The Winged Rebellion

Chapter 18: Team Building or Torture?

I forgot to trigger warn this one, but * for mentions of assualt, ** for racist violence / guns, *** for mentions of household abuse and transphobia

Sebastian

A couple days later, we're all settling into an easy routine. Today, Caelum announced that we're going to be having 'a team building activity that will help us prepare for future fights and learn more about each other'. His words not mine.

We all show up around 2 for the exercise, in a large room that looks like it was designed to be comfortable. Its sparsely decorated, with 12 hospital-style beds arranged in a circle near the center of the room. There's no blankets, but each bed has a pillow.

Andy, and the rest of her original team lay down. Theres a space to Andy's right for Christina, and spaces for the rest of us.

"Well, what are you waiting for? An invitation?" Andy snaps at us, more nervous sounding than normal. We all pick a bed and lay down. Caelum takes control, and starts speaking in a calm voice.

"Everyone needs to lie down, hold hands with the people on either side of them, close their eyes and relax."

I do as I'm told and clutch Alex and Liz's hands, closing my eyes and taking deep breaths. A slow and steady stream of power rushes through me, taking me away from the big room and into a misty space. Andy is sitting in a lotus position, and everyone else is slowly appearing through the mist.

"Lyra, we're going to start with you, ok?" Andy says, and Lyra nods, steadying herself.

**

Start with her for what? I wonder, before the landscape changes and we're in a metropolitan street, a cop car with its lights flashing sitting outside a plain yellow house. A younger Lyra is sitting on the steps with her mother clutching her tightly, and a man that could be her father is lying on the ground, bullet wounds riddling his body. A cop standing over him. The cop turns to us now, and aims his gun at her mother.

"Thief," he snarls, and Lyra throws her hand up and sings commands at him. The officer puts his gun down, and reports himself.

**

Andy smiles at the outcome, and the scene changes. We're in a white, clean room, and there's a blond woman with the same build as Andy sitting on the floor facing away. Shes crying, begging the man next to her to let her go, saying she has a family. Caelum steps up to the man beside her and takes the knife he's holding. Then he stabs the gun through the woman's back, killing her. He walks back to Andy, and we move on.

In Leo's landscape there's massive spiders crawling everywhere, drawn to him, until he kills them all.

***

Saura is back in her pre-transition body and house. Her father is beating her for thinking she's a girl and not a man. That one ends with Saura blinding him.

***

*

Vela has a man rip off her hijab and attempt to assault her - she suffocated him slowly.

*

Vega has to face her sister being killed in a hundred different ways, until she kills Vela herself.

Andy's is different than I expected. Her mother handing a younger her over to the 2 large men, in a back alley, and leaving her there helpless. It ends with Andy killing them with their own emotions, and then killing her mother.

Then Andy announces it's our turn. 

Christina is forced to drown her own sister.

Topher is next, and is standing in the middle of the crowd of people each with a knife who cut him once. He finally cuts all of them, and it ends.

Liz is on a burning pyre, and copies of us surround her, calling her a heartless monster. Calling her cruel, and telling her we never loved her. She freezes our copies solid, but not before tears escape her eyes.

Alex is drowning in a glass tank, fake copies of us laughing at his silent screams. He punches the glass and it shatters, letting him free.

When its my turn, I'm on my sailboat. This time instead of the little boy drowning it's Andy, and Liz, and Alex, and everyone I've ever loved or cared about in my life. I end it by choosing to drown with them.

We all wake up in the large room that we started in, all of us silent.

YESS WATTPAD LET ME COPY AND PASTE THIS IN YES
Also: really Short chapter bc next one was literally 7 pages long in good docs and yeah
Im sorry about this one being really dark and violent, I tried to trigger warn as best I could, if I missed something PLEASE TELL ME!!
Love! -Alexandra Waterwings