I don't own MR

Part 4: Purgatory

Max

I was dead.

I had to be. There was no other explanation. How else could I feel so weightless? How else could I be consumed into the breeze? How else could I feel so much pain and yet none at all? The answer was there was no other possibility. I had to be dead.

I couldn't be alive, not with this feeling in my heart. This feeling of guilt and remorse, and agonizing pain that refused to reach me physically. What other reason did I have to feel guilty other than leaving my brother, and my boyfriend, and my friends to rot in cells just beneath the school while I got a freebie. What other reason did I have for this earth-shattering pain to run through my veins; to emotionally scar me in a way I didn't even know was real? There was no other reason.

Maximum Ride was dead and gone, a hollow shell left to disintegrate. That's all I was. That's all that was left of me. A shell. A piece of flesh and bone that was cold to the touch and smothered in its own blood. Something left to be manipulated, something left to be autopsied, something left for the school to play their final games on. A body that looked like it belonged to Max. A form that had her dull brown eyes and messy dirty blonde hair. A limp figure wearing her clothes.

But she wasn't Max, because I was Max. Wasn't I? I wasn't sure anymore. I was too lost in the world of death to know who I was. Or even if I was still able to think. There was too much running through my mind, and too many questions I'd never have answered because somehow my body was dead, even though my thoughts soared on, alive as ever. Or maybe they were Ari's thoughts, or Fang's. Maybe they were somebody else's thoughts I was hearing. Maybe after death you could still hear.

Maybe after death you could still live. It was a strange phenomenon I didn't want to question. Thinking about it made my brain shudder- or, not my brain. I was dead. I didn't have a brain anymore. I was nothing more than the wind that rushed through someone's hair, or the creaking that nobody investigated.

Purgatory.

I wasn't dead.

I couldn't be. There was only one possible explanation to his voice. I was still alive. Or Maybe I had died, and come back once again. A living, breathing zombie who wasn't quite as dull. "Max!" Fang.

It was his voice that awoke me from my slumber stuck in some world that wasn't really a world. It was more like a nothing, where I felt my thoughts, but nothing else. Where I knew what I felt without feeling correctly.

All at once my life slammed back into me like a freight train, the pain of my injuries catching up to however long I had been gone, the agonizing thoughts of my friends being experimented on climbing back into the front of my mind, but most importantly Fang's desperate shrieks were finally heard from my ears.

It happened so fast. He was screaming my name one moment, and the next he was silent. A deadly silent. It was like flicking a switch you couldn't see. You didn't know when it was going to happen, but when it did, it did, and you still couldn't find it. There was still too many unanswered questions, too many blank spots.

"Fang," I coughed out, my fingers subconsciously curling into the tee shirt that my holder was wearing. I immediately knew it wasn't my boyfriend. The muscles were too tight, the shoulders too obvious, the strength too noticeable.

Ari.

"Max! You're awake!" My older brother cried out, a hint of cheer in his voice that was easily clouded with panic. He always panicked. Ari would have been a great leader if not for his prone panic attacks when something went wrong. He didn't know how to keep a level head no matter how much he pretended he did.

But that wasn't important, what was important was the one person in my life I wished meant nothing to me. Because if only he meant nothing to me my life would be so much easier. I couldn't be brave, deceitful, notorious Maximum Ride with Fang around. I could only be sarcastic, and loving, and teasing. It wasn't me, but that didn't matter either right now.

"Where's Fang?" I croaked weakly, stumbling out of Ari's grip. My brother tried in vain to catch me from my tumble, but it was too late, my knees had already slammed into the pristine tiles, and my hands were already reached out to hold my upper body up as I tried not to lose whatever contents was in my stomach to the sheer movement of dropping a few feet.

"He… uh, well, don't panic-" Ari started, and I snorted, then broke out into a coughing fit. Blood splattered the white tiles, adding a menacing glare to them that made me wonder. A little blood changed the whole demeanor of the hallway. It was like one drop of something bad made the whole place begin to fill with that aura. I knew the school was bad, but it had never looked bad to me. It always looked nice, well kept, except for when there was crimson red staining the perfect white, ruining it. Then it looked horrible. Like a nightmare.

"He turned the corner and disappeared into thin air," Iggy summed up suddenly, and it took me a moment to look up at the blue-eyed boy and understand who he was. Iggy, your best friend, I reminded weakly, and tried to keep my brain from exploding in pain with the memories that flooded back to me. I knew Iggy, Iggy knew me. We were friends. I could never forget him. I didn't want to.

"Oh no," I mumbled, a feeling of dread washing over me. I knew what that meant. Disappearing into thin air was not a good idea at the School. It might seem crazy in any other place in the world, but at the School that could only mean one thing.

The Illusion Test.

I wished at that very moment that I could switch places with Fang, take the pain away from him, take his drizzling sanity and reassure him he wasn't crazy, but I couldn't. Not with Fang stuck in an illusion. It was the worst kind too. I had never actually gone through one of the illusion test. Jeb had always kept them from me. He had never wanted his daughter to be stuck living her worst fear, stuck thinking it was true, stuck being driven insane by a smoke that filled the air and hid her from view. So he never used it on me. But now he was using it on Fang, and I couldn't allow that.

I needed to explain. I needed to tell them why Fang had been screaming so wildly, why he had suddenly stopped, why we couldn't see him, but I couldn't. I was too weak. One of my worst fears come to life. I couldn't protect my friends, I couldn't defend the people I loved when they needed me most. I was stuck.

Not dead, but stuck, and that feeling was worse than death. Watching people die was worse than my own life leaving me, and I couldn't let Fang get himself killed over something that wasn't even real.

"Fang," I gasped out, and that one word hurt my throat more than thousands of silent screams ever could. I just wanted to hold him, to tell him I was here, that it was all a bad dream and it would be over soon, but I couldn't. Mostly because I'd be lying, but also because he was trapped and I was stuck and nobody else knew what to do.

"Maybe I should-" Ari started, taking a step forward, but Iggy yanked him back, away from the hallway Fang had turned down, and I silently thanked him. I would hate for two of the most valued people in my life to be going through the agonizing feeling of their worst fear. One was far too much.

Fang, please be alright, I thought, and reached my arm out for the nearest wall. I pushed against it a couple of times, smearing blood on the white, ruining the perfect look, making it seem all the more hideous. Funny how the School was almost like a human being. So perfect on the outside, but so deformed on the inside, so ruined and ugly, so heartless and broken, so twisted and painful. It had the same anatomy as a human being, except for one aspect. Humans could love, and this building most certainly could not.

I tried to stand. The first time I managed to get to my feet, and lean heavily against the wall for support. Ari had rushed over to help me, but I waved him away like a fly who would not leave and attempted to stand on my own two feet without any help or support.

I collapsed.

It was hopeless, I discovered after the second time. Without the wall or somebody to hold me up I would fall. For once I could not be independent. When I truly needed to do something on my own I couldn't. I was weak. I was useless. I might as well have been dead.

But I wasn't.

I was alive, and breathing, and I could move, and so I would make myself stand. I would make myself walk. I would make myself save Fang and help us all. I could not stand for being useless, I could not let myself be defeated by something as small as a physical injury. They never truly hurt anyways. Not as bad as a broken heart, or an injured pride, and so I would push through. I had to.

Groaning, I found myself leaning against the wall once again. This time however, I tested my weight on both feet, and found my right one almost useless and my left one only slightly helpful to the situation. "We… need to… get Fang," I spoke up finally, after watching everyone watch me stand on my own with the help of the wall, after refusing their help so many times. I could do this. I could be something. I could be a tool worth using.

The words scratched at my throat, but my boyfriend's well being was more important than minor physical pain.

"How though?" Iggy asked, and I looked to the hallway he had gone down, carefully inching my way towards it.

"I'll… go. If I'm not…" my voice broke and I doubled-over, before falling to my knees, heaving nothing but the meager bit of saliva in my mouth onto the floor. I hadn't eaten in too long, but I couldn't even think of food right now. The physical exertion of standing so many times, of trying to force myself to be something, was exhausting and too much for me to handle. Black dots crossed my vision and I struggled to stay awake, to stay alive. I couldn't stop fighting until I knew Fang was safe.

"No you won't," Ari said, and I found him squatted down next to me, brushing my untamed hair out of my eyes and holding it back as I spat a mixture of blood and saliva onto the floor, once again ruining its amazing aesthetics.

"Need to… help… Fang," I moaned weakly, leaning against my brother in utter defeat. I had no idea what to do. I couldn't help him, and Ari didn't know what was going on. Maybe if I could remind him… maybe if I told him what Fang was going through he would know. "Illusion," I gasped out, staring into his eyes desperately, looking for recognition in those chocolate brown eyes that were identical to mine, only they held more depth. More longing for a girl he could never have, more panic for the situation he was stuck in, more emotions than I could ever know how to feel.

I searched for something. A spark, a blink of knowledge, anything that would tell me he knew what I was talking about. All I saw was confusion. "Illusion test," I tried again, begging him to understand, to know. To have at least heard of it from Jeb once in his lifetime. Suddenly, I saw it, that spark. He knew, and the look of horror followed by determination told me he was far too familiar with this test, and he would do whatever he could to get Fang out of it.

"Guys!" He didn't even look in Iggy's or Lupo's direction. He was too busy staring at me, his chocolate brown eyes boring into my own as we shared a conversation through simple blinks of acknowledgement.

"I have an idea,"

Welp the beginning of the final or second-to-final part of Fugitives. How does it feel guys? To know we've made this huge 62 chapter journey and are finally coming closer to a conclusion? It's wild, it's unbelievable. It's not even over yet and I'm already wanting to write long drawn-out thank you's at the AN's.

Anyways, to the most recent guest review on the last chapter who called me a 'sick person in a good way' I would like you to know that review is what made me decide to update and what pushed this chapter out. Not to say the rest of your reviews don't push me, because they do. Each and every review I get fuels my writing, this one just happened to push me over the top and so I'd like to thank you, Guest reviewer, you will never know how much that means to me.

Anyways, I will end this AN by saying MPHKnows has a one-shot up based off of a song I recommended and the title of the story is Animal, so please go read an review that story. It would mean a lot to both of us.

Soar on

VR