Chapter 25

An hour after we started, we walked out of the Training room. Dean and I limped along from bruises we had received from the fight. During my try-out for the team, we had obstacles to shoot from behind with. I passed that with one hit on my shoulder and another on my wing. Note to self, I though, remember you have wings now. Paintballs to the wing really sting more than you expect. It was afterwards that we got most of our bruises. We decided top have fun and get rid off all obstacles and have a full out shoot out with the paintball guns until we ran out of paintballs. We can safely say we redecorated the room with bright new colors, even if they were randomized from shooting. It looks like someone went in with buckets of paint and just threw it on the walls.

"Nice shooting," Dean said, "I can see you've played Paintball before. Who taught you?"

"My dad," I replied, "But he died nearly three years ago. Ever since then I kind of stopped playing it. I forgot how much fun it was."

"Well," Dean said, "The others decided you were good enough for the team. How much do you hate the Erasers? I mean most avian kids hate them. The Erasers act as if they own the place, ruling over us like bullies in a playground. Even we, the willing experiments, are sick of them."

"Well," I replied, "They did smash my house around a bit. Tried to attack me for protecting Laura and let's not forget the whole drugging and dragging me here for experimentation thing. So yeah, it's safe to say, I have a grudge against them that won't go away for a long time."

"Say Nathan," Dean asked, "Do you have a last name? There have been rumors that you're the son of one of the whitecoats here. Is it true?"

"Yeah," I replied, "My name is Nathan Corway. My mother is Lea Corway, one of the whitecoats here. My father supposedly died three years ago, as I mentioned earlier, but a body was never found. The FBI was investigating him and it led me to believe he staged his own death. The crimes he was charged with by the FBI made me force myself tobelieve he was dead. I had no use for a father like him, and now my Mother is doing the same work my father did."

"Corway?" Dean repeated, "Lea Corway works here. She was the one who asked me if I wanted to become an experiment. I was an Orphan you see. My parents died in a plane accident when I was young. But there is another person who goes by the name Corway here. He's the head man, Andrew Corway."

"Did you just say Andrew Corway?" I asked, stopping dead in my tracks. I knew that name too well, "Andrew Corway is my father. So he did stage his death. I'll never forgive him for what he did. He was the one who found the key tokeepingpeople like us alive back in the 1990's as far as I can recall the FBI saying, they thoughtI wasn't listening. They found his papers at the lab he worked in. After that he staged his death and left us to fend for ourselves. I'll never forgive him for that. He betrayed my mother, my brother and my sister. He murdered my sister here in one of his experiments and worst of all, he betrayed my trust. I used to look up to him and say that's the man I want to be. Now, I don't even want him back in my life, yet here he is."

"Man," Dean replied, "That's one loony family you got there, Nathan. It seems you and you brother and sister were the only sane ones there."

"We had to look after ourselves," I replied, "My mother was working on finding ways to treat genetic mutations. I was born with a mutation that made my eye color naturally pale violet, but allowed me to see possibilities of the future. She's been trying to find a cure for me and she has. But I refused to take it."

I fell silent then, remembering the pain in my mother's eyes as I told her I no longer needed the cure she had sacrificed her life to create for me. It wasn't something I wanted to talk about and Dean could sense it. We arrived at my room and I said my goodbye to him as I limped in through the door and sat down on the bed. My father was still alive? All this time I had suspected it, but never really looked into it, but all along he had been alive and continuing these experiments? I shook my head in disbelief. Things were just getting weirder and weirder for me. I had to get out and I was taking Laura with me.

Chapter 26

There was a knock at my door and I opened my eyes. I must have fallen asleep and missed my afternoon classes. Yes classes. They had things here to keep us busy. Probably to stop us from trying to escape, the ones that have the bird instinct for freedom that is. Others seemed not to mind living here, or were too afraid of the Erasers to try and escape.

I rolled stiffly off the bed from my bruises and opened the door to find my mother standing there, dressed in her white coat. What does she want now? I thought, as if I can't guess. I noticed the two Erasers outside the door and wonder what they were doing here. No Erasers were allowed in the avian dormitories unless given orders to escort someone, or protect a whitecoat. I moved aside to let my mother in, but closed the door behind her as I noticed the Erasers didn't move.

"What do you want, now?" I asked her, "I don't tend to associate with criminals. Even if half these people are orphans I highly doubt there was any papers to be signed, but they were abducted and are now presumed dead. Human experimentation is illegal."

"Nathan," My mother replied, "We tried for years to experiment on animals for our tests until they were satisfactory, but that never worked. It was designed for the animals, not the humans. We had no way of knowing what would happen unless we tested it on humans."

"The self-righteous, we did nothing wrong speech," I replied, "Spare me the lecture mother. No matter what achievements you have made, it's still criminal, now what is it you want?"

My mothers face hardened and I was unsure of what she was up to. The only time I had seen my mother harden like that was when I was eight years old and wanting a new paintball gun, but mother didn't want me having one, said it was too dangerous. She was dead set on that decision and nothing would change her mind. That was until my father had bought it for me. He bore the brunt of the storm until she calmed down when she saw I had learnt how to use it properly. That same look was now on her face.

"This is for you own good, Nathan," She said, "You may think you don't need the cure for your mutation, but it's damaging to your health. In your new state I don't know what could happen; you need to take the shot. There is the easy way, or there are the two Erasers outside the hall if you decide to take the hard way."

"You should know me by now, Mother," I replied, preparing for a fight, "I always take the hard way. It's a lot more righteous than the easy way. As the saying goes, the easy way isn't always the right way. Remember that when you think back on all you've done. It'll haunt you."

My mother looked at me with sad eyes, but her face remained determined. She called out to the Erasers and they came through the door and began to advance on me, but I was ready to fight them. I had lived in this room for the past week of my life; I knew the angles, the dimensions inside and out. I was ready for a fight in this room. The first Eraser lunged at me, but it was a feint as the second Eraser moved in to attack me from behind, but I hooked the bedside table with my foot and swung it up with force into the attacking Erasers face, smashing the wood and causing him a great deal of pain as splinters entered his skin. The first Eraser lunged at me from behind, but I was ready for the attack and kicked back with my foot hitting him in the stomach and winding him. I turned to my mother.

"You see what you've made me become?" I asked her, "You made me part animal, so when I'm in danger, I act to protect myself. You made me like this mother. Now you see who I really am."

The first Eraser had recovered from his lack of breath and grabbed me from behind, pinning my wings and arms to my body. I swung me feet up and used the wall to flip up over the Eraser, bringing him with me until I flung him through a wall and out into the corridor. Stunned faces looked from the Unconscious Eraser on the floor to me in my room. The Second Eraser had finally finished digging the Splinters out of his face and was really angry. He ran at me and rammed me into the wall, the impact winding me. I was pinned by the Eraser and couldn't move my arms legs or wings. This one was smarter than the other and he grinned at me maliciously. I head butted him in the face, hearing the satisfying crunch as the cartilage in his nose broke, but he didn't let me go. I felt the prick in my neck as my mother injected the cure, felt it sweep through my body like someone had filled my veins with liquid fire, I wasn't lucky enough to bear it and passed out. But not before seeing the sorrow on my mothers face it had come to this, nor the words on her lips

"I'm sorry," She whispered before leaving. The Eraser followed her, leaving me propped against the wall, slowly losing consciousness as the cure worked through my body, ridding me of the mutation I had lived my life with. I had just lost my biggest ticket out of here. I had just lost my foresight…