Chronicles of the Fallen Angel
Sanctuary
After the little stunt that I pulled off, I decided to check out the lunch area, which ended up being on the valley floor. The one that I saw earlier is definitely too small to hold all of these kids. I guess it’s for the grown-ups here. This one is as wide as two football fields put together, length wise. Width wise, it’s about four or five football fields next to each other.
Anyways, lunch looked pretty good. I mean, as soon as I opened the doors, I was filled with the aroma of Mexican food. I looked around the cafeteria to see that everyone was looking at me and the room went dead-silent. I guess I had an impression on people, and it didn’t seem like a very good one.
I made a move to go get some food and tried to ignore everyone, but before I could take a step, I heard very familiar barking. As I turned to see what the barking was for, a big ball of fur jumped up and into my arms, which had quickly caught whatever the object was. As I looked closer, I could tell it was a dog, but what it wanted, I didn’t know. Then it opened its mouth.
“Well, it’s about time you showed up. I was kind of getting bored,” it said with a small, almost unnoticeable Australian accent.
“Tiny?” I asked, incredulously.
“Well, what other dog do you know that can speak English with a trace of an Australian accent?”
“Sorry. I just didn’t expect to see you around…” I said. Then I whispered, “…if you know what I mean.”
“Right!” Tiny jumped out of my arms. “So, I’m guessing you’re hungry. Let’s go get some food and then I’ll introduce you to some friends of mine, S…”
“It’s Max, Tiny. Remember? Just Max,” I quickly interrupted.
“Right, sorry. Got to be careful.” He led me to the food and everything seemed to go back to normal throughout the rest of the cafeteria. “Anyways, where’s F…”
-Sigh- “Tiny, I’d love to talk, but can we please skip that subject? As you can see, he’s not here.”
Tiny, being one of the few to be able to read me, saw the pain in my eyes and quickly changed topics.
“Well, the food here is delicious, if I must say so. Today is Mexican food day, if you haven’t noticed. That reminds me. You love Mexican food, don’t you?”
“Well, it fills the belly, and it doesn’t take long to do so. So yes; I love Mexican food.” I finished piling my platter full of food and moved to find a seat. Tiny led me to a table of people, who, of course, I didn’t know and looked like they didn’t want to get to know me.
“Everyone, this is Max. She’s an old friend of mine. You know…the one who gave me the ability to speak?” he said, trying to introduce me to the others. All I got was a variety of looks from around the table as I sat down.
Tiny tried a different tactic. “Max, this is Eyra,” he pointed to a girl with really dark skin. She looked at me with all eight eyes, got up, and left.
Tiny coughed and moved on. “This is Charcoal,” he motioned to a boy who was super tan and had spiked orange hair. This guy didn’t even bother to look at me as he got up and left. Tiny looked crushed. After those two left, the whole table got up and left, except for one person, who I didn’t see when I arrived at the table and was sitting on my side of the table, but on the very end.
I didn’t try to get to know the kid. I just focused on my food and dug in. However, some of my attention stayed on the kid. What surprised me was when he got up, walked to the other side of the table, and sat down, right in front of me.
“The name’s Blue,” he said as he swung his other leg over the bench. I looked up and stopped eating. It was the Nightcrawler kid. When I looked closer, I noticed that he seemed to genuinely try to be my friend.
“Hi.” Hi. Hi?! You meet someone who will actually give you the time of day at this place and all you can say is “Hi”?!
Blue turned to Tiny. “She doesn’t talk much, does she?” He looked almost disappointed.
Tiny chuckled. “That’s Max for you. She doesn’t talk much…to strangers,” he laughed, “but when you get to know her, she doesn’t seem to ever stop.”
I turned to Tiny and gave him a look. You’re asking for it, Mister.
Tiny just smiled at me and replied, Blue’s right. You need to be more friendly. Besides, he smiled, you just can’t help it when I’m right.
That was it. I knew one thing that’d keep him occupied for a little bit. I started tickling the dog. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s making Tiny quiet.
After a while, I sensed that Tiny had had enough. I stopped and turned back to my food, but before I ate anything, I caught Blue smiling at me.
“What?” I took a bite into a bean-and-cheese burrito.
“You don’t seem the…nice type.” Okay. That caught me off guard.
“And what ‘type’ do I seem as?” I asked.
“The hard-core, no feelings kind. No offense, but everyone thinks you’re something different. To be quite blunt…” he hesitated.
“To be quite blunt…” I encouraged him.
He sighed. “You seem the type of person that no one wants to mess with…or become friends with.” He gestured to everyone around us. “If you look around you, you can see that some people are easy to get along with. Others…they look tough or lonely. You,” he pointed to me, “look tough and like a loner.”
“Well, thank you Sherlock Holmes.” I finished with my food and made a move to leave. Blue grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t take it wrong, Max. I think you’re all right. However, you look like you don’t understand why you’re being treated like this by the others. I’m just telling you what they think.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what they’re thinking. I already know.” With that, I yanked my wrist out of his grasp, got up, and took my platter to the kitchen area to get it cleaned. Then, I headed towards the doors. Tiny made to follow me and Blue decided to come along.
I heard Tiny say to Blue, “Thanks, Blue, but I think Max needs some time to adjust. She’s been through a rough time.”
“So? I mean, I know that most people have it rough before they get here. How’s she any different?”
“Blue, Max lost everything. Her family, her home, her friends…you have no idea what’s she’s been through. In fact, I’ve known her for only a couple of years and during that time, I’ve seen things that I can’t even begin to describe.”
“Oh.” I could hear something in Blue’s voice that seemed like a mix of concern, sadness, and curiosity all at once. “So, what did happen to Max that made it so bad?”
“If you’re patient and try to be her friend, she might tell you. Remember, they do have to get a history on everyone who comes to “Mutant Mountain”. She might let you listen.”
I pushed the doors open and Tiny trotted up to me. “Have you gone through the tests?” he asked.
“No and I’m not interested in some stupid tests. I’m done with them. I’ve had too much of them.” I shook my head.
Tiny looked up at me with concern. “Max, whatever happened in the past, I’m here for you. You know that.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You need to take those tests, whether you like it or not, though. They evaluate everyone by giving them tests that determine their powers or abilities and at what level they’re at.”
“Tiny…”
“Max.” He stopped right there, in the middle of the soccer field that we were cutting through. “What happened? You used to be okay with this kind of stuff. What changed your mind?”
Blue had been following us the entire time and I looked over at him. He gave me a concerned and curious look. I sighed. I guess I’ll have to show them…but only a little bit. I sat in the grass. I motioned for Blue to come over to in front of me.
“Lay down. Both of you,” I said. Blue looked confused until he saw Tiny lay down with his forehead facing me. Blue laid on his back, his head right in front of me. I closed my eyes and summoned up the memory. I dreaded this moment, but there was no turning back. I opened my eyes, touched their foreheads with my index fingers, and showed them the memory. As the memory started playing, they closed their eyes. I tried to stay out of it, but I was sucked into the memory with them.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I woke up lying on a white table, strapped down. I had on a white shirt and pants and was in a white room. The lights were on so bright that I almost went blind. Tubes ran out of my body from different places. Everything was quiet and when I closed my eyes, and ignored the tubes and straps, I could imagine me being somewhere else entirely.
A door opened and I heard footsteps on the tiled floor. I opened my eyes to see one of them in lab gear, bringing some sort of device over with a dial. It grabbed a big tube that was attached to most of the ones sticking in me and connected it with the device. As it turned to leave, it looked over at me. We made eye contact and I could tell it was a woman. I held her gaze until she looked away and walked out of the room.
I was all too familiar with the device and the connecting of the tube to it. It was an everyday occurrence. They either wanted information from me or wanted to experiment on me. Usually, when they wanted information, others would come into the room. Since that didn’t happen, I knew that it was the latter.
I waited. The machine started making this humming sound and I knew it was alive and working. Ten seconds later, the curtains moved. (I was in a two story room. They had a room on the second floor, right next to the room that I was in, which had windows that looked into the room.) I could see him standing next to the windows. He always liked to see me in pain.
As he nodded, one of them turned the knob. Huh. Didn’t see it come into the room. Guess I’m losing my touch. All of a sudden, I felt the electricity enter my body. I’d gotten used to this feeling so I wasn’t surprised when he frowned at my resistance to the electrical current running through my body. The lab rat looked at him and he nodded. Then, the person in white turned the knob up a couple of notches.
The pain was so excruciating that I yelped. He smiled. Then, he spoke through the little mike that was in front of him.
“Any signs of a new one?”
The lab rat looked at me, then the other machines linked to me, then at him. “Sorry, Sir, but she’s resisting. We can’t get a good read and I don’t think we’ll get one out of her, today.”
He looked straight at me and we made eye contact. “Bring it up to level five.”
“But Sir. She won’t survive that much electricity running through her body. It’s not physically possible,” the lab rat protested.
He glared at the guy in white. “Do it now or I’ll make sure you’re hooked up as well!”
“Yes, Sir.” It turned the knob and I screamed with pain. Then, everything went black.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I opened my eyes, got up, sprinted as fast as I could, and jumped high into the air. I unfurled my wings and worked hard to get as high up as possible. I couldn’t believe that I did it. I promised myself that I’d never look back; never show someone else my horrible life. Leave it to Tiny and some weirdo to convince me otherwise.
I turned my attention to the air currents. I played around in the sky, emptying my mind of everything and building up my wall again. I did tricks like spirals, corkscrews, dives, and such.
After about ten minutes, I decided that it was time to go back down. That’s when I noticed that everyone that was outside was watching me. No wait. They were watching something off to my left. I looked to see a helicopter heading towards me.
After the little stunt that I pulled off, I decided to check out the lunch area, which ended up being on the valley floor. The one that I saw earlier is definitely too small to hold all of these kids. I guess it’s for the grown-ups here. This one is as wide as two football fields put together, length wise. Width wise, it’s about four or five football fields next to each other.
Anyways, lunch looked pretty good. I mean, as soon as I opened the doors, I was filled with the aroma of Mexican food. I looked around the cafeteria to see that everyone was looking at me and the room went dead-silent. I guess I had an impression on people, and it didn’t seem like a very good one.
I made a move to go get some food and tried to ignore everyone, but before I could take a step, I heard very familiar barking. As I turned to see what the barking was for, a big ball of fur jumped up and into my arms, which had quickly caught whatever the object was. As I looked closer, I could tell it was a dog, but what it wanted, I didn’t know. Then it opened its mouth.
“Well, it’s about time you showed up. I was kind of getting bored,” it said with a small, almost unnoticeable Australian accent.
“Tiny?” I asked, incredulously.
“Well, what other dog do you know that can speak English with a trace of an Australian accent?”
“Sorry. I just didn’t expect to see you around…” I said. Then I whispered, “…if you know what I mean.”
“Right!” Tiny jumped out of my arms. “So, I’m guessing you’re hungry. Let’s go get some food and then I’ll introduce you to some friends of mine, S…”
“It’s Max, Tiny. Remember? Just Max,” I quickly interrupted.
“Right, sorry. Got to be careful.” He led me to the food and everything seemed to go back to normal throughout the rest of the cafeteria. “Anyways, where’s F…”
-Sigh- “Tiny, I’d love to talk, but can we please skip that subject? As you can see, he’s not here.”
Tiny, being one of the few to be able to read me, saw the pain in my eyes and quickly changed topics.
“Well, the food here is delicious, if I must say so. Today is Mexican food day, if you haven’t noticed. That reminds me. You love Mexican food, don’t you?”
“Well, it fills the belly, and it doesn’t take long to do so. So yes; I love Mexican food.” I finished piling my platter full of food and moved to find a seat. Tiny led me to a table of people, who, of course, I didn’t know and looked like they didn’t want to get to know me.
“Everyone, this is Max. She’s an old friend of mine. You know…the one who gave me the ability to speak?” he said, trying to introduce me to the others. All I got was a variety of looks from around the table as I sat down.
Tiny tried a different tactic. “Max, this is Eyra,” he pointed to a girl with really dark skin. She looked at me with all eight eyes, got up, and left.
Tiny coughed and moved on. “This is Charcoal,” he motioned to a boy who was super tan and had spiked orange hair. This guy didn’t even bother to look at me as he got up and left. Tiny looked crushed. After those two left, the whole table got up and left, except for one person, who I didn’t see when I arrived at the table and was sitting on my side of the table, but on the very end.
I didn’t try to get to know the kid. I just focused on my food and dug in. However, some of my attention stayed on the kid. What surprised me was when he got up, walked to the other side of the table, and sat down, right in front of me.
“The name’s Blue,” he said as he swung his other leg over the bench. I looked up and stopped eating. It was the Nightcrawler kid. When I looked closer, I noticed that he seemed to genuinely try to be my friend.
“Hi.” Hi. Hi?! You meet someone who will actually give you the time of day at this place and all you can say is “Hi”?!
Blue turned to Tiny. “She doesn’t talk much, does she?” He looked almost disappointed.
Tiny chuckled. “That’s Max for you. She doesn’t talk much…to strangers,” he laughed, “but when you get to know her, she doesn’t seem to ever stop.”
I turned to Tiny and gave him a look. You’re asking for it, Mister.
Tiny just smiled at me and replied, Blue’s right. You need to be more friendly. Besides, he smiled, you just can’t help it when I’m right.
That was it. I knew one thing that’d keep him occupied for a little bit. I started tickling the dog. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s making Tiny quiet.
After a while, I sensed that Tiny had had enough. I stopped and turned back to my food, but before I ate anything, I caught Blue smiling at me.
“What?” I took a bite into a bean-and-cheese burrito.
“You don’t seem the…nice type.” Okay. That caught me off guard.
“And what ‘type’ do I seem as?” I asked.
“The hard-core, no feelings kind. No offense, but everyone thinks you’re something different. To be quite blunt…” he hesitated.
“To be quite blunt…” I encouraged him.
He sighed. “You seem the type of person that no one wants to mess with…or become friends with.” He gestured to everyone around us. “If you look around you, you can see that some people are easy to get along with. Others…they look tough or lonely. You,” he pointed to me, “look tough and like a loner.”
“Well, thank you Sherlock Holmes.” I finished with my food and made a move to leave. Blue grabbed my wrist.
“Don’t take it wrong, Max. I think you’re all right. However, you look like you don’t understand why you’re being treated like this by the others. I’m just telling you what they think.”
“I don’t need you to tell me what they’re thinking. I already know.” With that, I yanked my wrist out of his grasp, got up, and took my platter to the kitchen area to get it cleaned. Then, I headed towards the doors. Tiny made to follow me and Blue decided to come along.
I heard Tiny say to Blue, “Thanks, Blue, but I think Max needs some time to adjust. She’s been through a rough time.”
“So? I mean, I know that most people have it rough before they get here. How’s she any different?”
“Blue, Max lost everything. Her family, her home, her friends…you have no idea what’s she’s been through. In fact, I’ve known her for only a couple of years and during that time, I’ve seen things that I can’t even begin to describe.”
“Oh.” I could hear something in Blue’s voice that seemed like a mix of concern, sadness, and curiosity all at once. “So, what did happen to Max that made it so bad?”
“If you’re patient and try to be her friend, she might tell you. Remember, they do have to get a history on everyone who comes to “Mutant Mountain”. She might let you listen.”
I pushed the doors open and Tiny trotted up to me. “Have you gone through the tests?” he asked.
“No and I’m not interested in some stupid tests. I’m done with them. I’ve had too much of them.” I shook my head.
Tiny looked up at me with concern. “Max, whatever happened in the past, I’m here for you. You know that.”
“Yes. Yes, I do.”
“You need to take those tests, whether you like it or not, though. They evaluate everyone by giving them tests that determine their powers or abilities and at what level they’re at.”
“Tiny…”
“Max.” He stopped right there, in the middle of the soccer field that we were cutting through. “What happened? You used to be okay with this kind of stuff. What changed your mind?”
Blue had been following us the entire time and I looked over at him. He gave me a concerned and curious look. I sighed. I guess I’ll have to show them…but only a little bit. I sat in the grass. I motioned for Blue to come over to in front of me.
“Lay down. Both of you,” I said. Blue looked confused until he saw Tiny lay down with his forehead facing me. Blue laid on his back, his head right in front of me. I closed my eyes and summoned up the memory. I dreaded this moment, but there was no turning back. I opened my eyes, touched their foreheads with my index fingers, and showed them the memory. As the memory started playing, they closed their eyes. I tried to stay out of it, but I was sucked into the memory with them.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I woke up lying on a white table, strapped down. I had on a white shirt and pants and was in a white room. The lights were on so bright that I almost went blind. Tubes ran out of my body from different places. Everything was quiet and when I closed my eyes, and ignored the tubes and straps, I could imagine me being somewhere else entirely.
A door opened and I heard footsteps on the tiled floor. I opened my eyes to see one of them in lab gear, bringing some sort of device over with a dial. It grabbed a big tube that was attached to most of the ones sticking in me and connected it with the device. As it turned to leave, it looked over at me. We made eye contact and I could tell it was a woman. I held her gaze until she looked away and walked out of the room.
I was all too familiar with the device and the connecting of the tube to it. It was an everyday occurrence. They either wanted information from me or wanted to experiment on me. Usually, when they wanted information, others would come into the room. Since that didn’t happen, I knew that it was the latter.
I waited. The machine started making this humming sound and I knew it was alive and working. Ten seconds later, the curtains moved. (I was in a two story room. They had a room on the second floor, right next to the room that I was in, which had windows that looked into the room.) I could see him standing next to the windows. He always liked to see me in pain.
As he nodded, one of them turned the knob. Huh. Didn’t see it come into the room. Guess I’m losing my touch. All of a sudden, I felt the electricity enter my body. I’d gotten used to this feeling so I wasn’t surprised when he frowned at my resistance to the electrical current running through my body. The lab rat looked at him and he nodded. Then, the person in white turned the knob up a couple of notches.
The pain was so excruciating that I yelped. He smiled. Then, he spoke through the little mike that was in front of him.
“Any signs of a new one?”
The lab rat looked at me, then the other machines linked to me, then at him. “Sorry, Sir, but she’s resisting. We can’t get a good read and I don’t think we’ll get one out of her, today.”
He looked straight at me and we made eye contact. “Bring it up to level five.”
“But Sir. She won’t survive that much electricity running through her body. It’s not physically possible,” the lab rat protested.
He glared at the guy in white. “Do it now or I’ll make sure you’re hooked up as well!”
“Yes, Sir.” It turned the knob and I screamed with pain. Then, everything went black.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
I opened my eyes, got up, sprinted as fast as I could, and jumped high into the air. I unfurled my wings and worked hard to get as high up as possible. I couldn’t believe that I did it. I promised myself that I’d never look back; never show someone else my horrible life. Leave it to Tiny and some weirdo to convince me otherwise.
I turned my attention to the air currents. I played around in the sky, emptying my mind of everything and building up my wall again. I did tricks like spirals, corkscrews, dives, and such.
After about ten minutes, I decided that it was time to go back down. That’s when I noticed that everyone that was outside was watching me. No wait. They were watching something off to my left. I looked to see a helicopter heading towards me.