Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride
She walks into the place that she shared with her family just a few short months ago. She knows something is wrong as soon as she steps carefully over the threshold. The house is too quiet, the air is too still, and a horrible stench seems to leak from everywhere. Dread fills her but she forces herself to keep going.
She stops just before the living room, the room with the box-like television that everyone would cluster around to watch the few channels you could get. The room with the couch that was singed in multiple places from the various explosions. The room with the coffee table that had magazines strewn all over it from the girl who couldn't resist reading them. The room where she could talk and laugh with her family and feel like she actually had a place in the world.
She takes a deep breath and slowly steps into the room with all the good memories. A scream rises in her throat as she surveys the scene. The five figures that used to be her family lay on the floor, lined up like so many ducks in a row, waiting silently for the last member of their family to arrive. She can't even cry as she observes the people on the floor. No, she is too devastated to do something as simple or mundane as cry. What she wants to do is scream, scream until she has no voice left, scream until someone notices the horrible pain you have.
But she holds back.
Instead, she takes in each person, one by one. There's the little boy with the spiky blonde hair and goofy grin who used to be her brother. The one who would always make sure to share his desserts with her, even if there was only enough for one. The little pyro wannabe who tried so hard to be tough, but was still just a little kid in the end.
There's the girl with the frizzy brown hair and gorgeous chocolate brown eyes who loved to talk and had an obsession with fashion. The one who could be a real girly-girl but could still beat someone up in less than a minute without breaking a sweat. The one who used to share a room with her and would talk with her until late, who would comfort her if she ever looked sad.
There's the boy, tall and thin, with strawberry blonde hair and the cloudy blue eyes, piercing, but still unable to see. The boy who could navigate perfectly, cook like the professionals on television, and defuse bombs better than a government agent even though he had been blind since age six. The one who could always tell when she felt sad or upset or hurt and would then make some cookies to make her feel better.
There's the boy with the dark hair and eyes and a closed off expression that would clearly tell people to leave him alone. The one who could be rigid and mean to anyone untrustworthy, but when the time called for it, could be kind and nice and gentle, especially to her. The boy who did his best to hide his emotions, because he was afraid to get attached. She stares into his eyes now, the only place where she could see how he really felt. But this time instead of anger or fear or love, they just show her faint reflection as they stare at the wall behind her.
Then she shifts her gaze to the girl with the golden brown hair and light brown eyes who was the closest thing she had to a mother. The one who held her when she had nightmares or patched her up when she skinned your knees or made her feel better when she cried. The girl who, even though she wasn't much more than a kid herself, took care of everyone and acted like she was her whole world. The girl who would do anything to keep her safe.
Seeing her glassy unseeing eyes makes something inside her snap. She runs to her side and pleads for the other girl to look at her, even though she knows she's gone, even though she knows she won't ever wake up.
She gives up the fight and sits back and screams. She screams a horrible cry that speaks of the pain and loss that can't be expressed with words. When her voice is too hoarse to scream she cries into the shoulder she cried on when she was little, only this time it's cold and hard and uncomforting.
She allows herself only a few minutes of weakness, but then forces herself to straighten up and be strong, just like the other girl would have done. She thinks that this isn't fair, that she's only six, but she learned a long time ago that life is never fair.
It would be so easy to give up, she realizes suddenly. Just to lay here with the shattered remnants of her family forever and ignore the outside world. The chances of anyone finding the house are pretty slim, she knows that. Over the past four years the only people who came close to finding the house were pair of college kids who got really lost from their tour group in the nearby national park. She could go years without seeing anyone else.
She looks through the window at the sky and then back at her family. It seems like such a horrible twist of fate that creatures that were so obviously made to be out in the air die here, trapped in a cramped house stuck to the ground.
She walks over to them and plucks a feather from each one's outstretched wings and carefully stows it away in her backpack. She will keep them forever as a memento of her family, and the home she had with them.
With the feathers gingerly tucked away, she cautiously walks through the smashed sliding door and onto the deck. She pauses at the rail and considers the sky. It's a beautiful day, warm and sunny with a small breeze. It seems so at odds with what she's just discovered that she nearly starts to laugh. Life will always have a way of taunting you, she realizes sadly.
She climbs up onto the rail of the deck and jumps off, spreading her pure white wings. The normal elation that usually appears when she takes to the skies isn't there. In its place is a hollow emptiness, because there is no longer anyone she can share the sky with.
She turns and hovers above what used to be her home, saying a silent goodbye to her family before flying northwards. It's hard to leave them. But she makes herself keep going. She does not have any destination, but she knows she has to find someone to tell. Someone to keep the legacy of the great Maximum Ride alive.