Fourteen Years Ago...
Tempe, Arizona
“Look sweety, come and look!” Four year old Belle leapt to her feet and toddled over to her mother who stood by the window. Bella’s eyes grew wide as she glanced through the single pained glass and watched as the huge white orb lit the sky. She quickly covered her eyes with her small fists and shook her head whimpering. Something didn’t feel right...something was wrong, extremely wrong.
“Honey, it’s ok.” Belle’s mother smoothed her black hair and held her close, her beating heart furthering Belle’s anxiety.
“Clara! Did you see that!” the next second Bella was thrown screaming to the floor as something far worse than an earthquake struck the earth and shook her to the core. Time seemed to slow and Belle screamed as if in sudden physical pain, her dark eyes filling with pain. Her mother’s arms encircled her as she cried out in pain and soon her father was there as well.
Belle pushed herself away from her mother, screaming in terror as pain shot through her. Her face reddened as she ripped her shirt off and wallowed on the white carpet smearing blood streaks across it. She heard her mother's terrified shrieks as she saw the blood spilling from her daughters back.
“Harris! Harris look!” she held her husband tight as she stared at her daughters writhing body and listening to her pitiful screams. She longed to rush to her daughter and hold her but something held her back, a feeling coursing through her body.
As Belle slowly sniffled and sat up her sobbing died away and she peered through puffy gray eyes at her parents. The pain was gone. She rose to her feet and toddled over to her mother who let out a stiff laugh of relief. She embraced her daughter gently, only to freeze in horror.
Joyce, Washington
The five year old boy squirmed in his thread bare sheets in uncomfortable pain. He dare not cry out for disturbing his parents. The night had erupted in brilliant light but his parents acted like dead people, as if they would never wake. It had been about the time the earth had shook that Chester had felt the knife like pain fill his back as he writhed on his bed, panting slowly.
What was happening to him? Was he dying? He threw the covers back and rushed to the bathroom, his fist jammed in his mouth to hold back the screams that wracked his body.
He fell on the filthy tiled floor and swung around locking the door. He lay there for a bit, panting as slowly, the relentless pain dyed away. His back twitched and soon the pain was merely nothing but an annoying itch. He sighed with relief and stood up in a puddle of his own blood.
He gazed down at the floor and the red liquid that dripped from his back, he could feel it sliding down his shoulders. Quickly he rushed to a mirror hoping he hadn’t injured himself too badly, his parents couldn’t afford the hospital. He turned his back to the long cracked mirror on the door and as his eyes fell onto his back he fell to floor.
Las Vegas, Nevada
The three year old boy lay in his crib unaware of the hubbub about him. Something seemed to tickle his back as he slept and he murmured in his sleep, letting out a soft cry. Cindy heard the barley inaudible gasp of her small son and crossed the room to her son’s side. The commotion all about there small town was exhausting and her brain was straining to put things in order. The radio was blaring something about Aliens, falling stars, meteors, she sighed and bent over her sons blue crib and stiffened in terror.
“Todd! Call 911!” she scooped her sleeping son up and gasped as she stared at the thick blood soaking the small mattress. What had happened to her poor son?
“Oh Brayden...” she stroked her son’s soft black hair and cradled him close. Suddenly, as with another heart beat more blood warmed her palm, she laid him on the changing table which he had long since outgrown and pulled his pajamas off. She stifled a gasp as her heart fluttered fearfully in her chest and she screamed.
Los Angeles, California
The single man lay sprawled out across the mattress, his attention fixed on the radio beside the bed. He had seen the fall of the bright obstacle and so far he had heard reports of similar things happening in seven other states. Was the world really coming to an end? He hadn’t caught all of it but on one station a man had accused the government for this unnatural epidemic.
He chuckled to himself. “The government can be found at the root of most everything...” he glanced outside at the smoke drifting up into the sky from about a mile away. “But I doubt they can be blamed for a natural phenomenon such as this.”
He barley heard the soft babble of his two year old daughter as she crawled into the room mumbled softly. Her soft read hair fell about her round baby cheeks as she gurgled at her father.
He turned to her and sighed. She looked exactly like her mother, her high cheek bones, blazing red hair, piecing green eyes, everything. Aaron was not a very good father, in fact, deep down in a secret part of his heart, he hated his infant daughter. In his mind, she had taken his beautiful Ariel away from him.
“Go on and play with your toys or something A.J., I’m too busy right now.” A.J. just laughed and toddled over to her father, holding outstretched palms to him. He glanced down and stared at the blood smeared across the young girl's palms.
“Where did you get this A.J.?” he asked wordily, slipping off the bed and crouching down to clasp her small fists. She smiled, her small front tooth showing.
“Da Da!” she babbled happily, bouncing her palms up and down in his. He suddenly saw the trail of blood following his daughter. He gasped and turned her about, searching her clothes. His eyes fell on her shoulders where the blood was the thickest. A large bump crossed her shoulders and it looked as if she was hunched over. Aaron stripped the soft blue blouse off and stifled a scream.
Twin Falls, Idaho
The orphanage rang with the shouts of small children as they cascaded down the semi-filthy stairs past the small nursery to the dinning hall for breakfast. A small girl with dark brown hair known simply as Idaho, slipped from the crowd of children and into the peaceful nursery. The blue clouded walls shone clean and fresh and the floor was spotless, a large relief from the crowded hallways and filthy floors of the rest of the building.
The small girl knew something important was happening for the Mistress was holed away in her small stuffy room with her radio blasting and all the grown ups were on edge. But things such as that did not concern the young girl in the least.
“Josh.” she whispered quietly, slinking through the rows of cribs and small make shift beds. Infants stayed in here until they were four years of age and then the moved in with the older children. Idaho easily found the small bed at the corner holding her small brother. She smiled as she brushed his sandy brown hair away from his eye only to find it plastered to his forehead with sweat. The small year old child opened his large brown eyes to smile up at his sister.
“What’s wrong Joshua? Do you have a fever?” Idaho asked worriedly looking around for the nursery attendant as she pressed her small hand over the babes burning forehead. She pulled up the covers to hold her baby brother but just then the door flew open.
A large statuesque man stood there wearing a black suit and a blue tie. A pair of dark shades covered his eyes which set directly below two deeply furrowed bushy brows. Fear entered Idaho as the man neared her, fallowed by the nurse attendant who seemed to be having a quiet difficult time of controlling herself. Her round face was quiet red and she was perspiring badly.
Idaho scooped her small brother up only to feel a warm and sticky liquid squish through her fingers. She was horrified to see the blood staining the mattress. And yet her brother was quiet and did not seem in the least bit of pain. The nurse attendant took Josh from her arms but Idaho reached for him, her fear for the large man growing.
“Come now Idaho, shouldn’t you be eating breakfast?” Idaho shook her head and clasped her brother's small hand.
“I want to stay with Josh!" she demanded as the nurse scooped her up and passed the babe to the large man.
“No!” Idaho screamed as she raged to get out of the attendants strong arms. Finally she bit the large arm and the nurse dropped her. But the man had already left the room and Idaho could not find him as she rushed from the room. He was gone.
Elkhorn, Montana
Jade lay panting slowly in the hospital bed. Beads of sweat still slid down her brow at uneven intervals but at least the pain had subsided. She glanced across the room towards the window where her husband stood transfixed. It had seemed that he had barley cared about the baby, his mind on the odd meteorite phenomenon that had happened an hour before his daughter’s birth.
Suddenly something clenched in her heart and though she didn’t know why she knew, she knew that her small daughter was in terrible danger. She pulled the IV from her arm and rushed to her feet steel feeling weak and slightly nauseous as the hospital room swam before her.
It had been a difficult birth but the nurses had assured Jade the small babe was fine. Jade now had other doubts swarming in her like wasps as the urge to find her daughter filled her.
“Michaela.” she whispered, hurrying from the room, knowing exactly where her daughter was. Her husband didn’t even notice her departure, so transfixed on the destroyed city square was he.
Jade shoved the door open and her eyes scanned the room, filled with glass cradles filled with small infants. Her eyes fell upon the huddle of nurses at the far corner and something inside her told her that her baby would be found there.
She saw a flash of a camera’s bulb and suddenly wondered if they were merely taking her baby’s photo. But no, something urged her to hurry. She rushed toward the group of nurses in their brightly colored scrubs.
“Hello? Is Michaela here? Pardon me? I’m looking for my baby.” the nurses barley acknowledged her presence as she shoved to the center of the mass. The head nurse, dressed in lilac scrubs held a pair of sharp metal instruments in her right hand. A nearby nurse held a camera and yet another held the small baby, merely an hour old, pinned to the table, her small back exposed.
Jade’s heart beat quickened as her eyes fell on her daughter's shoulders and she stifled a scream as she saw the sharp metal scissor like objects rush towards her daughter’s back.
“No!” she let out a scream as she lunged for her daughter and scooped the small sleeping baby into her arms. For the first time the nurses seemed to realize that she was there. The head nurse faced her, her eyes narrowed.
“She’s a freak Mrs. Smith, save her life now and let me do it. You know it’s the best thing for her, she’ll never fit in.” Jade shook her head, suddenly filling extremely tired.
“No! My daughter will not be cut to pieces without my consent. Did you ever think that they might be attached to a main artery?” the nurses eyes flickered with embarrassment and turned away. Jade would not wait around for the news to spread that her daughter was...different.
On the car ride home Jade glanced over at the car seat next to her. Michaela's dark gray eyes stared up into hers and Jade had a dark feeling that Michaela was no longer the girl she had been five hours ago, she was not a normal baby in the least. She closed her eyes but the image would not leave her face; the image of her daughters back.
Her soft pink baby flesh had been covered with blood and right below her shoulder blades had been two...soft, chick-like ...wings.
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