22 April 2012
Quinn was falling. Cool air taunted her wings - she wanted so badly to snap them out and catch herself, midair, but the whitecoats' administrations had rendered then useless - it was a wonder they were still attached to her spine. The moment of fall seemed to last a lifetime. A lifetime of apprehension and deathly silent serenity, before-
Thump!
'Uh, you can open you eyes...' Saf's voice conveyed eye-rolling, and as Quinn managed to pry her eyelids up, she saw that the other girl was holding her in her arms. Quinn flushed and, as deceptively suavely as she could manage, retracted her limbs from Saf's.
'Ah... Sorry,' Quinn muttered, shuffling her feet. Alongside herself and Saf, Jonah and Cole landed gracefully, with ease and poise - everything Quinn found herself severely lacking.
The four of them were in a chamber, of a sorts. It felt higher up than the whitecoats' labs, the air clearer and damper. The chamber was small and enclosed, simply a room between rooms: a door stood to the left of the group, metal, like the walls, ceiling and floor.
Saf looked to Cole, who nodded. Approaching the door, Saf pulled back a sleeve of her tunic, revealing a glowing string of numbers on her inner lower arm and wrist. Curiously, Quinn watched as the other girl held her arm out to the panel across the door and waited. A faint blip, and the door sprung open, inwards. The sudden movement made Quinn jump, and Jonah snickered quietly, only stopping at Cole's glare.
Saf jerked her head at Quinn, a signal for her to follow.
Again, Quinn found herself realising how much trust she was putting into the hands for these three strangers. And again she told herself that anything would be better than the whitecoats.
A maze of white tiled corridors ensued, each looking the same as the last. Quinn felt disorientated and tired, but not so tired she couldn't go on - if there was one thing the whitecoats had taught her, it was durability.
'You alright?' Jonah had sidled up to her, and was walking next to her now.
A thought struck Quinn. 'Jonah...?'
'Yes, Wings?'
Quinn realised none of them knew her name. Something so simple had been overlooked in the chaos of escape.
'Uh, I'm Quinn. Not 'Wings', just... Quinn.'
Jonah grinned, 'alright. Yes, Quinn?'
Quinn smiled briefly before continuing her trail of thought. 'So... Saf has a tail. I have wings, what does-'
Jonah broke in, easily anticipating her question. 'You want to know what Cole and I... Suffer?' A humerus smile played over his lips, showing Quinn his choice of words was intended as a joke. Quinn nodded eagerly. 'Well, I'm not that special, got a few webbed toes on each foot - nothing big, but Cole's a bit different. He's a big fish - like you, I guess.'
'I'm a... Big fish?' Quinn scrunched her nose up and Jonah laughed. The sound was foreign. The only laughter Quinn had heard in her lifetime was the sadistic chuckles of a whitecoat with a strange new concoction, or a new plan. This sound was different: it was carefree, beautiful.
'Jonah!' Saf snapped Quinn from her reverie, and only as Jonah moved ahead to walk by Saf, did she realise she didn't know Cole's... Attribute, so to speak.
That quickly fled her mind. The corridor had finally opened into a wide hall. It bustled. Like a hive of bees. Quinn had never seen anything like it. She stood in the entrance, feeling small and insignificant. Jonah and Saf had moved into the mass of bodies, and were talking animatedly to a group of other young adults, who all looked healthy and content.
'It's a big change, isn't it?'
Quinn hadn't heard Cole move to stand by her. She looked quizzically at him. 'From the labs, I mean. I was there too.'
Quinn's eyes widened.
Cole spared her one last side glance before hooking slender fingers around her wrist and pulling her into the rush of people.
Cole navigated the crowds with ease, managing to pull Quinn through an exit on the opposite side of the hall, where a tall archway led into another white tiled corridor.
As soon as they were alone, Cole released her wrist and moved through the arch, expecting her to follow. Quinn did, rubbing her wrist and scowling, unhappy with being treated like a dog.
A second archway. A third.
Quinn was getting tired of the repetitiveness. It was tedious. Boring. Monotonous. And every other synonym.
'Wait here,' Cole said quietly, not looking at her as they neared another door. This door was different to any others Quinn had seen. For one, it wasn't metal, it was wooden. Another: it looked old, out of place. Quinn decided she liked it, and, running a hand over its smooth contours, her appreciation grew with every groove and twist. It had character.
The door opened, and Quinn's hand fell away.
Colr stood half-turned towards her, his face cast in shadows from the dark of the room beyond. His expression was inscrutable and made Quinn feel uneasy.
'He'll see you now.'
'Who?' Quinn looked up at Cole, who she could see - now that they were out of the rafters - was clearly taller than she.
'The leader of our organisation. The one behind your escape.'
Quinn paled but swallowed past her initial hesitance. She took a breath and put one foot in front of the other.
It was only when the door shut behind her, did she realise Cole was not accompanying her, and that she wished he had.
It was also in this moment that Quinn realised she was not keen on the dark.
The Winged Girl V • Opuss № I