terror. She quickly overtook him, and after casting a sad look at her, he turned away from her, taking a different hallway. She tumbled out of a door and skidded onto a road.

Her breath was taken away when she looked up at the dark sky, littered with stars. Against the full moon, six small shapes flew. Several of them were sinking down and flapping furiously, as if they'd never done it before. All the while, the man's voice shouted out orders as he hung limply in between all of them.

Pain stabbed her innocent little heart as she sat down on the sidewalk and howled to the moon.

Aww. poor little Amber...:P So! My first Maximum Ride fic... Is it good? I don't usually write human.