Fall by Maiyri-Omega

Fall

Maiyri/Omega

Drabble Fic. Written in 100 word bites.

Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride. I just enjoy playing in the sandbox. For 6 years. Ye Gods.

Author's Note: People die. Have fun!

Let me tell you about the week that Itex died.

Fang called out for the world's children, the internet generation. We stood together, we stormed the gates, we fought for what we thought was right.

At the Castle, the fight between those loyal and those who rebelled was bloody. It was two days before they, the authorities, gassed us all from the outside.

Two days too late.

A hole in the wall. One building on fire. Babies suffocated in their cots. Whitecoats dead in the halls. Erasers contorted with the kill-pill poison wracking their bodies. The courtyard sticky with blood.

Let me tell you what it smelled like.

The bitter smoke, the coppery tang of blood, the rawness of sweat. The earthiness of churned up dirt and plaster dust. The cordite-and-ozone of the explosives, the hot metal and plastic smell as the robots burned.

Let me tell you what it sounded like.

The burning chemicals, the hacking coughs as they burned the lungs, the gasping breaths for fresher air. The screams, the begging, the shouting. The crying of the little ones, of the ones that never had to fight.

I have fought my whole life. I thought this was hell.

Let me tell you what it felt like to be a murderer.

Oh, I was never convicted. Too young to be tried as an adult or too crazy to stand and there was the provocation.

They said, I couldn't have known what I was doing. That, my opinions on life were so skewed.

But when I dropped Marian Janssen, felt her fear of death, her begging as I slipped her hand free of mine, heard her screams as the fell and the abrupt silence...

Oh, it felt good.

Now I was the one with the power over life and death.

We only partially succeeded, of course. There is no magical happy ending here.

Itex was gone; the people who had staffed it were duly tried and locked up, the people who were funding it stripped of their money and their power and their reputations.

The research was kept, held safe and regulated by ethics committees, but used, as they'd done with Mengele years before.

The captives were free, and learning to live in the world. The bodies were buried, the news was no longer new.

And the world moved on.

We couldn't move on. We had nowhere to move to.

The day that Gazzy breathed his last was the end of the Flock. The beginning of the end was the fight.

Gazzy laughed as he dived down at a defending flyboy.

The world stopped.

Angel screamed.

There was a snap.

Gazzy plummeted limp to the ground.

And the world started again.

He lay on his front, neck at an impossible angle. His spread wings were stained with blood. His blue eyes were open and staring. He was gone, we know now. But his heart still beat, and he still breathed, and we hoped.

And then one day, he just stopped.

I should have kept him safe. He was my little boy. I should have should have should have…

We moved on as one for a while. We had plans. Back to the States, back to the E-house for a trip, back to the Martinez house for a visit.

It was just us, but with one big hole.

They found the other's families, but we mostly didn't care.

They suggested we join the others who were rescued. There was a camp, where they learned to live, or were given comfort as they died. We didn't care, it was too much like what we'd fought.

We'd known a kind of freedom for five years, and we'd keep it that way.

Angel was the first to go.

She said, she couldn't do it without Gazzy. That they were the real family, the proper and true family, and wasn't that what mattered?

So, why shouldn't she go live with her remaining proper family, at a proper house, go to a proper school, and have proper friends?

We argued about it all night. We had to stay together.

Nudge cried. Iggy pleaded that she reconsider. Fang even hugged her, and whispered for her to stay.

Angel was determined. She'd go.

I flew after her, wishing she'd reconsider. And flew back to the flock alone.

The E-house was broken and battered and falling apart. In a way, it was like us, and it was a comfortable fit, made of old memories and new reality.

We stayed there a week or so, the four that remained.

And we talked of the future. Fang spoke of wanting to dedicate more time to his blog, like I had done with my journal.

He spoke of wanting to leave us for a while and meet those kids who had helped us, of keeping up the activism. After all, weren't we saving the world?

Fang was gone in the night.

Nudge was next to crack.

She'd always been the bright and bubbly and talkative one. She'd always had her hair done, and her clothes clean and tidy.

She'd now go hours without a word, just staring off into space. Her hair was a mess, full of snags and tangles.

I pitied her.

That empty shell of a girl – a part of her died with Gazzy. They'd always been close, shut out by us older three and uninterested in baby Angel.

Was Angel right, she asked us one evening when she felt like speaking.

She too, was gone the next morning.

Just Iggy and I, we travelled towards the Martinez home, where we knew Dr. Martinez and Ella and Jeb were waiting for us.

Dr. Martinez had even promised cookies.

A storm blew through, all lightning and hail, and we couldn't fly. So we stayed in a small town, not unlike the one we used to visit from the E-house with Jeb. It seemed everyone knew everyone, that everyone wore a happy smile.

I couldn't remember how to smile.

But me and Iggy ate in silent company, and I was as content as I had been in a very long time.

That's when they found the first body.

Angel, her neck snapped, crack, just like his, her body lying in the ravine behind where we'd camped.

Then the second, found much quicker. I knew they'd been tracking us.

Fang, eyes open and staring, lying on the floor my shattered bedroom at the E-house.

The third: Nudge, facedown, her wings streaked with blood, feathers missing, dumped in an alleyway.

Iggy heard the news, and rushed back to our hotel room with it.

They found him neatly tucked up in bed, crisp white sheets tucked up to his chin, eyes closed and peaceful.

They found me.

On the roof of the Martinez place, just sitting, staring into space.

I'd been shot here only a year ago. Just beyond the back garden. Boy, had it hurt.

They found them.

Ella on the couch, my poor little sister, stopped breathing just like him.

Dr. Martinez, in the kitchen, eyes staring out.

Jeb, on the stairs, neck crooked.

And I took off, straight up.

Cracks, as gunshots fired. The hiss of hot metal through the air. The pain, as, my body filled with holes.

I wonder, did she feel this good, as she fell to earth?

That's it folks, killing everyone in 13 nice, easy chapters!