Hold on slow down again from the top now and tell me everything
I know I've been gone for what seems like forever
But I'm here now waiting
To convince you that I'm not a ghost or a stranger
But closer than you think
She said "Just go on to what you
Pretend is your life but
Please don't die on me"
Wings won't take me
Heights don't faze me
So take a step
But don't look down take a step
I'm standing on the rooftop ready to fall
I'm think I'm at the edge now but I could be wrong
I'm standing on the rooftop ready to fall
((I know, I did lots of today's song, but I think it fits in with MR a lot, and a crapload with my story. Polo talking to Sam…? Get it? I know, laaame. But whatever. I'd better catch up on songs. Ch. 2's song was Higher by Creed, Ch. 3's song was Breathe Into Me by Red (Sophomores did that song for battle of the bands, and it was uber good. If it's Jerica reading this, I admit it, they were pretty good. And I'm addicted to that song now.) and this song is Ready to Fall by Rise Against. Freakin' amazing song, better than anything. Listen to it right now. –cracks whip- XD Just kidding! About the whip part, but not about the song. It is unbelievable.
WARNING!! I've done a character section in my profile. DO NOT READ IT!! It will give away a ton of this story and ruin your life. No joke, I'm serious. Don't read it, and if you do, then flying teddy bears from hell will fly into your house and eat you slowly and painfully. So there. And if you do read it, please don't say any comments about it in a review or I will track you down and sick my teddy bears from hell on you.
Disclaimer: I do not own Maximum Ride, and neither does Eli. James Patterson does. But I do own Eli, Polo, a large chunk of this plot, and the Strawberry Fizz perfume on my dresser that smells like nothing you've ever graced your nose with.
Thanks to: Nova Ride, anonymouse13, and Iceheart13. (that's three, but I can't help it. I gotta write. It's an addiction.) Anonymouse13: I LOVE THOSE SONGS! –glomps- And Polo's monologue is a bit much, I admit. I just get soo caught up in the writing that I forget it's from his POV. Of course, he grew up around scientists that created things beyond human comprehension, so that's what I'm going to blame it on. I'm sorry if I do it again, which I probably will (whoops. Oh well. You can take the writer out of the library, but you can't take the library out of the writer. XD I just slaughtered that quote, didn't I.) by mistake.
GES WAT!! I learned calligraphy! I did it with one of those old pen things that you dip in ink, too! It was wicked cool (I know, I still use the word wicked. Lame me :/ lol) and I was really good at it. Lol… that was really random.
One other thing- ILOVEYOU Armaggedon Child!!!!! You guys should go check out her stories, especially The Riddlyr and Dresden. Go to those stories. Now.
Wow, that was an uber (I love that word. Oob-ur. Oob rhymes with noob and tube, that's your vocab word of the day.) long authors note. Call me Nudge ;) J/k))
Eli
Polo's head shot up when I walked in. I stared at him in shock for a moment. In his hand was my knife, thick and sharp, held in front of him in an unmistakable ready-to-kill position. It was stainless steel, about three inches long, and folded into the black rubber handle. It was, in short, a folding hunting knife, though the real use was far from what it was named to do.
"Oh. Uh… heh, uh, sorry. I, I didn't know it was you," he said awkwardly, lowering the weapon and looking sheepish. I snickered, despite the fact that my hands were trembling from a combination of adrenaline and fear, and I had been moments away from a slashed jugular.
"'S okay," I replied calmly, leaning against the door and letting out a deep breath, a hand against my chest. There was a weird disappointment from the lack of a fight, but I recovered quickly.
The playhouse was more of a small, homey shack. It had a kitchen-bar in one corner, complete with a small oven, a microwave, a sink, and a few cupboards with dishes and silverware. A fold-down table was in one corner, with three chairs, and there was a lounge section with two bean bags, a coffee table, a full-to-bursting bookshelf, and a loveseat under the wood ladder to the bunk. In the bunk were two futons covering the floor, strewn with blankets and pillows, making it more of a nest of soft and cushiness.
Polo put the knife on the counter, helped me unpack the food and began gorging right away. I followed his example, both of us eating in silence. But it wasn't an uncomfortable quiet, it felt peaceful and calming.
It was strange how normal it all felt. I was with a freaking fracking superhuman thing who'd just stopped himself from killing me (second time that day, might I add,) with my own knife, eating crackers with peanut butter and just the peanut butter straight off a spoon.
"Why do you have that knife?" Polo asked innocently and quietly, looking at me with wide, dark eyes that made me wonder what he was like when he was little. I could picture a little toddler with puppy-dark eyes and black hair, and little black chicken wings fluttering behind him, but it didn't look very much like the teen in front of me. Polo was a fifteen-year-old emo rockstar, with the hair across his forehead and his eyes dark and penetrating.
"Just 'cause," I answered cautiously. Careful, I told myself. "I feel a bit safer with it, and I like whittling. Nothing big, just making a nice walking stick." As proof, I took out a tall, thin, white branch of wood. All of the bark had been stripped away with a knife, but it hadn't been the one lying on the counter. No, the one on the counter had a different, far more important and knife-like duty to do. It was part of what made me me.
"Oh," he said, though I could tell that he had no clue what whittling was. I sighed, acting all exasperated, but I knew he saw the glint of humor in my face.
"Whittling. You take a chunk of wood and just carve it for a while, sort of like sculpting or something, but it's for fun, and people usually just strip the wood until it's just a twig." He still looked blank.
"Why?" he said simply.
"Just because. For something to do."
"Doesn't sound like a lot of fun. Sounds boring. You've got lots of other stuff to do," he pointed out, slightly bewildered. I just shrugged.
Polo
I was shocked that people would just sit around, stripping wood to nothing. It was a waste of wood, and dulled the knife. Where was the point in that when there was work to be done, bad guys on the loose (-cough- whitecoats –cough-… 'scuse me), homework to be done, people starving, and then, if they didn't want to do that, there was plenty of entertainment. Like the snowmobile, or a board game, or chat with friends.
Humans. Psh.
Eli
I was surprised at how much Polo was into that whittling. It took a moment and a couple more spoons of peanut butter before I realized that he couldn't imagine people wasting time like that.
"So, what do you do for fun?" he asked, changing the subject.
"I like talking with friends, taking pictures… I like science a lot, and I love to read," I listed. "I like to write, too." Crap. He wouldn't relate me to Sam, would he? I had blurted out 'Sam' when he'd asked my name, but it was a common name. For a guy, but not a girl… Frig. And there wasn't anything he could base it off, except a little mistake. A little mistake that I now realized could cost me my life, since the maniacal erasers were real. Shitshitshit, I thought. But there wasn't recognition or anything suspicious on his face. Wasn't really much of any emotions, really.
"Cool. Can you show me some pictures?" he said casually. My hackles lowered.
"Sure." I walked over to the bookshelf, tugging a maroon and silky album that was packed with plastic picture slots.
"That's Emily, my best friend," I said, pointing her out as we settled on the short couch. "And me, Tessa, Alex, Matt, Caleb, Kaitlyn, I forgot she used to wear those weird sunglasses, Dannielle, and Logan," I named as I went along. It was one of my favorite pictures, and a very recent one. It was taken at the end of eighth grade, on Kaitlyn's lawn. It was a pool party, so everyone was in swimsuits, tan and laughing about some joke.
We all had our arms over each other's shoulders, and were barefoot. I could see the M&M's on the ground from our candy war moments before, and I could practically hear the song that had been playing was 'Over My Head' by The Fray, and it was only moments later that the mailman had stopped, and we asked him if he wanted to come party with us, and he looked weirded out when he said no thanks.
"That's Sue and I after my cross country meet this fall," I explained. There was mud caked all over my legs, and my spikes were just soggy lumps. I was beaming, despite the fact I'd been crying moments before. It had been my best meet; I'd run three miles in an amazing 22 minutes, then had barfed and cried and fell over right after I got across the finish line. I hadn't been the only one, either, since it was regional, and we needed to qualify. I had counted some twenty other girls gagging and choking. We made it to states, though!
"Cross country meet?" he questioned? I took pity on him.
"It's a sport. Pure running. You just run your hardest for three miles, against tons of others. It's just a big race." He nodded.
"What's that picture?" he asked, pointing to one that I had just put in a week ago. I was standing in my favorite black mini skirt, and a silk t-shirt blouse. I had on murderous black skimpy heels, a silver charm necklace, black and silver hoop earrings, and a black and silver necklace with a charm of an eagle in flight. My hair was up in a fancy bun with stray curls artfully framing my face. I had on the perfect amount of makeup to make me look great, but just enough for me to still look natural. You're probably wondering, why the heck is Eli dressed up?
I had dressed up for the opening day of my book. I had just been presented the first copy of my book 3XP3R!M3NTAL: Maximum Ride.
"Oh. That one. About that..."
Shitshitshit.
Polo
Molt had never told me the author's name. He never told me that it was a freaking fifteen-year-old girl from Maine. Was it just a coincidence that she had written a story right next door to one of the bigger labs, hidden away in the pines and moose of Maine? Nope. I don't believe in coincidences, or luck, or miracles. There had to be a connection. She could be some sort of mutant, or a reject that was smuggled away, or she could have been rescued like the flock had been ten years ago. Sue was her stepmother, she'd told me herself.
But why would she write about it like this and not try to blow the story out to the public? She should have done it like Fang's blog. It didn't make sense. If she was keeping it a secret, she wouldn't have let me see the picture, or told me that Sue was her stepmother.
"So you wrote 3XP3R!M3NTAL?" I asked cautiously, already planning an escape route. Grab the knife, that could be useful, flip the tabl-no, fling the food stuff at her, the table's attatched to the wall, kick the door open, go for the woods in case she's got backup…
"Yes, but listen! I'm not working for the Home, I'm not a mutant as far as I know, and I'm not evil, I didn't even know that all of it was real until I saw you in the field, and then I didn't want to tell 'cause I was scared and I didn't want any trouble or any more danger-," she babbled until I casually licked a dollop of peanut butter off my finger.
"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you," I reassured, realizing that she'd said the same thing to me an hour ago. "If you aren't a mutant, don't work with them, and aren't evil, then who told you?"
"Nobody." I raised my eyebrows. "Honestly, nobody did. If they would have, then I would have known that it was real."
"Then… how do you know all of it?" I asked, puzzled.
"I just… found out, I guess. I… I got the ideas from dreams. I dreamed about the flock, and Max, and Ari, and Jeb.
Eli
((A/N: this next part is a memory. Big parts in italics are memories.))
A lone girl stood on the edge of a cliff, her toes curled around the jutting rock. She looked down, brown hair with blonde streaks hanging over her face. She turned and spread her arms, a look of pure rapture on her face as she spread her arms. Then, without hesitating, she fell forward gracefully, hair flapping in the wind.
Something else was flapping, too. White and tan wings with beige freckles across them beat the air down, hard. Behind her, on the edge she had just plunged from, five other figures ran out of a cave, laughing and diving right off the edge and following the lead girl, all of them with different wings. A moment later, after a slight pause, a teen boy walked to the edge and just jumped into the air, dark wings pulling them after him. He had dark eyes, hair, and an emotionless face.
"Fang!" I gasped suddenly. Polo gave me a strange look.
"What?"
"Fang! That's who you look like! Fang!" He blinked.
"You know what they look like?" he asked, bemused. I nodded.
"I told you, I dreamed of them, and then the story just… came to me. I thought that I had just made it up." ((A/N: you other writers know what I'm talking about. You just get a brilliant epiphany and NEED to write. I can't really explain the feeling. Your mind just spits it out, and it goes from there.))
"Oh. That's…" he paused, looking for a word.
"Cool? Unique? Amazing?" I provided hopefully. He shook his head.
"Weird," he finished, and I frowned.
"Well, you know my story now. I hafta do my homework," I said apologetically, pulling out my binders and books. He looked on with interest, occasionally asking what something meant or was. He was extremely helpful with science.
"Ironic that we're studying wind and weather when you show up," I joked as he explained thermals in detail. He grinned, lighting up the rapidly-darkening room, then yawned impressively.
"Wow, that whole wall disappeared," I commented smirking.
"All the b-b-better tahh eat you with," he mumbled, trying to stifle another yawn. I glanced down at my watch and cursed.
"Crap, it's almost 9:30," I read, cramming the books into my bag. I'd finished long ago, but we had been reading up on birds and bone structure.
"'Night," he said, standing up and stretching his arms up and his wings out, wincing slightly as his wounds pulled.
"'Night," I answered. "There isn't a bed up there, though. It's just a futon, or a mattress, and a ton of blankets and pillows. It's pretty comfortable, though. Sorry, Sue wouldn't let me put a bed in he-," I stopped when he snickered.
"A mattress room filled with blankets and pillows? That's the most comfortable place I've ever slept," he said. "Cage, remember?"
I nodded, chuckling and heading out.
"See ya." I skip-ran back to the house, shivering.
After a long, hot shower, and changing into my favorite pajamas: green pants with black and white penguins, and a black tanktop, I tumbled into bed. It was nearly ten thirty. I threw my hair up into a couple of braids, then fell asleep.
((Sorry for the long wait! More reviews make me post faster, though:) Oh, and there's a poll on my profile that would make me go incredibly fast if I got two or three people to do! DON'T READ THE PROFILE!! Or at least skip the character parts. Those give the whole story away. I mean it, don't read it.
Oh, and next chapter will have lots more action in it, hopefully. This one was very tame. Next will be wild!
