Saved by the Phoenix

Chapter Nine

Ember's POV

I remembered how Pete joked around with me yesterday, teasing me about my hair. It seemed like a good time to remember kindness, if this hour was my last. Although Patrick's bravery was, by far, best.
After Pete cut my hair, I had gone up to my room again. I could hear him and Patrick conversing through the floor, if I layer down with the ear on the carpet.
They thought I was resting. Patrick said it was because of my ribs, and that they needed time to heal. But they had already healed, almost completely.
I was a test tube baby, no surprise there. The people hat did this were able to genetically alter the cells and DNA, but they amped it up a bit too far that time. Hemophilia traits were screwed up; funny, because that's what they were trying to cure in the first place. I could be able to vibrate cells with such a velocity to create deadly thermal energy, enough to destroy.
Enough to kill.
I was different from the rest at the start- they said they accepted me as a lab rat to refine and control the abilities I had been given- to turn me into war machinery.
I knew this only because they would talk in front of me about it. Special chips would be implanted every month, wired into brain cells, inserted behind my eyes. They were one hundred percent sure it would work, but it didn't. The hemophilia canceled it out, amongst actual hemophiliac effects. I never told them, because they would be able to change the chip's formula to a more suitable effect for them immediately.
The chips were supposed to cancel out the brain's ability to translate cognition of others around me, though experiments, including me, were able to repeat small phrases, to mock them. I could speak perfectly well, trained myself to read their charts and recognize symbols. I stayed quiet and obedient, because that wasn't what they wanted. They wanted flames. Anger. Loss of control that they could modify and change and needle until I could be copied into a thousand power plants of mass destruction. They wanted the revengeful, fiery little princess that would be all gone when my stay was due.
Of course there were others. Hybrids and modifies and the ones with small alters that you couldn't see, but heard as they bounced through your eardrums. They kept us in crates that would stack up ten high at a time, or in cages like animals.
We were children. Adults would be too hard to control, they said, and that their brain patterns would progress.
There were the crossbreeds, with the sunken or vacant eyes and the ears that didn't work and the skin that would rip off in patches the size of playing cards when they moved. The ones that didn't have properly functioning vocal cords or tongues and would scream and shriek and create the guttural, yet ear splitting sounds that would make you bleed. The fetuses that were kept in glass boxes so crystal clear you could see their every twitch, their rotting skin rising as they took in shallow breaths.
The scientists said they would find cures. They said that we were helping society.
But the worst was the women. Every five years a few would be selected to go for a week, to be tied up and tested and tortured.
I went all three times. I was the only one to come back, each time.
The women were supposed to be doing tests on brain waves when enduring pain and fear, but I could tell by the looks in their eyes that they enjoyed every last drop of blood.
These people now- Patrick, Pete, Andy, and the one I had yet to meet- were alike to those monsters I was chained by before, but only in one way.
I was a stranger to them, but not a burden.
I could tell then, as they talked about me. But as soon as I heard the socked feet coming up the wooden steps to the second floor, I sprang from my position on the carpet and onto the unmade bed, slipping my calves- still clad in Patrick's sleeping clothes- under the blanket, pretending to look at a restless state of sleep.
My ears strained as a soft palm grasped the handle outside, pulling it so Patrick could peer in. Everything was silent for a few seconds, so silent I felt like I was tilting, and he closed the door.
He audibly clambered down the steps,nut I counted five minutes anyways before I left the room.
There was a hallway too the right, and the stairs to the left of me. I took off in the opposite direction of the stairs and chose a random door to hide behind me.
The first impression I got of the space was that it was very bright, almost blindingly so. But there were big windows, from the floor to the ceiling, looking out to a bright horizon. The blotted silhouette in the middle of the room took shape as my eyes adjusted to the light, took the shape of a giant wooden instrument.
I had never seen one before, but I knew it was the piano Pete had mentioned. Its white coat gleamed, reflecting the light from beyond, and a large panel was propped on and over it like a shade, revealing small hammers and strings.
I cautiously took small steps towards it, as to not be heard by the downstairs inhabitants. Harsh ebony and ivory keys stood out proudly, showing off to a padded bench were the player would sit.
I refused to sit, instead balancing my knees on the bench, lowering myself. Raising a finger, the keys seemed to beckon to my touch. I struck a white key violently, and sound rang out through the wood.
Jumped back immediately, because of course anyone in the whole house would have been able to hear it.
Patrick's quickened footsteps could be heard from downstairs, and it seemed like- yes- he was coming up the stairs. I was frantic, afraid he would be mad. This musical instrument was like an almost holy being.
The door opened, and I was glued to the bench, twisting my head over the shoulders to stare at him like a deer in the headlights. "Patrick- I'm sorry. I didn't- I shouldn't be touching your stuff. I'm sor-"
"Hey!" He put his palms up as if in playful defense. "It's okay. I figured you would find it anyways." I blushed like mad, but he continued, walking up and sitting by me. "Which key did you press? This one?" A finger pressed a key, they same ebony key I had touched, and sound resonated through the room. "That's F, " he grinned, looking sideways at me while tilting his head. "Do you know how?"
"Nope."
"Here. I'll show you a song," he said. "First, though, we should stand up straight, maybe." He sheepishly touched the small of my back, willing me to uncoil. I winced; although I was just about healed, the muscles were sore. "Shit!" He spoke up. "I must have been so insulting! I'm sorry, I'm really sorry... Wait, are you wearing the brace?"
It was my turn to swear. I hadn't worn the brace I got from the hospital since, well... The hospital. "Um... No?"
"Jesus, how do you do that? Your rib's cracked." I looked into his eyes, and right before they were filled with guilt for his last statement, I noticed what a strange color they were. Muddy hazel, infused with blues that I couldn't quite see. At first, it was hard to even tell what color.
He took it back immediately. "I- uh, I mean... I don't know. Just out the brace on. Then come back. It needs to heal right." His eyes skimmed the instrument, fraying away from mine.
I left to my room, rummaged through the pile of hospital stuff I knew I would never use, and put it on hurriedly. The shirt was too baggy and it made me feel slightly exposed, but comforted, also. The brace that wrapped around my stomach and lower ribs squeezed as I put it on.
I walked back into the sunroom and listened as Patrick played a simple tune. Catchy, something I could probably remember.
"What's the name?" I sat down beside him. He jumped again, and I let out a small giggle, which seemed unrealistic to me. Still, it seemed we were a catastrophe of surprises and biased words.
"It's called Twenty-One Guns. By Green Day. Do you know about them?"
"No. Are they any good?"
He smiled and pressed the key I had pressed before, F. "I swear, it's like you've never heard music before."
I looked away from his eyes, instead towards the bunch of keys surrounding his. "Yeah, I guess so," I replied, laughing shakily. "So. Teach me." I didn't want to stay on the subject too long.
He sat up straight again, and I mimicked him this time. "Good. Okay. Um, yeah, so you have an F key down here too." He pressed the F key closer to me, which had the same bundle of keys surrounding it, I noticed. The F was the first of four in the white keys crowding the three black keys. The next group had two black keys and three white keys, and then the pattern went on again.
I pressed down on mine. He nodded and moved up two, pressing that and making another clear sound. "The next one will be A. Because the musical alphabet goes from A to G, so it would go F, G, and then back to A. But you might've already known, I dunno." I nodded, even though I hadn't the slightest idea before he explained.
His fingers moved up again. "Here's the D key. For this line, we play it three times." He tapped it thrice, and I tried, not exactly looking at my hands. I'd hit the one below it, C, I guessed. I had figured out my mistake within two seconds, but Patrick readjusted my hand. "There. That's better." And he smiled.
We continued back down, C, B flat (a black key), A, and then G. He played the whole line I just learned, with great ease. My hand mocked his, but while he used his right, I favored my left.
"Do you know what's worth fighting for?" Patrick sang, using the tones of the keys as he played.
"Huh?"
"That's the first line in the song," he explained.
"Oh" was all I said. I felt stupid.
"Nah, it's okay. For the next one, you do the same thing, but instead of C, B flat, A, G, we do A, B flat, C. And then G." His fingers reenforced the statement.
We finished the first two lines together,master some trial and error on my side. We were interrupted by the doorbell. I caught his eye.
"I think that's Pete," Patrick said. "He's bringing over his family. You wanna meet?"
The sun had risen almost up over the roof in such a short period of time. I nodded.