Maximum Ride: Picking Up the Pieces (A Maximum Ride Fanfic)

Chapter Ten: Mistaken Salvation

I wake up, my legs cold and wet, and realize that I'm in my mother's office.

I also realize that I have to be ready.

"Is she awake?!" my mother's voice comes out higher than it had been on helium. She's worried now.

"Mom, I'm awa-" I cut myself off with an involuntary scream of pain.

"Yeah, she's awake," Fang says from behind my head. I look above and behind me to see his black hair curtaining his face as he looks down at me.

The darkness could have saved me from this pain.

But no.

I look in front of me to see that not only have my pants been removed but my mother is holding a stopwatch. The pain has momentarily stopped, but a few minutes later, it returns again maliciously, and I grunt, trying to grow accustomed to it for now.

"That's five minutes. Time to get moving!" I bite my lip. I don't think I was ever ready for this part.

"You know what to do, Max. Go for it!" I shove all of my weight down and use it to push even harder. She nods and sees me already breaking a sweat. "Breathe, Max. Your air sacs are of no use to you right now." I grunt again, and look up at Fang, who has not moved an inch. I continue doing this. It seems like a very long, dragging on bit that includes exaggerated breathing and shoving all of my weight down to one tiny part of my body.

Then I hear a sound that gives me a bit of hope. A cry, nasally and clearly agonizing, that could only sound from an infant.

"We have a boy!" my mother exclaims, giddy. Jeb takes him and wraps him in one of the blankets I had received earlier. Soon, maybe minutes later, another cry follows. My mother proclaims the screaming infant to be the second boy. My eyelids start to droop heavily, even though my head is filled with alarm as to the girl. Fang decides to move at this point, to stand next to my mother where I can see his beautiful face, strung out on fear, yet cheering me on even more than my mother. But their cheers become muffled, as if some wall has separated them from me. I can barely make out what they're saying, and my vision gets blurrier. I keep trying to push down, to shove all of my weight into it. Then the wall disappears when a third cry sounds. Each of the three people in the room with me are holding a child, my mother taking the girl into her arms. I close my eyes, wanting nothing more than to sleep. I can't hold my eyes open for more than a second.

I fall mercifully headfirst into the depths of sleep.