Wings: More Than Just Two Worlds

Chapter 18: Unleash the Beast

Lian Azuré

Age: 10

Species: Iridescent

"You're not dying!" I groaned through the throbbing sensation I felt trembling through my veins, engulfing my body in never ending pain. I held on to the edge of the intersecting vent with my dislocated arm, screaming as I held V's limp, unconscious body in my weak, mangled hand. The fan made a slicing noise in the air as it gradually accelerated more and more, distributing agonizing tension on my limbs. The blades sliced off V's legs up to the knees like they were butter. They spun in the fan, stuck in the blades. I cried, not because it was the first time I experienced such pain, but because I thought I was going to lose V. I used what little strength left in my body to swing V to the intersecting vent, where the fan couldn't suck her up, and accepted death as my fate. With my Syndrome, I can't recover sufficiently from the bruising or cuts. I would only continue to bleed out and die, so there's no point to try to survive... or so I thought.

My body couldn't handle the pain, so it did the only option it could do to cope with it, black out. However, as I faded into the emptiness, I felt the fan cut off my wings, and in my last thought I believed now to the world, and my father, I'll no longer be the perfect child. That thought gave me a little taste of freedom.

Project N

Age:17

Species: Iridescent

V has always been the most caring of us. She's somewhat broken, but aren't we all? She's fragile, sensitive, but never the less a very sweet girl. Many times we thought about escaping the lab, but if any of us ever leave it's boundary, our tattoos would begin to burn, kind of like a warning, and the longer we are away, the stronger the pain gets until our bodies can no longer take it. We are forced to pass out before we can get far enough away. I suppose it gives Leo enough time to relocate our bodies. V had to be in the lab. I searched every room, every cabinet several times... No V. Then, in the main lab, I happened to look up at the ceiling. The cadging around the vent dangled off two hinges, leaving it wide open. I chuckled, "V's not up there."

I remembered V explained something to me a long time ago, when I stumbled upon her casually cutting off the tattoo on her arm. She explained, "When you make a copy of a copy, it's never the same as the original. Now let's say you make a copy of that copy. It's even less like the original. You keep making a copy of a copy of a copy, and pretty soon you will end up with something completely different and washed out. I'm going to see if it's the same with this tattoo. When my skin regenerates the tattoo comes back looking exactly the same and I cut this sucker off at least a thousand times, you would think it would be different by now. I'm hoping maybe something I can't physically see is happening to it."

It's possible V doesn't feel pain the same anymore, so she actually could be up there. I walked away telling myself, "No," Only to quickly run back under the vent. I saw V's foot print, created by the natural oil that's on everyone's feet, inside the vent. I mumbled to myself, "Please don't let there be a heart shaped scar", hoping the print belonged to someone who wasn't of my concern, but on the left footprint there it was, a small heart shaped scar. I rolled my eyes, muttering under my breath, "Of course."

I flew inside the vent, grunting with the first wave of pain being released by my tattoo, "You're lucky I love you." I crawled on my hands and knees, calling out, "V! K didn't mean to make you upset earlier! Come on V!" After crawling around for a while, in the distance, I saw a slow spinning fan with V's cut up legs stuck in the blades. Blood drained out from the legs into a puddle below. Blood was spattered everywhere. Naturally, I assumed the worse. I frantically crawled to the fan, screaming an Elongated scream, "VEEEEEEEE," until my lungs exhaled all their air.