Chapter 4 POV Artie
Artie fell to her knees when she found out what happened. She couldn't feel the tears fall out of her eyes; she could only feel her eyes cloud over in pain. The police were leaving in a hurry, and she ran over to Smosh.
"Smosh..." Kimu stuttered in shock.
"Smosh! What the hell happened!?" Tara yelled, running over the fence to him.
"Smosh got shot!" Kaito explained. Smosh was laying on the ground, blood oozing from the bullet wound in his chest. His arms would flinch every so often, and he would thrash. His eyes were losing color, much like his face.
"He can't go to a hospital though; we can only take him back to the lab. Only the scientists can save him." Kimu said, slowly wafting out of shock.
"Oh god, what are you planning?!" Tara yelled suspiciously.
"No. Just listen to me, we go there and re-escape and that'll save Smosh. I won't go and I'll break you all out after they help Smosh. Or Kaito, you can, or Tara, or anyone, if you don't trust me, just…. Just save Smosh, okay?" Kimu yelled, tears pouring out of her eyes.
"We need food, Artie is falling asleep from malnutrition!" Kimu declared.
They were all in a small town, they had flown for a few days, days filled with nothing but flying and sleeping. They hadn't eaten in 5 days. They were all starving.
"There's a farm over there. We could easily take a few crops and they wouldn't notice!" Tara suggested.
"Stealing is illegal, new idea." Kimu said.
No one suggested anything else.
They found themselves, sneaking over the farm's fence, over to the turnips and watermelons. Kimu pulled turnips, and Smosh cleaned them. Sokki harvested watermelons, and Tara cut them up. They had a decent meal. Until they heard a sirens, there were police officers here.
They started running, until guns popped. They all gathered in the brushes, and waited, until someone noticed something.
"Where's Smosh?"
"Calm down, Kimu. We're not letting him go to the lab." Switch replied.
"Then what do we do?" Kaito asked.
A man approached them, his stride confident and perfect. After looking him over, Artie noticed, he had hair poking out of his shirt. "Now, I take him from you all." He replied, "You see, I am the main scientist in all of your experiments. I decided your fate since the minute Kimu even touched your cage, Tara. I let you all out, and you're all coming back."
The eraser had scars all along his face, and a tail sticking out of his pants waging in delight.
"You're not God, nor anyone that special. You can't make us" Kimu stated.
"Oh, but I am the next best thing." He smiled coolly.
"Boy, you're stupid." Artie said.
"Artie's right, you won't, people will riot against you, countries will team up on you; it won't work. There are entire armies you could crush you like a bug in all sorts of places." Tara yelled.
"Fine, you're right. Looks like I'll just leave than, with my whole crew of medics." He said, and turned around, and started walking away.
"No wait." Artie said, and stepped forward. "Save him please, you can take me. I'm the youngest, I have the least amount of awful memories." Artie walked towards the huge eraser, tears pouring out of her deep brown eyes, making her hiccup quietly.
"I find this barter completely unfair, one tiny failed mutant for another successful one? Where's the fairness in that?" The eraser said.
"We were in cages all of our lives, life isn't fair." Artie yelled. "Take it or leave it."
"No! Artie, what are you doing?" Crevice yelled.
"What the hell is happening? Artie what are you doing?" Kimu stammered.
"Taking it with Atia. Or no dice."
Atia slowly crawled out of the bush nobody knew she was in, and she got up and grabbed Artie's hand in hers. She nodded shortly and walked toward the eraser; a look of determination on her face.
"No! Please don't do this!" Kimu cried.
"There we are, we'll help you now. Medics! We have a code green, serum 0995 will do nicely."
Medics piled into the fence and surrounded Smosh. All of them smelled extremely sterile, and they were all wearing bright white lab coats, all plain except for the plastic badges on all of their chests. They all worked quickly and quietly, using many different sized syringes in mostly neon colors. Some remedy's had to be pulled out of a specially marked corrosive containers, filled with dry ice.
All the medics left almost as soon as they came, but when the space was almost empty, filled with only the flock, Artie and Atia were gone.
Atia
Atia didn't open her eyes, she knew what she saw would be horrific. She didn't move either, she just cried. She was free for four days, why couldn't she be back with them? Artie actually shut up too- did they cut off her tongue? Atia didn't know, so she just kept her eyes closed.
"Why are you so sad Atia?" Artie said, sounding insane. "We saved Smosh. We did it for the flock, now they're safe. Now they can live happily together forever."
Atia let out a loud sob, but she kept her eyes closed; Artie was hurt, they hurt her. They messed up her brain, they messed it up. The annoyingly sweet Artie was gone, and Atia was just starting to like her. They messed her up, they messed her up, they messed her up.
"We saved Smosh, Smosh is safe. We saved him, we saved him, we saved him." Artie said crazily.
They messed her up, they messed her up, they messed her up.
"We saved him, we saved him, we saved him."
Artie was gone, and Atia's only comfort was one thought, 'they messed her up', because if they didn't mess her up, and she was just like this on her own, that meant it was the flocks fault, and Atia couldn't stand that thought.
"We saved him, Atia! WE SAVED HIM! Right? We helped him, we didn't just make it worst did we?" Artie asked.
Atia nodded, and said in sign language 'we saved him'. She wiped away her tears and focused on that thought. We saved him, they messed her up.
Atia woke up in a pool of blood, what happened? She re-closed her eyes, Artie was screaming. This was her blood wasn't it? This is just them being rude, and making life in cages even worse. They were examining her brain again, trying to perfect their attempt at the Greek goddess Artemis. If God was real, he would've helped them, a merciful God would help her.
Atia hoped with all hope that her grunt would comfort Artie, if she could grunt anymore. She used to be pretty good at grunting, even though that sounds crazy, different pitches meant different things. It used to be like that, until she decided to make it clapping and snapping instead. Her grunt sounded nice, it reminded her of the prodigy she used to be. She sang like a pro, but those days were long gone.
Atia was afraid to try anything around the scientists, so for now she kept quiet. But Atia smiled, they had a way of communication in this hell hole. A crappy way, but a way nonetheless.
Atia heard her cage open, so she scooted back as far as possible.
"Get out, we need to check on your eye." An eraser said.
You've got to be kidding me. Atia tore open her eyes and flipped him off.
He glared at her and grabbed her arm. He yanked her out of the cage with no mercy.
Atia looked over towards Artie without thinking, and it was awful. She was in a chair sitting up, and her scalp was peeled off, revealing parts of her skull and brain. The scientists were attempting to remove her scalp without killing her. Atia screamed and crawled back into her cage and rocked. Artie smiled at her and whispered something quietly.
"All hope is lost."
Atia sobbed and ran away, pushing away the back-up and barely making it two feet into the hall. She fell over, crying and her wrist shocked. It was not just a shock, but a constantly held one. Atia screamed more, lying there in agony, not knowing what to do. She felt messed up inside, like nothing could touch her, but somehow something was. Artie was right, all hope was gone.
Atia signed at the translator eraser, 'We saved him. They messed her up. All hope is lost.'
Kimu
The flock were all gathered in the big backyard of a new house. This house wasn't too far from the old one, but it was also empty, and the owners would be back in three days. (Or so their calendar said.) The newly painted house was a frightening pink, with a big swing set in the back, a deck, and an empty pool mocking the flock with its fancy Jacuzzi and man-made water fall with a realistic rock background.
Kimu was really upset that Sokki had left when Smosh was shot. But when it happened, and everyone went to comfort her, she just said 'he was a tool, now leave me alone'. But everyone suspected that there was something bigger she wasn't telling them.
"We saved him. We saved him. We saved him."
"What the hell is that?" Smosh asked from his wheelchair.
"That was the last thing Artie said before they took her." Crevice said looking for the source of the sound.
"What does that even mean?" Smosh asked.
"They saved you." Switch said.
"All hope is lost. All hope is lost. All hope is lost."
"What the hell?" Switch said.
A giant bird swooped down and landed on Kimu's shoulders. It looked like a cross between a tropical parrot and a blue jay, a base of blue with a wide beak and a long red tail. It walked across to Crevice and it cawed loudly into his ear.
"They messed her up. They messed her up. They messed her up." It cawed.
"What is it doing!? Why is it saying this?!" Crevice yelled.
"I don't know, but it's comforting." Smosh said, letting his eyes drift.
"What are you talking about? It is completely awful!" Crevice replied, madly.
"We saved him. They messed her up. All hope is lost. Just thought you all should know what we're up to. Daycare has been great so far Mom, and I hope you tell Dad too, before he hits you. Suzy and Sally got sick, so they got to skip class, unlike me. When will you come to pick me up? All the other kids got picked up! You all don't love me. Hugs and Kisses, Artie. P.S. Atia is insane, she won't open her eyes for some reason! She's all I have left, and she can't even look at me. Remember to pick me up!"
The bird flew away, north and further towards North America. Crevice jumped up and flew after it, catching up quickly. He didn't stop the bird, or grab it, he just followed it; in the direction it was going. Switch joined him, and Tara jumped out of a window to go with them too. Smosh looked up at them longingly, and he let out his wings.
"Where are they going?" Kaito asked.
"They are going to the lab, or so they think. Nobody is sure of here they are going." Kimu said, "Except for Ati… Never mind."
"Oh, sorry. They are probably going to the lab, so I'm going to stay here and help protect all of us. Before you start with your routine 'I was the strongest eraser' crap, I understand. You'll need help holding down the fort nonetheless." Kaito said.
"I know. I wasn't going to say anything."
"You're acting weird again. What's up?"
"The sky. I'm going inside, want to watch another movie?" Kimu asked.
"Oh, I do!" Smosh said, wheeling over to Kimu and Kaito.
Kaito nodded and walked onto the deck heading inside, and he held the door open for Smosh. Smosh wheeled himself inside, heading towards the kitchen in pursuit of lunch. Kimu looked over at the trees surrounding the house, and she thought she saw another parrot blue jay hybrid.
Kimu raced into the forest, another parrot-jay meant another almost guaranteed way to the lab. When Kimu reached the forest, she looked around, where'd it go?
"We saved him."
Kimu silently stalked the sound and found the parrot in the dense branches of a pine tree. She slowly crept toward it, until she was only a foot away. She suddenly grabbed it, as she kept it in her tight grip it didn't stand a chance of escaping. The parrot cawed once lightly, and Kimu heard a slight rustling hidden behind the caw. Someone was coming toward her, it was just Kaito pulling a prank like normal, right?
Kimu turned around and saw Kaito, like she thought. Except, he was held hostage by erasers, wrapped in rope with duct tape on his mouth, and Smosh was trying to keep him from moving around.
"Ah, Kimu." Smosh said calmly, "Get her, boys."