Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride.
Max's POV:
When I wake up, I instantly realize that I'm in a hospital. The crystal clear scent of disinfectant, the cold metal and the white walled rooms aren't particularly pleasant for me. Anne tells me that I've always hated hospitals, ever since I was young, but there's this nagging feeling in the back of my mind that there's more to it.
I try to sit up but don't have the energy to do it. Instead, I turn my head from side to side, trying to figure out where I am, and why I'm here. All I see is white. White walls, white floor, white roof. The white is so reflective that I can barely make out the corners of the room or the door, which has no visible handle that I can see. When I look down, I see that I'm strapped to a- you guessed it- white cot.
My body felt like one big giant bruise. I couldn't sit up, or move my arm, or even wiggle my toes. You might be surprised that that actually bothered me, but try to imagine not being able to wiggle your toes. Devastating, right? The things you take for granted.
So I lay there, flat on my back, trying to remember how I had gotten here. All I remembered was going clubbing with my friends. Maybe someone had spiked my drink? But the minute I thought it, I knew it was impossible, because I had only taken one drink from a sealed water bottle. The last thing I could remember was meeting Jake and walking home with him.
Or, actually, I didn't walk home with him. I walked with him until…something happened. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't remember that something, but I knew that whatever brought me here must have happened then. DREW! I suddenly remembered. I had never texted her back, so she would have been worried sick by now. She would call the cops, or something, and they'd find me. I forced myself to ignore the pain as I look down to see if my phone was still in my dress pocket.
I realized I was no longer in my red dress, but in a white tee and jeans. I was partly glad to be out of the appalling outfit and partly embarrassed and angry that somebody else had changed me. My thoughts are interrupted by the door opening.
"Jake?" I gasp as my friend walks through the door. He stands awkwardly at the foot of my bed, shifting.
"Uh, it's Ari." He says, and when I take a second look at him, I see that he has blue eyes and looks quite different from last night.
"Then…" I trail off, my eyebrows knit together is confusion.
"Jake was um, a disguise, you could say." He fidgets, never looking me in the eye.
"You kidnapped me?" I shriek, my voice rising in pitch. Jake…Ari…whoever he was, he winces.
"Not exactly…"
"Then what? Where am I? Why am I here?" I try to cross my arms but still can't move them, so I resort to huffing obnoxiously and glaring at him.
Ari looks utterly confused as to what to say or do. Lucky for him, the door opens again, and this time, Jeb walks in.
"Maximum, dear!" He greets, smiling widely. I stare at him, open mouthed, until my mouth figures out how to talk again.
"It's Max. Or Maxima. Are you seriously in on this abduction?" I can hear the incredulous tone in my own voice.
Jeb smiles again, but I continue to glare at him. "Honey, we're not kidnapping you; we're performing a medical procedure, for safety. When you were little, you had some pretty traumatic things happen to you. And that made you become reclusive, so we wiped your memory of those events so that your beautiful self could shine past them."
"What happened to me?" I breathed, genuinely curious. Then, I fully understood the rest of his words.
"WHAT!" I screeched. Jeb and Ari flinch. "You WIPED my memory? You idiot! I deserve to remember what happened in my own freaking life! Are you even my dad, or is that made up too?"
Jeb's grin has fallen off his face, replaced with a grim expression. "Your name was Maximum Ride. You were an experiment of science. I am your real dad. We didn't wipe your memory, we used psychological techniques to usher those memories to the back of temporal lobe, so you wouldn't recall the memory. Then, we repeated what we wanted you to believe over thousands of times, so that you would believe that your life was real."
"…How much of my life is real, Jeb?" I say bitterly. Jeb recoils, both at the bitterness in my voice and the use of his name, instead of calling him Daddy like normal.
"The past two years, Max." He whispers.
Two years. Two years were real, and everything else was fake. Learning how to ride a bike, blowing out candles at my fifth birthday party, FAKE. Going to dance lessons, my first karate tournament, FAKE. My little sister's birth, first day of middle school, FAKE.
My head spun dizzily. Imagine being told that your entire life wasn't real, that the memories were false, but still being able to sharply recall your baby sister's face, and the smell of sweat in the karate center.
"Why tell me now?" My voice doesn't sound angry, or hateful. It sounds hollow, and broken, which is worse.
"We're going to wipe your memory now, too, Maximum." Jeb says, his expression a mix of unhappiness and determination.
Oh yeah, Jebby? Not if I have anything to freaking say about it.
"So, that's it? She won't remember anything?" The first voice rumbles.
"Sh! Not so loudly, you fool!" The second voice is clearly female, and admonishing.
"Isn't she completely under?"
"No. It should be wearing off, so she probably can hear us."
"Oh. Sorry."
I force myself to open my eyes. I'm in a white walled room, and the white is so reflective that I can barely make out the corners of the room or the door, which has no visible handle that I can see. I'm lying in a cot, and the voices must be from next door or something, because nobody else is in the room.
So they're probably not talking about me.
I see that there is a plate of food on the floor next to me and I grab it hungrily. I'm ravenous- I haven't eaten since…since dinner before going clubbing with my friends! But why am I here? I've never been in this place before, although it reminds me of some sort of hospital.
I take one bite of my sandwich and realize that it's drugged. The sleepiness courses through me like a poison, and I make no effort to resist it.
Within seconds, I'm asleep.
"Maaaaaax!" Drew shouts. I open my eyes blearily. I blink a few times, and I realize I'm in Drew's house, which is really my second home.
"Ugh, good morning to you, too." I say, too tired to worry about coming across as rude.
"Good afternoon is more like it! I thought you didn't drink?"
What is she talking about? "I don't. Did I come to your house after we went clubbing? I don't remember that."
Drew rolls her eyes. "Yeah, because you were drunk. You said you didn't feel great so we were going to my house and you called Anne and everything, and then you passed out the minute you got here."
"Uh, weird. Was I sitting with Jake by the bar?" I say.
"Jake Rickson? Of course not! He's in Arizona right now, dummy!"
"No, this kid I just met yesterday. Um, Jake, with blond hair and…" I trail off. I had meant to say what colored eyes he had, but I couldn't recall his face anymore.
Drew looks at me, concerned. "Max, you danced with us the whole night. And then you came straight to my house. You're still in your dress!" I look down and see that I indeed am still wearing that sleazy thing.
I rub my eyes. "Someone must have slipped something in my drink or something, because I don't remember any of that, but I had the weirdest dream."
"Oh yeah? What about?"
"Funny enough, I can't think of it anymore. It's at the tip of my tongue, but I…I don't know."
Drew rolls her eyes again, but it's not at me this time. "I hate that! I had this amazing dream one time, about me and this guy and we're climbing the Himalayas together or something, and I…."
As I start a conversation with Drew, I begin to change into jeans. I take them from her closet without really asking, and it's not like she minds. They're probably mine in the first place. Half of her closet is my clothes, although our dressing styles are far from similar.
"Did you think of that dream yet, Max?" Drew asks me.
I frown. "What dream?"
Drew snorts in disbelief. "I swear, you are being so weird today. Are you on crack?"
As I vehemently argue that no, I do not do drugs, I can't shake off the feeling that I'm missing something really very important.
A/N- You likey? Me likey. :)
Review!