I woke up in a large, white tiled room. I was in a matching white hospital bed, in a pale blue hospital gown. Oh, joy.
I opened my eyes and saw Fang on the bed opposite me. His dark eyes were surveying me. He was between Nudge and Gazzy. I tried moving and found I wasn't strapped to the bed. That's one good thing, at least.
"Report," I coughed out.
"Yup," Angel said.
"Here," Iggy called out.
"I'm fine," Ivy's voice drifted from the other side of the room. I turned my stiff neck and saw her, on a bed that was near Chase's. The younger bird kids were a little separated from the rest of us.
"Okay. Okay," I said, half to myself. I needed to figure this out, get us out of this mess like I always did. Because I was the leader. I shot Fang a pained look and he just shrugged in response.
This was really hopeless. I flopped back onto my bed when I heard a noise. It was a key turning in a lock. The door opened and a young woman with frizzy dark brown hair spoke out timidly.
"Subject Chase and Subject Ivy?" she asked. Them again? Ivy got up uncertainly. Chase was right after her, bounding off his bed. With one last look at us, they disappeared out the door.
! #$%^&*
What would they do now? Ivy already knew the answer, but she could still hope. She missed drawing. Compared to the fear experiments, anything was better. Fear experiments. The name she had given these tests echoed around her mind.
They led her into the same white room and locked the door after her. The dreaded intercom crackled again.
"Well, hello, Subjects. We will now proceed with Test 4, to begin shortly." After a small chuckle, the intercom disconnected.
There was another sound of gears, and already, Ivy was beginning to shake. Chase was scared she'd have another meltdown. The room got smaller quickly, until every wall of the square room was fifteen feet long. It stopped abruptly.
Slowly, Ivy opened the eyes she had squeezed shut. For a few seconds, there was nothing. Finally, a hatch opened in a corner. They stared at it. A small, steady current of water started to flow out of it. It started shooting out with more strength, and more hatches appeared, all of them shooting out streams of water that got bigger and bigger.
They understood the trap. The ceiling had been also lowered, and the room was beginning to fill up. Their bare feet were already covered in freezing water. A large faucet appeared, unfolding from the wall, and started to dump water even faster.
"Can you swim?" Ivy asked Chase, watching the water rise quickly, covering her calves. Chase nodded. Luckily, they could both swim. The water rose up. Getting faster every second, it was now covering Ivy's knees and right below Chase's. The room got even smaller, making the water rise up until their waists.
"I'm cold." Ivy shivered. The water was freezing, and up to her waist. She shot a terrified look at Chase who was also trying to do his best and be brave. Another faucet appeared, making the sound of pouring water almost deafening. It was up to both their chests now, and it hadn't been more than two minutes. Ivy didn't know how much of this she could stand.
"Oh, and this time, the tests will last seven minutes," the intercom added.
They exchanged a look of pure terror. There were still five minutes left. Since Chase was a little taller than Ivy, the water was just under his neck, when Ivy's whole shoulders were covered. She shivered as he water started to rise of to her chin.
When her chin was under water, Ivy started floating up, trying to move her arms in rhythm to stay floating. She assumed she could float until the test was over, until she felt something hard on the top of her head. She was touching the ceiling.
"I'm gonna drown," she told Chase anxiously.
"No," he reminded her. "Remember last time? They only want to test on us."
"What if we die in the process? They have plenty of other mutants." Chase didn't have an answer for that one. He fond her cold hand underwater and she clung onto it like it was preserving her life.
The water was right under Ivy's nose. She inhaled once and it covered her completely. She squeezed Chase's hand tightly as she held her breath. She opened her eyes a little and saw his blurry face. She was choking, her lungs felt like they were crumpling. She coughed and let out the air she was holding in. She gasped and choked as Chase watched, trying to scream underwater.
Ivy let go of Chase's hand. He watched her cough and flail underwater. She couldn't drown! He watched in horror as he felt himself freeze. He shook underwater, letting the air escape him, feeling the electricity coursing through him. The air crackled as the whole underwater room lit up. What Chase was feeling was nothing compared to Ivy, surrounded in a blue lightning bolt she had created herself.
The room opened up and drained, letting the two limp subjects fall to the ground, both soaked and unmoving. Dr. Hinters wrote all this down, pushing a strand of messy light brown hair behind her ear. She watched the screens and her husband watched her as she jotted down her conclusions.
When faced with near-death experiences, Subject Ivy displays a survival sequence. She dispels at least 200 million volts, with 18 milliampères, just under the 20 milliampères needed to be lethal. She paused, putting back her pen. Her daughter really was interesting to observe.
! #$%^&*
I was doing nothing when the door swung open. I jumped off of the bed to go see Ivy and Chase. Ivy was staggering, leaning on Chase to stay upright. They were both soaked and smelled like they had been hit by lightning. I picked Ivy up and set her down on the nearest bed, Chase's.
I pulled back wet hair from her face.
"What happened?" I asked her. She just gurgled and let herself fall onto the bed. I turned to Chase.
"They were testing our fears and they tried to drown us. Ivy was drowning and she made lightning. In the water. So we got electrocuted," he finished. He looked up at me again. "Will she be okay? I tried to save her, really."
"She'll be fine," I muttered. I was so angry I could just punch a wall. Why not? I could at least damage some of the hidden equipment. I drew my fist back and punched the wall hard. Nothing happened, there was only this hollow noise. I punched again, followed my other hand, until I was steadily beating up the wall. I was barely aware of blood and pain, but I kept going.
I vented out all my anger, and with every punch it hurt more, and that made me even angrier. I drew back even harder and punched the wall the hardest yet. My fist made a cracking sound. I sucked in a breath and tried to hit the wall again, when someone held back my arm.
I turned around wildly to see Fang.
"Don't hurt yourself," he said. I was about to break and lash out at him too.
"I'm tired of this! I'm tired of them hurting me and Ivy and everyone else, I'm tired of running and getting caught, why do they always win—"
He cut me off by pressing his mouth to mine. I didn't even try to talk or resist, I just closed my eyes. We hadn't really mentioned our relationship, or lack thereof, in a long time. I'd just been too caught up with Ivy and the flock.
He pulled away, and when I opened my eyes, he was there.
"I'm here for you. Don't forget that," he whispered then disappeared to his bed like only he can. I walked back to my bed like a zombie, still dazed. All eyes were trained on me, and I realized the flock must have been watching.
Great. I scarred five-year-olds. I am such a good mother. I flopped onto my bed and lay there. Before, the humming, quiet chatter, and bored tapping filled the silence.
Slowly, noise started up again. Angel kept talking to Total about everything, maybe her life's story. Iggy tapped in irregular beat on the wall to have something to hear. Nudge started humming a song; Gazzy imitated random people he'd heard. Softly, boredom continued.
I was acutely aware of Fang's silence. I was left with weird feelings I labeled under "Fang" in my mind that scrambled everything even more. Listening harder, I heard small noises, almost like whimpers, then coughing.
I shot up and ran towards Ivy as she coughed up some water and fluttered her eyes open. I held her in a sitting position. She opened her eyes.
"What?" was the first thing she said. I didn't blame the kid.
"You made lightning," I said. Her eyes opened wide.
"In the water?" she asked. I nodded.
"When I got my powers, I stole a book on electricity, to learn how to use it. I could have died," she said, realizing the gravity of the situation. I nodded, not wanting to hide the truth.
There was knocking at the door and I prepared to use whoever would come in as a punching bag. The door swung open to reveal a woman, a whitecoat. She had messy, wavy light brown hair in a loose bun and hazel eyes.
"I'm Dr. Hinters, and I need to document Subject Ivy's electric powers." I was about to be horribly nasty when I saw Ivy's eyes go wide and fill with tears. She had the face of an abandoned puppy, one to rival Nudge's Bambi eyes.
When she did speak, it was barely a whisper. "Mommy?"
A/N: Review if the cliffy makes you want to read more! Review if you hated it! Review no matter what's going through your head right now!
Fly on!
~greysky3