As I came round my whole body felt stiff, then as my memory returned to me I recalled the fight and then the stiffness made sense, unusually though I was in my room. I stood up to survey my surroundings, sprawled out before me was a space that was roughly the same length as 4 football fields and about the height of a 5 story building.
"This is where you'll learn to use your wings."
I spun round to see James looking past me and out over the vast empty space.
"Well I don't have a choice in the matter do I."
"Of course not but…"
"I was speaking rhetorically doctor."
I saw a look of anger cross James's face before dispersing back to his usual calm façade, clearly being one upped by his prisoner had hit a nerve. He turned around and pushed a button protruding up from the ground on a podium, the area we were standing on then started to raise itself until we were the height of a single story, the platform shuddered and ground to a halt, a door slide open and James walked through it, before he closed he told me what I was to do;
"When this door closes the platform will become electrified if you don't jump after several seconds. When you land you are to return to the platform and repeat the exercise you will not be permitted to leave until you can jump from the 5th level and fly without fault the full length of the room."
The door between us closed and I was left alone; "How do you guys afford all this crap!?"
Then I felt a sharp jolt travel up through my bare-feet, it seemed James hadn't been bluffing. I ran forwards and jumped off; I plummeted straight down and crashed into the floor. I got up and thought myself lucky that my physiology had been enhanced to the point where the fall was nothing more than a minor inconvenience…pain-wise anyway. I got back to my feet and I felt a hand on my shoulder;
"Amy, we have to stop meeting like this."
My joke was lost on the women; "Walk."
I was marched back to the platform and sure enough once it had stopped the floor became electrified again, every jump I made met with the same fate; an undignified fall back to the ground. I just couldn't get my wings open quick enough, during each walk back I practiced opening and closing my wings, then on what felt like the 50th time (and most likely was) I opened them and felt them take my weight, this presented me with my next issue; control. After the fall this time I tried to remember how I'd moved the tips after I'd woken the first time and had been greeted with my wings. On ground level I could manipulate the feathers just fine but each time I tried in the air I just couldn't concentrate, however the old adage of; 'Practice makes perfect' soon proved true and I was able to gain some control over my flight path, although more often than not I couldn't control where I'd end up, which was usually face-planting into a wall. By now the platform was at its 3rd height level and each fall was starting to hurt more and more. After hours and hours of practice I finally did a near perfect flight; I jumped off the platform and snapped my wings open, I felt the air catch them and I put several powerful strokes down before manipulating the wings and gliding to the other end of the room, when I arrived at the other end I remembered I still hadn't perfected landing and ended up sliding along my stomach in the wall. I stood back up and Amy was there pointing a gun at me;
"Move."
"What a dart gun again?"
She fired a shot to my side and the room bounced the sound waves around for several seconds; "What the fuck?"
"Move."
"Okay, okay."
I was guided to a door and then 2 other guards came out and cuffed my hands together before putting a brace over my wings, from here I was marched through the facility and back to my room, once I was inside the brace and the cuffs were removed and I collapsed on to what I'd now come to call a bed and fell asleep.
