Gravity. Don't mean too much to me.

I'm who I've got to be. These pigs are after me, after you.

Run away. Like it was yesterday.

And we could run away…

My eyes were open and I lay on my back, listening to My Chemical Romance come out

of my iPod. I swung my legs out of bed and looked at the clock. It was four o'clock in the

morning, and today was my first day of high school.

I let my feet drop three feet to the black shag carpeting of my room and slipped my feet

into my memory foam panda slippers. I walked across the room to my dresser and sang along to

the music as I got my yoga clothes.

My room is really big: fifty feet long by sixty feet wide. The ceiling is seventy feet tall

and painted like the night sky. In the center is a sky light that opens up to the roof. I have a

canopy bed that is completely black with lace curtains and it sits against the wall farthest from

the door. A window is directly above my headboard, and it looks out on a corn field. There's a

ninety inch plasma screen T.V. on the wall across from my bed, a WII system, an X-box Kinect,

and a ps2. I have a desk near my bed, and a laptop that I got for free sits on top.

I also have a walk in closet that is twenty feet long by forty feet wide. I keep the clothes I

wear to school and around the house in there. I also keep my yoga equipment there along with

really expensive technology like my iPad and Nook.

I got my yoga stuff set up and laid it out on the ground. I put the yoga DVD in the DVD

player and got to work. My iPod switched to my yoga playlist: falling water with birds chirping.

I stretched my white wings out and fluttered my feathers. I followed the woman on my T.V.

screen for a half hour. I felt relaxed afterwards.

I put my stuff away in my closet and picked out an outfit for school. I went with a black,

skinny strap tank, black skinny jeans, and a tan jacket that only came down to my belly button,

and black combat boots. I crimped my hair and looked in the mirror. I put on mascara, eyeliner,

and eye shadow, then painted my nails black.

Now my iPod was playing Mushroom Head now, so I had to turn it down, that way

Angel and Nudge wouldn't wake up. I heard soft knocking at my door and figured it was Angel.

I though, Come in, Angel. The door didn't open, but the knocking repeated.

"Come in," I said quietly. The door opened slowly and Fang's face appeared. "Good

morning. What's up?" He shut the door quietly and sat down on my bed.

"Good morning. Have you seen Iggy?" He stared at me for a moment, piercing me with

his dark eyes. "Or Gazzy, or Nudge, or Angel?" His face was worried and he had an expression I

had never seen on his face.

"No, I haven't. Hang on, gimme a minute." I shut my eyes and thought, Angel, where are

you? Do you have Iggy, Gazzy, and Nudge with you? I waited a minute and thought it again. I

opened my eyes. "I'm not getting anything. She's either choosing to not respond or she's too far

away." I sat down on the bed next to him.

"Are you excited for school today, Fang?" He looked up at me, nodded, and went back to

staring at his hands. We sat next to each other in silence for several minutes. My iPod stopped at

the end of my playlist.

Knock, knock, knock. I stood up and walked quickly to the door. I was thankful for the

distraction, because I was starting to get uncomfortable sitting next to Fang. I opened the door

quickly, and stepped back, forgetting that he was still with the flock.

"Good morning, Max. Can I come in?" Dylan flashed his white teeth sadly at Fang and

came in. "I can't believe I still ask for permission to enter." He shook his head slowly. I shut the

door behind him and went to get my school supplies together. He followed me into my closet and

the doors closed silently.

"What do you want, Dylan" I snapped. "I need to get ready for school. Isn't that what you

should be doing, too?" I put a pack of pencils and some paper into my school bag.

"We aren't allowed to wear our train pajamas to school? Why not?" Dylan's face fell,

and I laughed.

"Dylan, we're fourteen. You aren't supposed to be wearing train pajamas…especially the

Little Engine that could P.J.'s. Go get dressed, dummy." I turned and left the room. I went over

to the bed and grabbed my iPod and cell phone, then got my laptop off my desk.

As I passed my closet, I noticed that Dylan was still standing inside, touching one of my

satin dresses, which I never wore. "Hey! Get outta my closet!" He ignored me and moved on to

another dress. He poked his head out of the closet and looked at Fang. "Fang! Get him outta my

closet!"

Dylan stepped back inside and said quietly, "Man, I miss her. Why'd she have to go and

get hit by a train? She could've flown away but she let it hit her. We didn't even know that she

left. Just like Iggy, Gazzy, Nudge, and Angel. They left in the middle of the night and turned up

dead at six o'clock the morning after, dead on those tracks."

"Yeah, I know, but it's been six months already and neither of us are gone. They all died

within a week of each other. But the sad thing is, I still have conversations with her, or at least I

pretend to," Fang said, looking up from his hands. "And the weird thing: they didn't have wings

when they were found. None of them. They had no scars or imperfections anywhere, and you

couldn't even tell they were dead."

I dropped to the floor, screaming, "No! No! That's not true! It can't be!" I felt like I was

fading from their lives.

Now, Dylan and Fang were saying, "Goodbye, Max. We love you…"

"Goodbye, Max. We love you." I was covered in sweat, and when my eyes focused, I

saw Nudge, Angel, and Gazzy leaving my room. My throat was sore and dry, and my tongue felt

thick. I turned my head towards the window and saw that it was open. There was snow on the

ground and the only sound was the bus outside waiting for Nudge, Angel, and Gazzy.

I stared out of the window for a while, listening to the birds chirping. My curtains were

drawn so I couldn't see out the window. I was extremely thirsty, but I couldn't get out of bed. I

lifted my arm out to the side. Before I grabbed the curtain, cool fingers touched my arm.

"Oh, good, you're awake," said Fang. He was lying on his side, grinning at me.

"Holy…crap…" My voice was scratchy and it didn't sound like me. "Don't…scare me…like

that."

He whispered, "You're burning up. Want some water?" He was playing with my hair and

all I could do was nod. "I'll be right back, then," he said as he climbed out of my bed.

When he came back, Fang had a gallon of water and a thermometer. He sat on my bed

and took my temperature. I tried to sit up, and he helped me, then he went and turned on the play

station. My favorite game popped up: Tomb Raider. He brought a controller over to me and let

me play.

He grabbed the thermometer out of my mouth as I shot down a bear. I paused the game

and reached for the water. Fang gave it to me, and I drank it all in less than thirty seconds. He

took the empty jug, set it down on the floor by my bed, and picked me up in his arms.

We slid off the bed and he carried me quickly to the bathroom. "What's wrong, Fang?" I

asked, my throat feeling better from the water. I was shivering in Fang's arms and I cuddled

closer to him. He set me down and when he came back, he had two twenty five pound bags of ice

and Dylan with him.

"Your fever is one hundred and six," Fang shouted over the ice, which he was pouring

into the tub. "Come on, Dylan." They turned and left the room.

Even though we've lived here for two years now, I can't get used to our bathroom. There

is a ten foot long sink built into the wall, and opposite it is a fifteen feet wide by two feet tall

linen closet. The toilet is next to the sink, and our shower is twenty feet from it. Our bath is on

the same side of the room as the linen closet, but it is ten feet away from the shower. Our tub is

built into the wall, and the shower has glass walls and tile flooring. Overall, the bathroom is forty

feet long by fifty feet wide. I sat on the toilet – did I mention it's black? – waiting to find out

what I was supposed to do when I fell onto the cool stone floor. I was too weak to get back up so

I lay there, waiting for Fang.

There were steps on the stairs and I lifted my head. The door opened, and Fang walked

in. "Are you O.K.?" he looked down at me, grinning.

"It's cool," I replied, smiling back. He dumped the ice and put me on my feet. Dylan

walked past with two more bags of ice, making that a total of six bags, or 150 pounds of ice.

"What's that for?"

"Since your temperature is so high, we have to put you in the tub so you can cool down,"

said Dylan. "And you have to be completely naked. Here, I'll help you." He was grinning evilly.

It didn't matter how sick I felt, he was going to get his ass kicked before that ever happened.

"No, I'll help her," Fang said, sliding his arm around my waist. "Besides, she's let me do

it before. And I distinctly remember her kicking your ass whenever you offered before. And I'm

guessing that since you're not dead yet, she really is out of her coma." He walked me over to the

tub and pushed Dylan out, shutting the door behind him.

As he was helping me into my bra and panties, I wondered what happened to put me in a

coma. "Hey, I was wondering, how to I slip into a coma?" I held onto his shoulders and stepped

backwards into the tub, plopping down gratefully.

He sat down next to the tub with his back against it. "We don't know what happened.

You went to buy groceries and didn't come back. We put out a missing person's report and a

hospital contacted us and let us know that they had you. You were beat up pretty bad but you

didn't have any life threatening head injuries." He leaned his head back against the edge of the

tub.

"How long?" I asked. I was starting to feel the ice on me and realized that it was melting

fast.

He turned his head toward me. "Two years. And the government bought us this house

when they heard the news. So this is the first time you're seeing it."

"But I know all of the rooms in this house! For some reason I knew that the

govern….wait….two years? That means that I'm…sixteen?"