All right, so you people have a decision to make.
I can work on in between Confidence Trick, and the un-named third installment two separate things.
One: The Italy story, with Mack, Fang, and their grandparents, which may be much longer than I originally intended now that I have everything outlined in my head… you people know me.
Two: And a new idea, which has recently donned upon me: I could write a story based around Sadie, one of Mack's past lives. This would be rated M, for obvious reasons. Instead of getting brief little trailers, you would get the full show.
Truth be told, I'll probably get both of these done eventually… but which should I really pour my heart and soul in to for the next indefinite time period?
I mean, the Mack Saga Drabbles are here to stay. You never know when inspiration for one of those might strike. Really that's all that is, just my random inspiration. These other two are, you know, stories. With plots. Just mini-stories, compared to the ones I usually write.
I'm going to put a poll up on my profile, and I know there are so many people that read this, so please, please go vote! I'm giving you an option here, on what you read! Go; go take this opportunity, an opportunity so wonderful it rivals Willy Wonka's golden ticket!
You know, after you read this chapter.
Max's POV
I laid there on the hard floor of the hospital lobby, trying to get my stupid brain to turn off already.
After the episode with Mack, the tour had gone on rather uneventfully. When the curious, somewhat disturbed scientists questioned us, we simply told them she had asthma and all the dust in here triggered an attack.
Now the entire Convention was lying here together. Everyone's breathing was really loud in this echo-y place.
I could faintly hear Mack and Fang talking to each other over the coms, but just barely. Still, the sound was comforting.
The old building creaked and groaned like the patients it had once harbored. I was willing to bet if you looked up 'creepy' in a dictionary, a picture of this place would be right beside the definition.
The floor was a dark gray, smooth kind of concrete. The walls were either crumbling brick or torn plaster. Old fashioned, smashed light bulbs hung from the ceiling.
Yep. Definitely creepy.
Iggy had fallen into a light sleep. I knew it wasn't REM or anything, not with him. His breathing pattern was off, too fast, too sporadic, and he frowned every now and then. But it was good enough, considering our surroundings, and I didn't want to wake him up just because I was bored and a little freaked out.
And let me make this perfectly clear: there is a difference between being scared, and being freaked out.
Gasman was out. Completely, one hundred percent out. He laid on Iggy's other side, his blonde curls merging with Angel's, who was sprawled out facing the opposite direction, so they looked like a straight line instead of parallel ones.
Nudge was on my other side, muttering in her sleep, so I knew she wasn't resting too well, either.
I considered trying to turn the coms up, and talk to Mack and Fang, but that might wake everyone around us up.
That's when I heard the noise.
There was a sound on the stairs leading to the second floor, like someone tripping. There was a quiet curse, and then a hissed order to shut up.
Now, I knew I was in a haunted hospital…but I was pretty sure ghosts didn't trip, didn't get hurt when they tripped, and I was fairly certain they wouldn't care about being stealthy.
These entities obviously did.
Extremely alert and curious now, I silently got to my feet, and tiptoed to the corner. Instinct was telling me to let my wings out, but that was probably a bad idea. You never knew when a scientist- or a foe- would try to capture you because of your mutant status.
I glanced back at the kids, debating on whether or not to bring them with me. If it was nothing, just a couple of scientists sneaking away for some…personal time… I'd feel like an idiot for waking them up. If it wasn't… I could need back up.
The decision was ripped from me when a strong, meaty hand wrapped around my arm and yanked me backwards. Another hand slapped across my mouth and nose, muffling any noise I made.
I thrashed and kicked and flailed, using every get-away technique in the book and ones I made up on the spot. There were two guys in white coats and ski masks, huge guys that looked like they benched about 460. A skinny as all get out bird girl didn't stand a chance against them.
Especially not when her arms and legs were pinned by their hands.
And there wasn't much damage you could do to a person by flailing like a worm on a hook.
The two people carried me, writhing, shouting, and attempting to bite, down a flight of stairs into the basement Mack had spazzed about. It was darker down here than upstairs, so dark I couldn't see anything even with my raptor vision.
I could feel myself being strapped onto a table, my wrists and ankles locked down. A million memories came flooding back, not one of them good.
"Help me!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, and my voice echoed. Surely, someone upstairs would hear.
"Max?" Fang asked, panic evident in his voice.
"Max, what's wrong?" Mack asked, equally scared. Well, maybe not equally.
Oh, right! The coms!
"I've been kidnapped… Oh, my God, I've been kidnapped and strapped to a table or bed or something in the basement of the haunted hospital." I whimpered, trying to act as if I was talking to myself for the sake of my captors. I still had a part to play. I could not blow this now.
"Max, hang on, alright? We're coming for you, just hang on." Fang's voice was low and urgent.
I could feel metal things being attached to my skin, and other than a few fake whimpers that sounded pretty stupid to me, I stayed still, stayed quiet.
Bright, florescent lights were turned on. Or, they were bright to me. They were actually pretty dim, as fluorescents went. Still, the darkness from before had dilated my pupils, and now all that brightness rushing in killed me.
I winced, and turned my head to the side.
"Hello. Are you with Miss Cheyenne Palmero?" Another, skinnier, guy in a white coat and ski mask greeted.
"Screw you. What the hell is going on?" I spat out.
The guy nodded to the other two dudes, the ones that had carried me here, who were standing on either side of my antique surgical bed, on either side of a metal machine…with wires attached to my skin.
Oh my God. I knew what this was.
Mack's premonition had come true.
Abruptly, some of the worst pain I'd ever known lanced from my head down my spine, into my legs and arms. It was like fire, but not like fire. My brain was shorting out, couldn't even comprehend this, yet it seemed it was all I had ever been- just a mass of nerves being electrocuted.
It stopped as abruptly as it had started, and I felt my back fall back onto the bed-thing, crushing my twitching wings. The part of my brain that wasn't scrambling to come back to itself hoped fervently these guys couldn't see my fried feathers.
When had my back arched off the bed in the first place?
Everything ached now. Everything.
Fang was yelling something, and I could hear the air rush on the other end of the com as he rushed to get to me.
"Max? Max, what's going on?" Nudge had woken up in all the commotion.
My throat was stinging and parched. Had I screamed? I couldn't remember.
"Now. Tell us. What is the nature of the professor's work?" The whitecoat ski mask guy went on.
Could I still form words after this? I wasn't sure. It was probably better to stay quiet.
More pain. Another shock. I could feel the electricity licking at my brain, my nerve endings, and the knobs on my spine, the bones in my legs, toes, fingers, and arms.
I couldn't hear myself scream past the sizzling hurt in my ears.
But I could feel the vibrations in my throat.
I thrashed against the wires, against the bonds holding me down. But they wouldn't give an inch.
"What is the nature of the professor's work?"
"I don't know!" I manage, my tongue not wanting to cooperate. Parts of my body are still twitching and seizing.
Another jolt, this one somehow hotter, stronger, than the last two. These things can turn up a notch?
"Max," Fang is gasping when I find my body again, and his voice is almost a sob.
"Max, hang on, we're coming, I promise, we're coming. The kids are trying to get the Convention to stay upstairs, just hang on…" Mack's voice.
I could hear everyone else's, too, if I focused hard enough.
"What is the nature of the professor's work?"
Oh, God, not again.
I was panting and sweating and I felt like I was going to die or fall apart or crumble into ash, but I had to give this guy some sort of answer.
"Darwin's theory of evolution, Max, tell him you were working on that," Mack advised frantically.
"I already told you, I don't freaking know!" It was so hard to think past what had just happened. "He was just beginning to discuss Darwin's theory on evolution with me when he was arrested!"
I didn't even know what the hell I was saying. Who was Darwin, and why did he care about evolution?
"Lies!" Screamed my captor, and there came the awful pain again, licking at my sanity, turning me inside out, hurting me so, so badly…
Whitecoats were the most awful things to ever set foot on this planet.
I know I screamed again. There was no way to stop myself.
The pain disappeared, as did what was left of my brain. Who were the voices in my ear, yelling my name? Who were these fuzzy white people hovering over me?
"Tell us!" One of them ordered.
Tell them what?
It was all I could do to whimper and blink out tears through my sobs. I had thought whimpers were stupid before, but I saw the appeal in them now.
Suddenly, I saw the flock, (the flock? Were those real people I actually knew, or…?) jump through one of the broken windows at ground level.
The lights went out. I could hear thumps, groans, grunts, and yelps.
Whatever was attached to my skin (there had been things attached to my skin?) was ripped off, stinging a bit. Whatever had been holding down my wrists and ankles (oh, that was why I hadn't been able to escape the pain) were broken open.
And as hands pulled me off whatever flat surface I was laying on (I had been laying down?) I slipped away…
Yikes. Well that wasn't the most pleasant thing to write. I'm sorry, ladies and gentleman, but for the sake of plot and character development, it had to be done. I tried to keep everything lined up with the premonition…Did I succeed? Review and let me know! And don't forget to go vote in the poll!