Project Omelas Chapter Zero: Achilles Come Down.

Tw: Societal Collapse, death/semi-suicidal behaviour, graves, swearing, implications of medical experiments, self harm/ body horror, drugs, pregnancy and loss.

Won’t you get up off, get up off the roof?

-- Gang Of Youth, Achilles Come Down.

Society collapsed. Not with the heat death of the sun, but in a well of sickness, and she was Darwin’s favourite pet project.

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Even if the turmeric-stained mud replacing her worn-through fingertips suggested otherwise. There was still life in the crooked movements of ill-healed bones and in her cracking skin. Sure, it was a dying thing that found no protection in the pulsing blisters that consumed her nail-beds but clung on all the same; however, that will was unsteady. Much like her chest that struggled to rise and fall, just long enough to embrace that survival of the fittest was a lie.

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One that crumbled as easily as the ragged claws her chipping hands had become. Their dreadful rhythm, perhaps to calm against the brackish rain piercing her dirt-smeared skin. No matter how many trails it carved, the oppressive warmth refused to wash away the stubborn remains of ash or sink into her knotted nerves. Nor did it slow her fingers as they gouged out walls in the shallow hole she knelt over.

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A twisted part of herself wanted to laugh because, of course, this was how it would end; not with a bang, whimper, or childish fantasy of strawberry fields and that little E-shaped house. Oh, but that would mean allowing the ache in her knees to be real, or recognizing the nausea on her tongue… recognizing that it belongs to the tightness in her shoulders. But who was she kidding?

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That thought seemed to be torn from her head by the wind and mutated into a lump in her throat. A loud, angry thing eager to tear down her frail vocal cords, leaving them to rot in the bitter perfume of unsettled copper and bile that took the place of water for her closing throat. It felt in some ways like a mockery as her gaze refused to fall on the filling puddle her shaking hands fought to shape—fought to carve out what in another life could have been a dancer’s frame, light and hollowed boned yet seemingly so fragile under the weight of the world, the hard set of her broad shoulders were meant to carry.

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She should be old enough to know — nothing’s fair when digging her own grave. Nothing’s fair, or she wouldn’t be choking on her own guilt. Nothing’s fair because if it were, she wouldn’t be here, dying alone, unable to look them in the eyes. In fact, the only damn thing that was fair is that the kids… her kids won’t be able to find the unmarked heap she’s going to rot further away in.

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Where the rumbling clatter of that spiral finding its foothold should have been, was instead a strange numbness slotted next to her tensing jaw. It was a restless thing; however, it was much lighter than the hefty mass sinking between her lungs. For just a second, it was the ice-filled ghost of the rain that spread through nerves wrapped around the sting of unused muscles dragged down by a tucked-away wingspan. The paralyzing embrace of this ghost seemed to seep into her pounding heart against crumbling ribs, stalling to let a shivering sob take its place.

Every snag of its ripped edges morphed next to her vocal cords. No matter how little air her gasping breath held onto, it sent lukewarm water through flight-tangled knots or drove faux cherry coloured leather into the spaces where human anatomy became alien–where her spine married the slight tilt of secondary scapula and keel.

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However, all that struggle seemed to do was betray the grief that burnt the edges of her eyes and sent ripples on the mirror-like surface that her gaze would kill to never look in. The dread coagulated in her throat, knowing the worst of what awaited her if they did.

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Her very own malnourished skin stretched over someone else’s frame would glare back. What little remained of her baby fat died to create sunken cheekbones that were desperate to break through the bruises no doubt painted on her skull.

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Just this once, if she looked, would what remained to be put to rest actually scare her? Would it be the perpetual layer of grime on her matted blonde curls that she decided she shared with Angel? Maybe Nudge’s warm brown eyes, that were never quite as wide or never lit up in the same way? Or that hint of regret that clung to the smirk she stole from Hi-

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That perfume of bile won its war. It spilled from cracked lips onto her locking fingers and the moonlit veins her gaze settled on with a sound far too close to a cry. Even though society was gone. Some part of her still whispered a thankful prayer that the rain in her lungs covered her breaking voice. For just this moment, the noises that nestled between her bones felt like the warmed-over memory of home. With every unsettled breath, she could feel her hunching shoulders pull into the soft recollection of a downstroke. The once sluggish path of her blood came alive in place of her body as if to chase the high-pitched tune of a bird call and the bass line of beating wings. Her twitching ears were never sure if the noise was born out of her instincts or the flock whose shadow circled overhead.

Regardless, those tired eyes resisted the urge to look for arms and legs in the shifting forms above her. Perhaps they were aware there would be none to find. Even if her mind craved some sort of kin. Ones made of shade or flesh, it didn’t matter, as the world beyond the scars carved into her wrist like sun rays was too heavy. All she could see was the ghost of a life she left halfway through, hanging in the buzzing air and its heat, in some ways, creating a silent dare for something to shatter the spell.

Not through the breath that rang in her ears as her aching back betrayed her mind by longing for action, or the sweat-soaked primary feathers that beat against the inside of her jacket. Rather, that dare would form through cries that felt wrong in their existence as they entangled burbling words. Although her voice did smooth into the ends of letters, it writhed on the tip of her tongue before being spat out like loose teeth.

“Look, you can be up there all high and mighty, as you judge me. Still doesn’t change the fact I fucking can’t go back, even if I wanted to. “ 

Her voice was a hoarse thing that seemed too young as it fell unheard against the ruffling of wings and the blunt scrape of metal under her skin.

However, it was such a tired sound that it refused to buzz within her bones nor gain a second wind. What remained of those fading words was more like a bowing spectre that used the tattered starlight to seize her neck in a stranglehold. Although the milky light should have been a soft embrace, it was a hard, set thing whose breath stunk of antiseptic.

For once, that twisted part of herself that wanted to laugh now found pleas to end this quicker in the gaps between the turning bird song that inched closer. In one last mockery, the world gave in to the wish for kinship. However, it seemed like a bitter Hail Mary before her watery grave turned into a bloodbath, as those ragged claws tore at her veins to pull out bone and plasma-soaked microchips alike.

That is, if her mud-coated fingers gave up the momentary terror that infected her heart. All because those shadows that circled had shifted into the familiar oil-slicked hues of rain-damp crow feathers.

In any other time and place, it would have been a welcome sight, but not here, not now, when it was one more shard of the past staring her down. Not when the brown eyes staring her down held echoes of a past filled with cages and other horrors it would never know as their beaks lapped at her reflection. Neither stranglehold nor any bile left could ease the lump in her throat. Leaving a new sense of grief to clog her vocal cords like the ashen down of the fledgling peeking out from under those crow wings.

Of course he had found some way to be here. Even in spirit, that little boy in the dog crate next to hers refused to let her die…or at least alone. She should have known that her last words wouldn’t be jump and they’ll jump together or even that she was sorry. No, no, no. It just had to be goddamn it, Fang…

However, it wasn’t her still-frail heart or the flight of her new guests that disturbed those thoughts before they settled. Rather, it came from something not forewarned by laughter, song or even footsteps.

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“Come on. Tell me you didn’t fight all the way here to just get cold feet? You really are losing your touch, M.R.Ultra.” Spoke a voice that was neither a ghost nor a recollection, despite it being an echo belonging in her mind because it had no body of its own.

Every part of herself wanted that voice to crumble under the uncaring honeyed brown, as quickly as she did.

However, that would be a somewhat cruel sense of mercy; after all, this was not a flash of memory breathing on her neck. Nor was it a shadow. Whatever it was appeared more like a mirage stubborn enough to be erased from rippling water. Still, the afterimage ebbing from the edges of the figure faded alongside controlled inhales. Nonexistent breath jostled well-kempt curls across the carmine-stained feather jacket that consumed its shoulders. All while the hemline cascaded into the mud, unable to sully a trick of the light.

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And it was right, goddamn it, it was right. For seventeen years, she had an anger burning so deep in her veins it could have singed bone. Now … now it was only ice water.

“Shut up! Parasites don’t get to call me what my family used to.” Her voice played on the edge of a bitter crack. “And you sure as hell don’t get to tell me I’m lesser when you’re not real.”

A dry laugh carried by the growing wind rattled at the edges of her skull. For such a small sound, it was hard to swallow down. Torn bits and pieces rose from her twisting stomach, and past her lips never birthed a noise.

Instead, they would bear witness to how her nerves demanded the swift calm of lashing out as her gaze refused to settle on her mirrored form. Its translucent body, a hair away from blending into the rocky expanse. Even if the smirk that pulled at this figure’s fuller cheeks brought a condescending light to those shared features.

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“Oh, please, I’m more real than you think. After all, that’s the thing with being everything you have ever been, everything you could be. I know when something’s fully true; in fact, we both know what the real parasite is, Max. That still doesn’t change the fact that you have to choose to die like a man or get off the pot, Maximum.

The figure’s words slipped past the unbothered glint of exposed teeth.

Half of herself felt like she was treading water, collecting in her protesting joints. The other half of her-of Max was driven by an exhausted spite that seemed more befitting of Ophelia. Yet there would be no down coat or rosemary and thyme as her thrashing feet scuffed against the ground. Even with everything in place, her muscles’ protests were heard through nausea-coated pinpricks as her legs struggled. Still, they stumbled forward in a seasick manner towards the grave’s edge. If her breath had been an inhale deeper, she would have tumbled into those constricting dirt walls. A fitting end for the weight her folded-up limbs could no longer support…

Why was it even now that someone else decided if it was her time to die or not? Of course, the choice was never truly in her hands, but couldn’t she cling to that illusion for her last few hours? Anything other than the fact that she's doomed to stand next to sole survivors because the psychopaths that made her couldn't finish the job.

Standing there, doomed to hear that their Icarus can’t die so young... die so early into being their saviour. Saviour. Saviour!

“Enough, Maya! There’s a reason why I’m Max, and you’re not. We both know you’re just a drugged-induced side effect of whatever bullshit they gave me at the ‘School’, and aren’t you as tired as me…” 

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Max’s voice was more like the raw edges of a gasp as her feet seemed to lose their battle.

Yet the words didn’t seem to stop bleeding out or change as her knees hit the sludge-like ground below. The tiredness in her bones kept her muscles in a type of rigor mortis as her face skimmed its water-bound reflection.

“Aren’t you tired of not being asked but demanded to be a saviour when there’s nothing to save? Aren’t you tired of being the sacrificial lamb for the world they ruined, when they took away our world? It’s like they forgot Icarus was meant to fail, and now there’s no other way out.”

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The world spun slightly as the last of those words hung in the outside world. In part, it felt more like a memory when compared to the chill of mud seeping through tattered jeans or the warmth she didn’t want to acknowledge was tears. However, even as a hallucination, it seemed Maya grew tired of the pitiful scene. What comfort was meant to be found as that red feather coat crossed the gap and fell flat by the time ghostly hands cupped her face.

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“You poor, poor thing. If this were any other time, you would be lying at your family’s feet to say there’s another way. “

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The wind took the place of Maya’s breath.

“So, Ride, are you going to take your own advice and give in? Saviour or figurehead, it doesn’t really matter; you say the word, and there could be no more cages or labs. You could even have a new family of followers, but if you wish to rot in a grave for two, be my guest. “

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There was no easy retort that was quick to find on her heavy tongue. Just the shake of her hands. No longer strong enough to tear apart clammy skin or break the ground as they balled up feathers that never existed. Despite her screaming nerves, nothing brushed against her palm. Not like the hair plastered against her forehead or the pull of her wingspan rearing back into a semi-life.

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“You can’t ask that of me. You know I would just be trading in steel bars for their expectations. In the end I would be stuck in those sterile walls, tested, poked and prodded, my DNA used to make more lab rats; I can’t do that to them.”

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And she wouldn’t do that to herself…through every needle prick or failed vivisection, she would rather strangle herself with the strings than be a puppet.

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“Maybe I would believe you if that wasn’t spoken by someone who didn’t already do what they asked. Not even by force at that, just one night of acting your age.”

Come on, where was her bite, her venom, the unrighteous anger…

Maya’s voice should have been nothing more than the ringing in her ears, yet something else seemed to stir. Something that evaded the beading copper that flooded Max’s mouth as her teeth sank through her own flesh.

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Where there was nothing other than the tears she shouldn’t have had.

However, that stirring thing moved through red-stained feathers in a writhing mass of tiny limbs. Every strike held enough force to match the heave moving through her chest.

There weren’t any tears shed, not in the burnt-out corpse they tried to hold her in god knows how many months ago, but that first Lab was a different story. After all, it was the place where she first discovered the glassy stare of death or the sharp crack of a broken bone.

Even here, her bones and lungs threatened to snap in the wake of a wail, one that was unsure of whose mouth it was leaving. Her or the small but painfully human form that screeched and thrashed its way out of its mother’s hold; every move determined to spite the fact that they were just tricks of the light.

Something no more real than the memory of the place where tiny fingers poked out from rusty cages to hold on to the only company she had left.

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Either way, Max’s voice held little sway, not even glinting patches of powdery blonde down that slipped from her shoulders or danced across numb arms. Her wings, ever loyal, were busy fumbling through the motions of their second wind.

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“It was never meant to get this way, for it to get that far…” Something more like a sob took the place of the usual sardonic laugh that should have been there. “ But go figure, the universe finds a different way to punish their winged girl saviour for putting myself first for once. “

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A fresher memory, tinted by the burn of cheap booze, seemed to mix with the taste of copper. In the end, birthing a new grief as Maya’s grip slipped away.

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“It’s punishing you for being reckless and narrowly missing the sun, Icarus; now that you’ve reached rock bottom, what choice will you make when forced to play Daedalus’s part as well?”

Those words seemed to spill from Maya’s mouth and crawl through the air, taking every inch by inch until they sat in Max’s mouth. Even with the ease that created them, they never felt right amongst the sickening mixture on her tongue.

Rather, they stabbed into the rotting flesh of her jaw, like misshapen molars trying to tear an answer out of her. One not fueled by the fading ghost of uneven heaves and the slow resurrection of downstrokes. All the world’s weight on her shoulders shifted onto the concord and metacarpus as they struggled to find the slits torn in that cherry leather. What bitter warmth that clung to the rain turned sweet in the face of one last flight she’d never see. 

Much like that human form, as its red face wails turned into the curl of infant fingers, breaking free from that scarlet coat. Such a small thing, unsure of whether it was a dying hope or curse as the wind licked at olive skin and brown curls that framed the blurry afterimage of a button nose. Its softened stare seemed to stop her heart and voice alike as the grabbing hands threatened to tumble out of the worn leather jacket, turned sling around Maya’s core.

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“Maybe you are me, as only I’d be stubborn enough to stare myself down while picking between two evils. Tell me, if this thing makes it to term, would a life of fear and terror in a world this broken really truly be better... or would it be a cruel act of mercy to do what my father wouldn’t and let the world end alongside a life never lived?”

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Max’s voice broke like dawn as she tore her eyes away from those grasping hands.

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“ Look, I know that means we’d both become dust in this unmarked grave, but I refuse to burden my own kid with fixing something that will never recover. I refuse to repeat my father’s sins, so we’re all dying in the softest way we can instead of the death we deserve, got it? “

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For once there was no response from Maya. No taunt stirred from that part of herself that wanted to live as her eyes finally fluttered closed. All that was left in this figment’s wake was mud-smeared fingers scared to cradle the life growing in its skin and the wind voicing words unspoken. 

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“I expected more from you, Maximum Ride... They all did.”

Yet as the moonlight embraced the golden warmth of the sun, there was no one left to rebuke that fact. No one left to catch the trembling whisper half-muttered to the new day.

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“If it makes it any better, kid, I didn’t get a crib either.”