"Dang! This is definitely not going to be good. That stuff must pack a hell of a load on it," John hissed, inwardly having a melt down.
"How of all the hellishly-screwed plans did they get into a liquidated form though?" Max was scared and only Fang could tell.
"They made a paste out of it," Fang replied with tears forming, and cleared his throat.
"God damn it! Why did it have to happen to Alex?! They didn't have to do it to her!" John shouted, finally losing his cool. He slammed his fists into the wall and went into his room. Everyone froze at his unexpected outburst of emotion. In all of their minds all they could think was John lost his cool? He never does that. or What just happened? That was scary. What's the matter with him? No one had seen him freak out. Especially like that. Sure, if it were a crack of a smile, or a frown, that would've been different, they could all have dealt with that, but an angry as all hell John? That was definitely not a good sign; they will all have to steer clear of him for a while.
John stormed off into his room, wondering why he just cracked. He was always so cautious with the others around, made sure to be concealed. If Alex were awake, he wouldn't have let that happen. With Alex around, he could control himself; John would not under any circumstance, have shown that much or kind of weakness around her. All he could think about was Alex, Alex everything, Alex flying, smiling, scolding at him for making some really stupid, narcissistic comment on her fighting skills compared to his. The main one running through his head was a horrid, inexpressible, and inconsolable memory. One of the school.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" John heard Alex scream after only 20 minutes in a new room.
"NO! STOP! PLEASE! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!" It hurt to hear her ear-piercing scream and begs to the enemy. "MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE! JOHN PLEASE SAVE ME! IT'S TOO MUCH! NO! NO, PLEASE!"
"I'm coming for you Alex! Just wait!" John wasn't even sure she could hear him, but he didn't care, he tried anyway.
"Alex! Charles! Gabe! John! Kalley! Emily!" Max was here! Max was coming for us! Fang's there too! Ella's here too! They've come to save us!
"Max, Fang Ella! Over here! Alex is in trouble. Please, let me out; I know where she is. I promised her I would save her. Hurry!" John yelled to them frantically.
"We're coming just hold on a second. We are trying to get to you," Ella told us trying to figure out the lock.
"Is Iggy here? Iggy knows the code, he can tell you," Fang yelled to Ella remembering the last time we were here.
"I remember it; hold up… 6… 8... 3… 2… 5… 9… finally 0," John was practically shouting the code. He had to save her. He promised. "Hurry up! How long does it take to type in 6, 8, 3, 2, 5, 9, 0?" The cage lock opened with a click, and he burst out before she could open it.
Pass up 5 doors to the left, then down the hall to the… left, then through the double doors, into the white room. That's what John remembered from when they took him in. It malfunctioned just two minutes into the experiment, so they couldn't complete it. He had no idea what she was going through. Bursting through the doors, he saw a bloodied, bruised girl. His eyes. They contained betrayal, pain, anger, hatred, and worst of all- pure and utter indescribable fury. In the room there was an observation deck to the right, against the wall. John, with pure anger and hatred cascading through his veins, took out the five erasers and twelve White-Coats in the room, and shut off the machinery causing the torture. As Alex's body starts fall to the ground John's strong arms wrap around her already unconscious body.
"Alex! Alex please! Please just talk to me! I promised you I would save you! Please! I have to have gotten you in time! Please!" John didn't burst into tears; no, instead, instead, he gently gave Alex's body to Fang, fell to his knees and beat the ground, saying he couldn't be out of time and begging Alex to be alright under his breath. This went on for almost an hour before he heard a small, "J-John? I-I told you I w-w-was inde-destructa-able. Thank y-y-you…" And she fell into unconsciousness as John took her body from Fang. Embracing the limp, but living form, he stood up, regaining his self-control.
"Let's go home, before things get worse." John's face already impassable again along with his eyes. The six bird-kids, and adults nodded in agreement.
Seven years later and that memory was still like a ghost, haunting him. Now it was different for John. John can't, no, doesn't and won't let himself go out of control like that ever again. He swore to himself, that 'John' was not the 'John' he wanted to be. That was the 'John' that all of the kids were afraid of, and he couldn't have that happen. Getting on his own computer, he checked out the site he found earlier, and a few things stood out to him.
He took a few deep breaths to steady out his breathing. calming his body and mind, left the room to make sure Max was okay, and to show her what he found.
"Max!" he called out to her as she left Alex's room.
"Yeah? What's up? What's the matter, you know, besides the actual problem," Max asked coming up to him.
"I reviewed the site again, and a few things stood out to me. Here, I made a list." He handed it to her, and she reviewed it carefully.
Stuff that may be dangerous, and considered:
induces sleepiness
not supposed to be chewed(in this case, made into powder)
causes drowsiness and muscle weakness
children should not use
side effects (very rare and could be important):::::
speech problems
tremor?
jerky and involuntary spasms
slow, shallow breath
short term memory loss
hallucinations
nightmares
depression?
restlessness
irritability
aggression
delusions/ psychotic reactions
abnormal behaviour
emotional disturbances
Unexpected reaction to the medicine,?
Jaundice?
"I know a lot of this stuff won't have any effect on her, but even some drugs we aren't immune to. I think this is one of those drugs. Now, some of these I think we should monitor her over. I don't think we should let her be alone at all, conscious or not."
"Okay, but which one in particular do you think we should watch for?" Max asked intrigued in John's extensive thought over this.
"I think there are about eight or nine we should really worry about. Let's see… the spasms… shallow breath and nightmares… um, maybe the hallucinations, but highly doubt that. What else? Uh, restlessness, irritability, and aggression, those are all common for Alex, but we definitely need to watch her on that stuff. Maybe the delusions, but don't count on that," John explained, not sure if she understood or followed what he had said.
Max shook her head to clear in and then stated, "Yeah, I'll get someone in there immediately. Can you highlight or mark the ones we should be expecting?"
"Max? Can I be the one to watch her? I already know what she might be subjected to with the side effects and all? Plus, I can't help but think it's my fault. Please just let me take care of her. Please?"
"Okay. But! Remember this: it is not your fault she is in this state, and I would have probably put you in charge of taking care of her anyways. How long were you in there researching that drug?"
"Hour? Hour and a half?" He shrugged, not really thinking it was a big deal.
"Thank you." John just shrugged again, and went into Alex's bedroom.
"Alex? You awake?" John asked quietly from Alex's bedside, when she stirred a bit.
"Hel- Help! Please?!" Alex called out, her voice rasp and quiet in the room.
"Alex?" John shook her to wake up. "Alex, Alex, wake up. Wake up, it's just a dream, I swear. I'm right here," John told her soothingly. She woke up blinking rapidly, fighting tears.
"John!" she called trying to sit up. She tried and failed due to John putting his hand on her shoulder and forcing efficiently, but gently, downward, back onto the mattress. "John it was horrible. You- I- everyone-! You all left me! You guys left me for dead!"
"Alex, it was just a nightmare. You're fine, you know we would never, not in a thousand years, not ever just leave you for dead. Okay?" She nodded. "Okay. Now, I need to ask you a few things, okay? That way I know what I have to explain to you. Got that?" God. John thought to himself This is like talking to a two year old, but it is definitely worth it.
"Okay… go ahead. Ask what you need to."
"What is the last thing you can remember?"
"The last thing I remember…" she pondered this for a moment. "Um… well, you came into the room asking if I was okay, and I said yeah, then my world started to go black."
"Okay, so I don't have to tell you what we said, just what happened. So, what happened long story short is someone rigged a tranquilizer-dart-launcher in your room. Well, it was full of chlordiazepoxide, or librium, which knock you out for a while, and has a bunch of different side effects, and is supposed to do a bunch of stuff to you." She nodded in awe of 1) what happened to her and 2) that was the most she had ever heard him say at one time.
Then he added, "Do you feel drowsy?"
"Mm-hmm."
"'Kay, dizzy?" She nodded "Okay, well get some rest, you're gonna need it. Oh! And you're also bedridden until I say you are not. That'll be quite a while. That also means you are not going to school until further notice."
"Ugh! Why do you get to say this stuff?"
"Because I'm the one in charge of you and I know what the effects of the drug is. Also, because Max said so." John gave a little smirk and Alex smashed him in the face with a pillow in her bed. She shot him the bird and went back to sleep. "Goodnight."
"Nng. Let me sleep asshole," Alex said already drifting into a dreamless sleep. After a while of peaceful sleep, her legs and arms started to twist and spaz out. John knew how to deal with this; he made sure, having a hunch of what side effects in this case would be. All he could do was leave her alone, but restrain her from hurting herself. That's what he did, he tried to let it play through. It only lasted about five minutes anyways, so he didn't stress… too, too much. You know, he was worried as hell, but he stayed calm, or as calm as he could, which was, in his defense, still pretty calm.