21 April 2012
Quinn lay on her stomach, the hard mattress biting into her tender skin. Bruises marched the length of her torso, moving down her legs and arms and amassing at her wrists, ankles and neck like bees to flowers.
Her brown tabby-like wings we're spread wide, tips touching the ground - they still tremored from the treatments and administrations of Stephens and his whitecoat comrades.
Above Quinn, the air vents grumbled and groaned, echoing her own distress.
Quinn's eyelids felt heavy, so heavy that it hurt to shut them. Her body felt abused, as I'd it had been broken one too many times and would no longer reciprocate.
The dietary experimentations hadn't agreed too well with Quinn... Putting it lightly. Some of the foods were inedible, making her instantly sick or writhe. Some of them were manufactured liquids, to be injected - hence the bruising. Needless to say, those didn't agree with Quinn either.
Whispers filled Quinn's mind. Senseless whispers. Senseless thoughts. Mutinous thoughts.
'Hey! You! Girl! Up here!' The voice sounded nothing like an inner thought - Quinn frowned and turned, wincing as her delicate back touched the hard bed, wings automatically folding beneath her.
One of the air vent tiles had been removed. A dark haired boy leant out of it, almost dangling out, into Quinn's room. Quinn gasped, eyes widening on shock. Never in her seventeen years had she seen another soul but the whitecoats and their team leaders and supervisors. This boy was - well, Quinn didn't know what he was, but he didn't look like a whitecoat.
'Cool, she has wings!' The dark haired boy beamed amiably at Quinn, quite at ease with the whole situation. From behind him, Quinn could hear another, distinctly male, voice.
'That's nice, now I and, I am sure, Saf, would really appreciate it if you hurried up just a little.'
Quinn's shock had turned to confusion and apprehension.
Noting her expression, the dark haired boy smiled, looking quite handsome as he did it. 'It's alright, you know. We're getting you out of here. Promise. You're one of many we've managed, now come on - grab ahold of my arm.'
Quinn took a breath and looked up at the boy. His short, curly dark hair stuck to his forehead with perspiration. Grey eyes beheld her, conveying trust and friendliness. His arm, reaching for her own, was pale and gracefully slim, but muscled.
Quinn took a breath and swallowed past a thick lump in her throat.
Escape was reachable.
She just needed to reach out and grasp it - literally.
With sudden confidence, Quinn moved to take the boy's outstretched hand, and found herself being hauled up into the rafters, above the cell she had called her own for the best part of seventeen years.
Freedom. To a certain measure.
The Winged Girl III • Opuss № I