I know, this one is short, too. But I wanted it to have some kind of breaking point between chapters so it flows better. Hope you like this and thanks to the 3 people who have reviewed! To everyone else: Review!MR

Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride, and I'm too tired to come up with something snappy.

" How is she?"

I heard the voice, a woman's, causing the tension in the room to spike. It was hard to open my eyes, and when I did I didn't like what I saw. I was on a cold metal table with even colder restraints, and there were people with white jackets and needles looming over me. This is not good.

I tried to pull from my restraints and they gave way, but I was turned over onto my stomach and given some kind of medicine so I couldn't move. Sadly, these people forgot the medicine that keeps the pain at bay. Crazy sadists.

I screamed as they put a scalpel into my back along the side of my spine. So maybe I can't be the world's toughest chick, but I'm still tough enough to know that that freaking hurt! They dragged it along, dangerously close to permanently disabling me, and finally they stopped a few inches from where my spine connects to my hips. Then they did it to the other side, earning another pain-filled shriek.

The scientist reached into the incision and pulled something out of my back. Now, believe me, if I weren't already freaking out, this would be a good time to start. They finished what they were doing and I thankfully blacked out.

Waking up in a crate hurts. Especially after having no sleep and everything else I've just been through. I can't even believe that all of that happened in one day. It's like the worst day ever. But you want to know what's worse? Waking up next to a guy while your both in the same crate, after all this has happened to you. So can you guess what happened? You're close… I woke up next to a dead guy and a live guy whilst in said crate after all this has happened to me.

My scream had wakened the live guy from his slumber, and he covered my mouth. " It's okay, It's a good thing. He's not hurting anymore."

That's all the boy said, but for some reason I felt that the dead were better off in this kind of place. The dead guy was short, probably about 8 years old, and had lizard like skin. However, the guy across from me was darker with black hair and black eyes. He smiled at me, and he looked like such a child.

That made me think; why would I be shut up in a cage with children? And why boys? Surely there were girls, right? I couldn't think about that anymore. The boy stiffened as I started to hear footsteps coming from the hall. The door to the room creaked, and one guy in a white coat came in. " Hello, Max."

The guy in the cage shifted and looked at me funny. "I'm not Max. It's Amanda, and I don't want to talk to you. So leave me alone."

This angered him a bit, and man, he should see me when I'm in my game. He could fry an egg on his face! " Come on, Max. No more games. We need you for testing."

TESTING?! "Shove it where the sun don't shine, Fatty. No way in Hell I'm going off to do freaking testing just because you ask nicely."

So what happens? You guessed it. I got a needle full of anesthetics. I woke up in a conference room, kind of like the kind they use for interrogating prisoners in jail. It even had the one-way mirror. " So Max, how have you been holding up lately?"

" Why did you kill them?"

"I'm the one asking questions, Max."

" If that were the case, then this is Pleasantville, USA, and you're in a dress and pearls. But sometimes we don't get what we want. So quit the shit and answer the question. Oh, and also my name, for the last time, is Amanda. Say it with me, Uhh- man- duh. Pretty nice, huh?"

" So then, Max, who did I kill?"

" You killed my mom and Dinah, and Gerald, and Daphne, and Mrs. Sandy, and our dog Jack, and Smoky the cat, and old man Rivers, and Tommy, and Donny Shepard, and our old landlady Mrs. Kingsley, and even the unstoppable Jacqueline and Judy. But it wasn't you who killed them. All of you killed them. Every single one of you is responsible for killing them. And I'm going to make you pay for it. So I'm going to ask one last time, why did you kill them?"

The fat man laughed in my face. " They never existed."

I almost gasped, but like Hell I was gonna give this guy that satisfaction. " they existed, and you all killed them."

"Max…"

"It's Amanda!" I growled.

" Your name is Maximum Ride. You are a human avian hybrid, and all the rest that you remember has been a test. Those people never existed. They were always part of your imagination. You cannot escape your fate. So tell me, how do you like your wings, now that you recognize them as part of your body?"

" what wings?"

" The ones in your back, Max."

I reached back to touch my skin, but instead found something entirely new there. Creepy! " Go ahead, there's enough room to unfurl them."

That wasn't what I was thinking, Mac, but I'll do it anyway, just to make you feel good about your disgustingly awful self. I unfurled the feathered masses in my back, watching as the guy across from me stared in awe. Stupid git. I've eaten grits smarter than you. In the mirror behind the whitecoat, I saw that my wings were a lot like my hair, light brown with light streaks and splotches. I like them kind of, but it's awkward having this newfound appendage, you know. It's like growing an extra arm. I just sat there for a few hours before the guy got the hint that talking to me was pointless and shoved me back in the crate, sans dead guy.

" You made it back in one piece."

" What'd you expect, that I'd have tentacles next?"

" You never know. Iggy came back blind once. That kid over there," he pointed to a cage across the room," lost a kidney. There's been things that have come back wrong. You can just hope that it's the veterans that get it first though, the people who know what to expect."

" I apparently am a veteran."

" they didn't just change you?"

" How else could you explain these?"

I watched his eyes widen as I unfurled my wings, feeling the air between my feathers again.

" I can, it just takes a while. Plus it's overly boring, filled with jargon, and pretty nasty."

"Funny. So tell me Mr. Funny Man, what's your name?"

"I don't have one."

Funny Man kind of drew into himself after a while. He stopped talking, stopped smiling, and grew to be this lazy, sad mess. That lived in my crate. I flipped out on him once and he blew up right back at me. Then he bit the mesh of the door to the crate, and his canine came out. I guess that's the normal time for us hybrids, but I don't know, then mine came out (again!) a couple days later. So I named him Fang.

Weeks have passed. And I now know these truths: there area six avian hybrids that live in our room. I am the oldest one. The others names are Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel. I named them all. I'm one of many hybrids being experimented on at the School, and I'm 10 years old.