Unimaginable

By: Ashleyia days

Chapter Three: Remembrance

Previously...

"You're not going to sacrifice yourself for us."

I closed my eyes, unsure of how to make him see. "My life isn't worth anything if we don't get out. I can't stand to see everyone I know locked behind bars for all of eternity. Even if I'm left, then I'd still feel relief."

"Give it a couple years, Max. Think it out before you act. Do at least that much for me and I might agree. First, we need time to adjust, though. Not everyone is as ready as you are."

"Take as long as you need. We're going to get out of here."

"Max?" I groaned, rolling over. I was used to the stiffness that came from sleeping in cages. It was all I knew. The white-coats slept on beds where you didn't wake up sore every morning. It was such a luxury. They get to sleep in mounds of covers, sheets, and bedspreads, while we-- the ones who had to do all the physical stuff-- slept on hard metal. It's not fair. But our lives have always been unfair.

"Go away!"

"Max." Jeb's voice sounded again, shattering my hopes at getting anymore sleep. " I need to tell you something."

It was Jeb, of course. It just had to be Jeb. Of all the whitecoats in the building, they just had to send him... "Well, what is it, then?" I grumbled propping myself up on my elbows, giving him a glare that I impressed myself with. I cast a look around to make sure Arrow's flock was all there. Though I'd already told myself I wouldn't get close to them-- I couldn't put them at risk like that-- I decided I could probably still make sure their all right. Especially, Azura, the little girl who was afraid of her own wings.

To my surprise when I looked up to meet Jeb's eyes they were full of true sadness. In my confusion, I locked my gaze on Arrow, who looked as startled as I was. "Max-I really don't know how to say this to you." He leaned over, against arrows cage self-consciously. "I-It's your flock, Max. Fang, Iggy, Angel, Nudge, Gazzy...Our Erasers found them--"

"No!" I shouted, unaware that I'd even done so until the news sunk in again. I fought keep my voice under control as I spoke my next words slowly."Are they...coming back now, then?"

"No, Max. They fought...too hard. It was an accident really. An Eraser malfunction. They're not coming back. They all died."

The news meant nothing to me until I felt its impact on my stomach. It was a low jolt that stung horribly. I was the last member on the flock. Not even my Angel survived. So young, too, all of them. Fang, the oldest, was only thirteen, like myself! How could simple Eraser 'malfunction' kill an entire group of kids? Surely there would have been someone there to stop them?

Anger, pain, and rejection made my eyes fill with tears. I noticed that Jeb was gone already, but how could I care? The only reason I'd fought to live all these years were all gone. Gone... "I don't believe it." I cried softly, wishing I was strong enough that I wouldn't cry at all.

"Please," Arrow said from the next cage over. He too, looked slightly paler from the information he'd acquired. "I know you need to mourn, but in this place, a weakness is a weakness. If the white-coats saw you like this they would find some reason to test on you."

"Arrow, worry about yourself. As you pointed out last night, I'm not part of your flock, so you need to leave me out of all this, okay? You have to focus on the people you need to protect the most...not want to." I was still unsure of how to tell Arrow's emotions apart. He was much like Fang--he often kept them to himself. Despite this, I could tell how much he wanted to argue, even when knowing perfectly well that I was right.

"Max, how can you stand knowing that your flock is...dead? Why aren't you screaming at me, or something?"

"We all die, some earlier than others. I was expecting them to all die, but I thought I'd be with them... Either way, I was prepared. You've got to be when you run a flock that all are keen on escaping from the first time they develop enough of a mind to think. And anyway, I wouldn't scream at you. It's not even you're fault. Jeb however..."

"So basically, you're going to wait until the white-coats let you have some peace from everyone, including us, and then you'll cry? Even if it's ten years from now?"

"Pretty much."

A few days passed and my mood continued to damper a bit every day. Arrow keep reminding me that it was bad to keep all your feelings bottled up inside you...that I should just let it go and cry. I told him to bug off and let me keep my pride. Amazingly, that scared him off enough that I could continue my life in peace.

The white-coats hadn't come in since I'd arrived to stay with Arrow's flock, and it made me curious. Eventually, Arrow admitted that my flock had been the main experiments. While one of my flock would have been taken everyday, someone from Arrow's would only get taken away about once a month. I tried to keep my anger down...everything painful always seemed to center around me and my lack of luck.

"They'll come today." Arrow stated suddenly, snapping me from my dazed state. I was partially glad, but then again, I wasn't. There wasn't much we hadn't talked about in the last couple days, except he still kept extra information about his flock far from her ears. "It's been a month today. I hope they don't take Daela. But she hasn't been taken in eleven months, so it's more than likely..."

"Arrow," I sighed, wishing I could reach him through the bars. Somehow, it just wasn't fair that his arms were long enough to reach that far. "will you quit going on about it? I know you;re worried...so am I, but saying the same things over and over isn't going to get us anywhere."

"What else is there to do?' I couldn't help but stare at him in shock . I was the type to loose my temper anytime I felt like it--which was often-- but Arrow had always been cool and collected, much as Fang always...was. "Geez! We get to sit in a cage all day talking to each other--maybe--and only get out to exercise--rarely. What else can we do that isn't worrying?"

"I'm sorry, but it's isn't going to do anything except make you scared. In my flock before we...tried to escape, we knew that we had to block off those feelings. Even Angel."

"Max, we're not your flock. You're not ours and you never will be. Thanks for the advice, but no thanks." He snapped the words out in a rush. Tears burned behind my closed eyelids as I turned away. Let them take him, I thought in my bitterness, forgetting an early lesson I'd been taught; What goes around comes around.

"I know," I whispered back quietly, only audible to myself and maybe Arrow, "because the people who really care about me are dead. You don't see how good you have it." If he heard me, he didn't reply back. It was the most I could ask for.

I didn't know I'd been asleep until I was jolted awake by a curious looking white-coat-- A newbie, I thought.-- along with Jeb who averted my gaze as he motioned for me to get out. The truth dawned on me. They weren't taking one of Arrow's flock today; they were taking me!

Perhaps they didn't know that I wasn't accepted as part of his flock.

"I'm notgetting out." I practically snarled at Jeb, wrenching my arm from his soft grip. I couldn't trust this man anymore. "Especially not for you."

"That's good then, Max, because I'm not the one taking you. He is." Jeb thrust his head towards the man in a gesture that looked comforting. Yes, that was sarcasm. I stayed stock-still, wondering what they would do if I continued to refuse. Most likely I would be taken forcefully, or with tranquilizer darts. Ugh.

I knew Jeb didn't want to make our relationship any worse, so he couldn't yell at me. I smiled smugly at him as he looked at me, almost bug-eyes at my refusal. The white-coat was looking between us, confused. I could have laughed at the expression on his face, but I was trying to be serious, even if it wasn't working.

"You'd better get out." Jeb sighed. "Just do it, Max. I hate forcing you to do things like this."

"Oh yes," I said back, noticing my voice was practically dripping with sarcasm. "You'd hate to force me to go to tests every day of my stinkin' life! And yet, you still do! Amazing!"

The white-coat still watched, his face now calculating as he wrote a few notes down on a clipboard I just then noticed he was carrying. Lovely. Now they had even more notes on the notorious Maximum Ride, the wondrous girl-bird freak. Jeb opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off, knowing that we weren't getting anywhere. "Fine, I'll go, but I'd just like you to remember that I hate you for what you did to them."

Despite his natural calm, I still expected him to lash out in some way. When he didn't, I sighed. Some people never change.

Jeb stayed behind as the white-coat led me out of the room, casting a few nervous glances behind himself--checking on me, I suppose. I still have no idea why they do that--surely they knew that I had no motivation to get out of the School. I just wanted the smaller ones out. They didn't deserve to die here.

I did.

I failed my flock, a crime that I'd be ashamed of until I die. Though they got their moments of freedom, I was the one still alive here. So far, if Jeb had told me correctly, I'd lived exactly an entire week without my flock...and two since I'd last seen them with my very own eyes. I did have a small picture that I kept with me at all times, but that was my only reminder.

Jeb was the one who made the picture possible, surprisingly enough. Somehow, he'd managed to sneak us all out of out cages and snapped a photo quickly, and giving both Fang and I a copy before he retreated, rather sheepishly. "Where are we going already?" I asked the white-coat suddenly, rolling my eyes when he jumped. He didn't answer--they never answer.

The hallways of the School bored me to no end. There were an endless amount of turns-- so many that even my great memory couldn't keep up with the lefts, rights, and various backtracks. It was all to confuse me, so I wouldn't be able to find my way out. There was a large possibility that the place where I was going was right down the hall from the starting point. Oh, the insanity of white-coats.

"This is-" I started.

"Maximum Ride." I raised my eyes to a prompt, strict looking woman in the scientific coats that were too familiar. Another white-coat, then. Though I didn't show it, I was surprised--usually the white-coats called me by my number rather than my name. "I believe I have to explain something."

"I think you're right."

She ignored me, just as I suspected. "You've been decided a danger to your current...roommates. You're stress levels are much too high--"

"Don't talk to me in that phony science language stuff. Talk so a regular person could understand you!"

"--The Board has decided to dedicate a few...recently discovered techniques on you, to test your reactions and possibly give us the chance to put you back with the others."

"Basically," I sighed, "you want to try some new tests that are potentially life threatening on me because I'm the one who most likely is effected by the recent death of my entire flock, courtesy of the Erasers. You don't want to try it out on the others because their too young, or are required in upholding the second flock, am I right?"

The woman looked flustered. I realized she probably wouldn't answer my question. "Whatever. Just take me wherever I'll be living until I die of some reactions from the drugs or pills or surgeries that you're going to do on me. I just hope it's a larger cage. Those middle sized dog crates are a little too small for my liking."

"O-of course." She smiled weakly. "I suppose I will."

The white-coats never cease to amaze me with their...

I don't even have a word for it.

Flashback

"You know," said a younger Fang to Max as they talked their way through another endless day stuck in their dull cages. The others were asleep, and they whispered as not to awake the small children who didn't deserve this life at all. "if we ever get out of here, the first thing I'm going to do is get a blog."

"What's that?" Max asked him, curious. It was a new term to her, after all.

"A blog is like, I don't know, a place to tell other people about yourself and who your family is and what you like--that kind of stuff I guess. I think you can do whatever you want."

"What could you use a blog for?"

"Well, if we ever get out of here I want to tell everyone about the School and what they do do people like us...the tests. We could tell the entire would and everyone would rebel and then we wouldn't have to run or hide. We could actually walk the streets without being caught by those weird wolf things."

"Erasers. Fang, if you put a blog up, could the white-coats just track it down?"

"I don't know, but even if they can, I'll still do it."

"Only you Fang, only you."

I'd love for everyone to note that in the flashback, Fang and Max are several years younger, about six or seven. Please don't ask about how Fang knows about blogs...it's not really something I want to explain in long detail...

As you may or may not have noticed, I didn't update until I had a total of five reviews for this chapter. I will try to update ever time I get 5 reviews, but I can't promise anything! I really hope this is going right...don't worry, Max will escape sometime soon, I'm testing all your guys's patience. Stick with the story. And if you have this story on your alert list, I'd really like it if you reviewed...please...

Review Responses

the epitome of randomness-Erm, I can't speak German...I've tried but I'm terrible at it... And, as you can see from this chapter, I don't plan on making Max and the other flock get along real well. Max may have a little kindness towards the younger of Arrow's flock, but that's only because she doesn't think they deserve the life they have.

Summer Johnson-Yippee! Someone who actually thinks I have good grammar. My Engish teachers have always said I'm terrible, even though I was in the higher english classes every year...Oh well. Glad you liked the update!

Kyphus Maltorix-If you can't tell by now, I love making people feel important. I put these at the bottom of the page because I think some people deserve to be noted for their kindness to review. Then again, it's also because I have always personally wanted a space down here...hmm.

Kyphus brought up a good point. I think everyone should know that Brytt is pronounced like the word 'bright' and it comes from the Old English language. Dyami (Duh-yah-mee) is from a Native American tongue. Azura, means 'sky blue' in Persian.

And, I'm quite glad you like my story:)

-No.Day.But.Today- -NDBT- Thanks!!

BlackVampireKat- Well, it had to stop, because...erm...I have no idea. Perhaps it's because I had no idea what else to write at the time? I'm confusing myself now...

Glad you liked the extra characters. I wasn't sure how everyone else would like me adding them in and when I didn't hear anything I was a little worried I was giving everyone a negative effect or something... Sorry, but I can't help but inform you that they won't be playing any major role until a little later in the story...I've got this planned out in my head, so now I just have to get everything down on paper!

Review! See that little button? Can't you hear it? It's screaming "PUSH ME!"

Obey the command!