Hey guys. I'm sorry for being late with updating, unlike usual, but unfortunately I have three honors classes, plus all my others. I have had a lot of homework lately, and I'm sure it will only get worse, not better. Therefore, it will take me longer to update. If it starts taking too long, you are welcome to PM me begging me to update. I will try to finish the next chapters as soon as possible. Thanks for being so patient!
Fang POV
Of course, after seeing the memory it was even harder trying to get to sleep than before. Because, in addition to feeling guilty that I had let them take his memories, I now felt majorly guilty about having eaten his food while we were all practically starving in the School.
I rolled over in bed, clenching my eyes shut. But no matter what I did, I couldn't get his face out of my mind. My little brother, looking at me. His bangs hanging in his eyes. Hiding them.
He's looking at me in reproach. He's mad at me, I know it. I couldn't keep my best friend from disappearing.
I rolled over some more. I needed to see him, the real him, just once more. To tell him I'm sorry.
But that was impossible. I'd never get the chance again. There was no way. Iggy was gone, and I'd have to live with myself.
I stood. I couldn't sleep; wouldn't be able to. And with Max gently trying to coax the crying Angel back asleep, I was alone.
But I couldn't stay here.
I stood silently for a moment, just out of bed, looking around me at everything. It was night, plus the lights were off, so it was dark and I could only see basic outlines and small details.
But it was more than Iggy ever saw.
Gently, I closed my eyes and put my hands carefully out in front of me. I tried to listen to my surroundings, but it's not like they gave off any sounds. I tried to remember the way to the door and stepped forward.
Have you ever tried walking anywhere with your eyes closed? You always feel the urge to open them, like the urge to scratch an itch, or that uncomfortable feeling you get when you were about to sneeze, but it wouldn't come. And even if you knew that there was an open space in front of you, you still always felt like you were about to walk into something.
I felt like giving up after about the time I finally reached the doorway. I hadn't bumped into anything, but not seeing anything was beginning to bug me.
But I didn't open my eyes, because it's not like Iggy ever could. He had to walk around like that all the time. I wonder, did he feel like I do? Like he just wanted to give up and open his eyes.
But they were already open.
Suddenly I felt a pit in my stomach.
I ignored it and continued forward, just walking slowly, running my hand along the wall. Waiting for something. Something to happen. I don't know what.
But then something did happen when my hand met empty air. I was so surprised, I opened my eyes involuntarily.
It was Iggy's room.
Empty. Iggy's room, empty of Iggy. Devoid of the soul reason it existed. It was a hollow feeling, looking in there and not seeing Iggy.
But still, I wanted to go in.
So I did.
Iggy's bed was unmade, as it had been since we'd taken 'James' from it that evening. I passed it wordlessly, moving on to his dresser. The drawers were ajar, so I shut them carefully.
I noticed something that I really hadn't paid attention to before. I mean, I had known it, but I hadn't realized it before, you know? Like how sometimes while you're half asleep, it will be raining. And you'll know it. But then after a while, you'll suddenly go 'whoa, it's raining'. It's like that when I realize that Iggy doesn't have anything decorating his room.
In mine, of course, it's mostly dark colors. But there are posters and stuff, and things crammed all over the top of my dresser and desk. In Max's room she doesn't have posters so much as paintings and pictures given to her by her mom, and there are lots of random crap. Nudge has her room decked with baubles and fashion stuff. Gazzy's has superhero stuff, and Angel has all these stuffed animals.
Iggy, his room isn't exactly bare. There's his bed, of course. His bedside table has a few items on it, but his dresser doesn't and his desk is tidy. There's nothing on the walls except for a page from a magazine he'd found a while ago; it was brilliantly Technicolor and seemed almost iridescent, and Iggy loved to feel the colors.
I moved on to his desk. I noticed one other thing then; on Max's and my own desk, there's a reading lamp. No such lamp on Iggy's, although he wouldn't have needed it anyway. There wasn't a lamp on his bedside table either.
I moved and opened the top drawer of the desk. It contained a row of sharpened pencils, a pencil sharpener, erasers, and lots of pencil shavings. I frowned, wondering why Iggy would have pencils. It's not like he could write.
I moved to the next drawer, and that's where I found my answer.
A huge stack of paper. All covered in sketches.
I pulled them out, intrigued, and struggled to make them out, but it was too dark. So I took them back to my room and turned on the light at my own desk, setting the papers down.
The first sketch was just a paper covered in random lines and scribbles. I grinned half-heartedly at Iggy's somewhat weak attempt. Then I moved to the next one and my eyes just about popped out of my head.
It was me and Max, when we were about five. We're smiling widely and laughing, decked in our old School uniform. The faces are so perfect, they look almost like a photograph. I stare at it for a long moment, trying to figure out how Iggy could have drawn this. I had never had the slightest inkling he had any artistic talent.
I put the page to the side and looked at the next one; baby Gazzy, with his hair spiked up and his eyes shut tight, probably sleeping.
The next one was a smiling little Nudge, tugging at my hand with Max holding Gazzy at my side. We were probably on our way to some training exercise.
Next was an Eraser, half-morphed, snarling cruelly and bearing down on a wailing Nudge.
Then, a huge hulking form in a white lab coat; it reminded me of that odd scientist, Professor Jordan or something, that we had confronted at the School.
I flipped through more drawings. Cages. Mutants. Dying animals. Me again. Nudge. Gazzy. Max. Max. Max. Another scientist. A huge, bright light shining down on a gurney. A scientist wielding a scalpel. Blood spattered on a wall. Max. Nudge. All of us.
These were all portraits of snatches of Iggy's memories of the School from before he lost his vision.
But eventually the pictures changed. They became slightly different, almost unearthly. Something I could make out as what could be the E-shaped house, but different. An oddly-shaped tree. An almost mythical-looking bird.
Then a portrait. Someone. It could be me, but it was different; I could recognize myself in it, but it wasn't exactly me. There was a similar one of Max, and of Angel and Gazzy and Nudge.
This was how Iggy saw us.
I moved on some more. There were more of these almost-exact replicas of ourselves. There were pictures of shapes, of objects, of trees and grass and rocks. And bombs.
Then there came a portrait of someone that looked exactly like Max, and for a moment I wondered how Iggy had known what she looked like. But this girl had her wings spread behind her, and they were black.
It was Meagan.
I stared at it for a long moment.
Then I moved on to multiple pictures of us, of the entire flock. Me and Max and Nudge and Gazzy and Angel.
Then I noticed something and frowned. I stared at the picture, then I moved back through the pile I had already looked at, flicking through them, and found I was right.
There were none of Iggy himself.
With growing apprehension I turned again to the pictures I had yet to look at and flipped through them, quickly. More of us. More of objects. And then, at the very bottom, one that seemed like it was supposed to have been Iggy; long arms and legs, very tall, very thin. But there was no face. Instead, Iggy had left that part completely blank.
And over the top were words, scrambled, uneven, lopsided words, with some backwards letters and other letters that looked incorrect, all spelling out the same thing; a long string of words that flowed over and over in an almost rhythmic way.
I don't want to be here. I don't want to be here. I want to leave. I want to die.
Poor Iggy, totally traumatized and with some serious mental issues. And stupid, stupid flock for not noticing it sooner.
Well, thanks for reading. Please, PLEASE review! It helps me update faster!
