The night was so dark, but the shadow behind her was as bright as the moonlight. Beautifully bright.
And without a second glance, I knew what the shadow was.
It was something that Jae, Elijah, and I all had in common: Wings.
And the girl, was Haley.
Haley could fly. She now had pure white wings.
Just like us.
Now, I found the 4th member of my flock.
Chapter 14
"Haley?" called Elijah, sounding confused.
"Hi," replied Haley, trying to give a faint smile. She seemed exhausted and confused.
Without another word said, Elijah took a step forward in the air and hugged Haley. Haley hugged back gently, trying to hold her tears back.
"How long do we have to watch this?" whispered Jae. I elbowed him lightly in the arm, trying to keep him quiet from ruining the moment.
"Because there's a house below us with rooms," said Jae, once again whispering at me. I immediately gave him a look that clearly stated he should wait.
"You know we can hear you guys," said Haley, breaking the quietness.
Elijah and Haley were no longer hugging each other. They both now seemed calm and less afraid. I was glad that they were okay.
"So what happened?" I asked carefully, facing Haley.
"Well, I was falling down. Falling down the sky so quickly and powerlessly, It felt as if I was a piece of rock just dropping down. I thought I was going to die and felt so afraid. I just thought of wanting to live. Then the next thing I realized was that I was standing in the middle of air with a huge weight on my back. Which I soon realized were these huge wings," she finished, while looking back at her wings.
"We're so glad to see you," I said, giving her a smile.
"Well, welcome to the flock!" said Jae.
We figured that it would be best to now explain to Haley of everything that's happened so far. Since it was too dark outside, Haley gladly welcomed us to her home to provide a private space for us to talk.
"My parents won't be back 'till later," said Haley to reassure us that no one was in the house. Jae, Elijah and I all just nodded. We followed Haley to her living room. Then she glimpsed at us for a second.
"I have leftover pizza. If you guys are hungry," said Haley. Which we all immediately looked over with expressions filled with hunger.
Soon, we were holding and eating the leftover pizza as if we haven't eaten all day. We were absolutely exhausted from fighting Erasers, so the pizza tasted like heaven. After finishing the pizza, we went straight to business. Elijah, Jae, and I slowly and thoroughly explained to Haley of everything that happened up till today. Haley's reaction and expression was one that was familiar; the one every one of us have had before. She looked astonished by the story.
"I'm just trying to... trying to digest all of this," said Haley, trying to stay calm and strong.
"You don't have to," I said. I reached out my hand and placed it on top of Haley's hand. "You don't have to try to look so calm or strong. It's okay," I finished, and gave a small smile. Haley looked up at me and said nothing but nodded in response.
"I can't tell anyone? Not even my parents?" asked Haley.
"No," I responded. I could see Haley's face filled with sadness and worries, but she was not going to break down.
"We are going to find the rest of our flock members. Protect everyone and each other. Find the scientists, get all the answers, and make them undo what they've done. That is our plan, and we're going to do this together. All of us," I said, trying to sound confident.
After explaining the situation and our plan to Haley, Jae, Elijah, and I decided that it was time for us to go home. The three of us left Haley's house and began walking to our homes. We walked in silence as we were too exhausted and lost from today's experience.
"I wonder if we're any different from them," I said quietly.
"The Erasers?" asked Elijah. I nodded in response.
"I don't know if they're even humans, but I keep wondering. I keep wondering if killing them to keep ourselves alive is justifiable," I said.
"There's always the option of letting them kill us," said Jae, sarcastically.
"I'm serious," I said, giving Jae a serious look.
"No, it's not. We want to hear and think that what we're doing is justifiable. But it's not, and we can't change that. All we can do is to live with it and try to be responsible for our actions," said Elijah, sounding unbelievably calm and sad, yet angry at the same time.
"More the reason why we need to find the scientists and stop all this mess," said Jae. Then this heavy conversation ended and we continued to walk to our homes silently.
Next day, I walked to school as I always have. I met up with Claire and Emelia, then walked to my first class. As usual, Mrs. Banes began the class by asking how everyone is feeling today, which as usual, everyone responded with a tired expression. Unlike usual, Mrs. Banes had a little announcement for the class about an anti-bullying assembly that was going to take place in two days. The assembly was called "The Pledge to End Bullying."
"I know that at Arizona Secondary School, we usually watched a different video every year about the campaign to educate us on this issue. However, this year is going to be a bit different. The FBI cyber bullying agency has made a generous decision to choose one school out of all schools in the state to have special guest speakers from the agency to come speak about the issue. I would say that's a great honor," said Mrs. Banes with an excited expression. I could clearly see that a lot of students were indeed impressed. Personally, I didn't really care who came to the assembly because it wasn't going to change the point of the assembly.
After my first and second class ended, the lunch bell rang. I was on my way to my locker, which was also where Claire and Emelia usually awaited for me to have lunch together, until someone grabbed my arm and stopped me. I turned around immediately and found Elijah and Haley standing there.
"We need to talk. It's important," said Elijah with a serious expression.
Conveniently, that was also when Claire and Emelia found me and called for me. "Hey. Sherra. Let's go. We're going out for lunch today," called Emelia across the hallway. However, I had to turn that down by asking them to go on ahead without me. Because as important as hanging out with my friends was, so was the duty of being a flock member/leader. Haley and Elijah led me to under a tree that was outside in the schoolyard.
"What's going on?" I asked with a worried tone and expression.
"It's about the assembly in two days," said Haley. I nodded in response. Then I heard a footstep behind us, which I reacted at first in defence until I realized it was just Jae.
"You guys wanted to meet up?" asked Jae as he joined us.
"Okay, so. When Haley and I heard about the anti-bullying assembly tomorrow with FBI representatives coming as special guest speakers, Haley and I did some thinking," said Elijah.
"Okay?" I responded, still confused. Then Haley and Elijah turned and exchanged a look.
"Think about it. It's an assembly and we have special representatives from a branch agency of FBI coming to talk to us," said Haley.
I stared back at her, still, with a confused expression.
"I mean, Yes! An anti-bullying assembly is an important awareness assembly. But special FBI representatives coming to talk to us about it out of the blue?" continued Haley, looking anxious.
"We've never had high profile speakers from such a big organization come to talk to us for any assemblies," explained Elijah.
"Then why..." started Jae.
"Exactly!" Haley interrupted, excited that we finally began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
"Why would the FBI agents choose to be special speakers for a school assembly to begin with? And why would they choose our school out of all the ones in this state? And why did they suddenly decide that this year would be the year for them to join the assemblies as special speakers? Don't you think this would be too much of a coincidence compared to what's been happening to us lately?" finished Haley.
At the same time, Jae and I gave out a sigh as he seemed to have figured out what was going on. All of Haley and Elijah's explanation and questions made perfect sense. We've usually never even had guest speakers at assemblies. But all of a sudden, we had high profile speakers coming from a big organization to our school as guest speakers. This definitely couldn't be a coincidence.
"This is them. This is their doing," said Jae. Haley and Elijah both nodded.
"The scientists and Erasers, they're behind this," I said. All of us stayed absolutely silent for a few moments. We were still a bit shocked from the trouble that we had to face so soon.
"Now the question is, how could they have possibly controlled the FBI to come 'teach' us," proposed Elijah.
"The scientists probably didn't inform the FBI agents about us as their experiments, because if they did, then they would have gotten arrested for experimenting on young adults." stated Haley. Then she continued;
"So maybe, they could have convinced them we were criminals or something," suggested Haley, trying to give as much suggestions as she could come up with.
"I don't know what to say. The FBI being under the scientists control? I don't know. But then again, we proved that nothing is impossible," I said, just as confused as everyone else.
"Um. We forgot the one most possible explanation to how the scientists got control over the FBI," said Jae.
"What?" asked Elijah with a serious tone.
Then Jae looked up and began; "You and Haley said that there's no way that the FBI agents would attack us even after knowing of what the scientists have done to us, right?" said Jae.
"No, I don't think they will without an actual explanation. But even if they did try, I think we can escape from FBI agents," replied Elijah.
I also believed that we could escape from FBI agents, who were just normal humans.
Then I could suddenly see what Jae was trying to say, and where he was going with this conversation. I gasped, "Oh my god, no..." Haley and Elijah still looked confused and anxious.
"We can't escape them easily if the FBI agents are the Erasers," finalized Jae, with a serious tone and expression.
Jae was right.
We could fight and win against normal FBI agents,
The scientists weren't stupid enough to use normal FBI agents against us.
They would use something that could actually hurt us.
And the last time I checked, Erasers could.
The Erasers were going to come as the FBI agents.
Oh My God.