[indent][i]Haven was just past the age of twelve when virumosis took effect. Everything suddenly became so loud, so clear, and so bright and colorful. She could go longer without breathing. The heat of summer in a building with no A/C and the freezing temperatures of winter did not bother her any longer. She hungered for more food than the girl's home could provide.

Most importantly, the growing pains that affected her arms and legs moved into the center of her back. It made sleeping uncomfortable, chores even more taxing, and even something as simple as sitting in a chair a sore area. These difficulties would follow her for the rest of her life.

Just when Haven had grown used to these heightened senses, and grown comfortable with the growing pains, she felt them. Small pricks of pain similar to a splinter in her skin at the center of her back. As if her body was expelling something foreign and sharp. When she reached behind her to touch the area, she felt a grid of small pins growing between her shoulder blades.

She didn't go to anyone for help. Part of her knew that she was different now. Changed into something natural, and yet unwelcome in any place where prejudice lived. Her friend's chest was growing, and it was on her back where something sprouted instead.

She snuck into the bathroom in the middle of the night one day and stood facing away from the mirror. With a small handheld she snatched from a supervisor, she inspected her bare back in the dim light from the window. What she saw set her heart racing. She ran her fingers over the changed skin, finding that the small pins had loosened and become soft. Downy feathers sat where her skin had once been smooth and unblemished. Their color a mottled shade of brown. Wide eyes stared into the handheld mirror all night as delicate fingers ran themselves over the growths, wondering what further change was to come with this new development on her body.

The growing pains worsened. The downy feathers continued to grow, and two small bundles of bone and flesh stretched her skin where the patch of feathers remained. They took a triangular shape, and soon she could feel them moving with the muscles in her back. The night she realized she was growing wings was a night she'd never forget.

Haven stole a bundle of gauze from the sparse nurse room and wrapped them down. It made her chest even flatter, bringing about bullying from the girls who had become something beautiful, and hardly hid the bump on her back. She wore loose shirts and the only jacket she possessed to hide it further. The home didn't have much to offer, but the girls who dreamed of joining wealthy families only saw it as another opportunity to bully her.

Eventually, Haven allowed her only friend to see her growing wings. She'd never forget the fear she felt in sharing them either. If she lost her one connection to the girls home because she was different, she was sure that she would fade into the bleak paint on the walls and remain there forever.

Yet her friend was kind and sympathetic. She embraced Haven's new body. She helped loosen pin feathers as more began to sprout. She learned what she could from their limited library access, helping Haven learn how to wash and care for them.

She offered soothing words when Haven shared her fear of what was to come when the wings were bigger. She stood up for Haven when the girls were too harsh about the small girl's flat chest, even when she herself had become the most beautiful of them all. She was the first person that Haven could truly call home.

Yet as time passed, for all of Haven's attempts to keep them hidden, the gauze could no longer hide them. They were the size of a small raven's wingspan when the first girl noticed their tips peeking out of the bottom of her t-shirt one night.

Haven's found sister couldn't keep their curiosity away from her. She couldn't fight them off, either. They overwhelmed the winged girl. They tore her shirt from her back, and then the gauze. They were disgusted with her. They hurt her with their words, and then they hurt her with their hands. It went on for days until the supervisor found them. The supervisor did nothing for her. Their own disdain was clear in their sneers and the blind eye they turned to her pain.

Haven bore their disgust, their fear, their anger, and she in turn felt it too. It gathered in the small of her back and in the pit of her stomach. It gave her the courage to leave the girls home. It gave her the spirit to brave the world on her own. It gave her the will to try her wings for the first time. It gave her the strength to get back up again and again when she crashed. She took their hatred and she turned it into the love she feels for herself and her wings.

No one would steal that away from her. No one would touch her wings again. She became as free as the wind, and she remained there. Suspended in the air and untouchable by anyone or anything.

Until she was caught by an angel hunter.

Then sent to a facility for people also changed by a virus, and sent again to a place where she would find another family. Where she would find that they loved her for all of her differences and for all of the soul she would allow them to see.[/i][/indent]

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[indent][sub][B]Location:[/B] [COLOR=SILVER][I]Southern Plateau [/I] - [I]PRCU[/I][/COLOR][/sub][sup][right][b]Hope in Hell #2.050:[/b] [COLOR=SILVER][I]Wake Me Up Before You Dodo[/I][/COLOR][/right][/sup][/indent][sub][hr][/sub][INDENT][sub][B]Interaction(s):[/B] [COLOR=SILVER][I]The janitor controlled the simulation, apparently?[/I][/COLOR][/sub][SUP][RIGHT][b]Previously:[/b] [COLOR=SILVER][I]I Wanna Hold Your Hand[/I][/COLOR][/right][/SUP][/INDENT][/COLOR]

[indent] Haven had taken one step forwards into the forked hallway, and suddenly found herself alone. As if her fingers had slipped from between her autumn haired friend's without the slightest sensation of doing so. Panic immediately bubbled up her throat, choking her so that she couldn't call out for her friend. She was alone again. Vulnerable. Somehow, her surroundings didn't instantly ignite her fear. Instead, it left her shell-shocked and wistful. She no longer stood in the pure white hallways of the Foundation. Instead, she found herself frozen in a place she hadn't dreamed of in months.

The room was small. It's walls a discolored white, covered in shelves upon shelves of bottles leaking goo, plastic bowls, and tools she had never been able to name at that age. The floor was dingy; clean, yet worn and old from years of use. It's once speckled pattern lost to time in a few patches. A small table sat in the corner, only two chairs set beside it. On top of it sat a bent and torn drawing book, open to the page of a simple, poorly half-coloured dove. Broken crayons strewn about the table beside it. A small, well-used sippy cup of water was on it's side at the center of the table. Next to a plastic cup with a yellow dandelion inside. A free floral ornament to pretty the place up.

Cigarette smoke drifted in through the cracks of the door to Haven's left, followed by the muffled laughter of women from the room beyond. Haven took a step towards it, one particular lilting voice catching onto her mind and pulling, but felt something crunch beneath her foot. She looked down as she lifted her foot to see a toy, broken from the impact. It had once been one of her favorites.

The chatter from the salon lifted again, drawing Haven's attention back to that voice that had faded from her memory. She couldn't remember exactly how it sounded. It could have been a supplement made by the simulation, to imitate the sound of a mother's voice so that she would feel beckoned by it. Even in her dreams she thought that the voice she heard sounded too soft, or too different in pitch. It didn't matter much.

What Haven wondered now, even as she feared the simulation was toying with her heart again, was if the technology was good enough to dig deep into her memories. To find a clear image of a mother she'd buried within her heart, long lost to the stores in her mind. If she could just see it once, she wouldn't forget it again.

She stepped over the toys scattered about the floor, careful not to break any more, ignorant of the complications of allowing the simulation to win the upper hand. She took the wood door knob into her hand, trying not to let how small it felt in her hand now affect her, and pulled it open. One glimpse was all she needed.

The door swung open, and Haven found herself looking into a new scene from her dreams. Another place she'd found herself as a child, where her mother would take her when the harsh winter made sleeping in a car unbearable. She stepped onto old carpet, and her eyes scanned the tacky motel room for any signs of her mother. She found nothing but empty McDonald's wrapping paper on the nightstand and clothes strewn about the floor.

Haven took a deep breath. An attempt to maintain her composure as disappointment washed over her. Her torn ribs protested against the movement. She winced as the pain rocketed up her side. The motel bed was looking about as comfortable as she remembered it feeling. As much as she yearned to curl up within it's old bed linen again, she forced herself to remember where she was and what fresh hell might be waiting for her through the next door.

She needed to push on.

Haven made it a few steps into the room before the door she'd left behind began to shake against it's hinges. A terrifying knock sounding on the other side. Her heart leapt in her chest, that knock jolting a memory to the front of her mind. She looked towards the TV next to her and found the same re-run of her favorite public broadcasting cartoon playing. It was a memory of the day she'd been taken away.

The pounding at the door was protective services, come to take her away. Except now, maybe this time it was the masked men. Come to finish her off while her mind was in the past. She moved quicker now, her steps faltering with each bang against the motel door. She reached for the handle to the bathroom. The place she'd hidden away from her mom's overnight guests, the place where she'd taken refuge when she was alone and scared at night, and the place she was hopeful to find safety in now.

She gripped the metal handle and pulled, ushering herself through it with relief when she saw the familiar bathtub sitting before her. She closed the door behind her and locked it. She could hear the rustling of keys outside the motel door. It was the clerk, come to aid her kidnappers because of his civic duty to the law. She backed away from the door, and when her calves felt the cold plastic of the tub against them she stepped into the tub.

The motel door was open now, and she heard their feet against the carpet. Haven lowered herself into a crouch despite the pain in her thigh and side. She hugged her knees to her chest. The blood on her knee felt cold now. How long had she been bleeding? How much longer would she last before she fainted from the loss?

The footsteps were at the door now. Haven shut her eyes as the handle jiggled. A demand to open up came through the plywood. She hugged her knees tightly as her body began to tremble. [color=tan][i]"Not real."[/i][/color]

The door handle jiggled again, threatening to rip the door apart as it grew more violent. It grew louder and louder in a crescendo of fear until the door burst open with a sudden crack and... 

There was silence.

[color=tan][i]"Not real."[/i][/color] Haven whispered again, as if the mantra was what had stopped the noise outside her safe space. It did not provide her any relief; it filled her with dread. Was this when the woman would begin to wail again? Would the simulation throw her back into that cage, and eventually back onto that table? Perhaps it was some twisted loop in which she would end up in the place of that winged woman, like she'd seen minutes ago.

She heard a door open to her right. The cage door. She didn't move from her position this time.

[i]"There you are."[/i] A gentle voice, belonging to someone she had once called a sister, sounded next to her.

Slowly, Haven looked up at the figure with bleary eyes. She blinked away the tears that formed as she laid eyes upon her old friend. She looked the same as the day Haven left her.

[i]"I... I'm sorry I wasn't there to help you."[/i] Her voice was soft and sorrowful as she sat on the bed Haven now found herself on. It sat at the end of a row, in the darkest corner of the girls home's dormitory. Haven sat facing the open room with her wings to the wall.

[i]"Look at what they did to your wings."[/i] She said as she reached a hand out to caress the tawny feathers.

Haven shuddered at the touch, but she did not pull away. It had been so long since someone touched them this lovingly... so long since her sister had helped her with the pain of her existence. A sigh escaped her lips. [color=tan]"I wish you were real."[/color] She murmured, her voice tinged with sorrow and regret. [color=tan][i]"I'm sorry I left you."[/i][/color]

Her words had barely left her lips before she felt a sharp tug against a primary feather. A bolt of lightning traveled up the length of her wing and buried itself deep in her back. The betrayal stung her right in her heart. She cried out in her anguish.

[i]"Oh, come on. You didn't leave me anything to remember you by."[/i] Her sister chided, all sympathy and love gone from her voice. Haven pushed herself off of the bed, the entire right side of her body burning as she did so. She whirled around to face her sister, who now stood twirling her long consolation prize between her fingers. 

[i][b]"They're really going to kill you, this time."[/b][/i]

Haven's heart twisted with fear as fresh tears escaped down her cheeks. She turned away from her betraying sister to face the open door at the end of the dormitory. Where she expected to hear black loafers on aged wooden flooring, she instead heard the snickers and leers that already haunted her nightmares.

[i]"Haaaveeen."

"Ugly Duckling, where are youuu?"

"Show yourself, freak!"[/i]

[color=tan]"No... Not them."[/color] Her hands clenched at her sides, nails pressing into her skin. She couldn't stop shaking. Even her voice shook when she begged once more. [color=tan]"Anyone but them."[/color]

[i]"Just accept it, Haven."[/i] Her found sisters voice lilted from behind her. [i]"They should have gotten it over with a long time ago."[/i]

Haven suddenly felt a kick to her back where her wings met at the bundle of feathers. The breath was knocked from her chest and she fell forwards, catching herself with her knees and wrists. She felt lightning crack within her side again. The pain overwhelmed her with nausea. The footsteps from the hallway poured into the room, followed by taunting sneers and promises of pain. She wheezed from where she crawled towards a bed, desperate to get herself back onto her feet. She wanted to take them on standing. She wouldn't go down without a fight.

[i]"There's the Ugly Duckling."[/i] The tallest girl spit at her before Haven felt a foot connect with her shredded thigh. Blood dripped onto the floor in the path of the girl's shoe as it returned to her side. Haven faltered against the side of the bed, choking back a whimper. [i]"Little freak."[/i] The next kick came to her ribs, and Haven screeched. She released the bed to slide to the floor, reaching to clutch her side. A warm and wet sensation met her palms and fingers.

Two girls grabbed her, one arm in each set of hands. Haven struggled against them as they drug her to the center of the group that had gathered, faces she recognized from her dreams scowling at her. Masks covered the faces she couldn't remember. The tallest girl stepped up behind Haven and suddenly another sharp tug had a second feather torn loose. Haven screamed, her grief not only for her pain but for her beautiful wings. The girls released her, letting her crash onto those worn wooden floors. She hardly had a moment to breathe before the rest of the girls began their torment. The top girls always took the first bites before the rest could get their piece.

They placed their anger, their frustration with the world, and their disgust onto the poor, winged girl. The freak. The ugly duckling. The hypie. Haven took each blow, absorbing it all once again like she had those many years ago. The pain had her seeing stars with each rattle of her skull. The anguish had her seeing red. She couldn't let them kill her. Not this group of fucked up girls. Not her first tormentors. They couldn't win. Whoever was really doing this to her [i]could not[/i] win. Haven didn't want to lose this easily.

Amidst the beating, Haven turned herself onto her stomach. She placed her hands by her head, and once she felt a lull in the pain, she shoved herself up-- only to fall again as her right leg failed her. The group around her erupted in laughter, their young and hateful voices filling the dormitory and overwhelming Haven's ears. She felt fingers splay through her hair and grip it tightly. The hand lifted her head up and back, and as she looked up at her aggressor, she was shocked to see a pair of gold and green eyes looking back at her.

[color=CD853F]"Don't you think this is a little pathetic?"[/color]

Haven's brows furrowed, her bloodied lip breaking away from her top to take a breath now that she had a moment to recover. Her eyes scanned the tanned face, the small nose, and the full cheeks framed by golden brown hair  that looked down at her. She thought that she'd already seen her other self, so... who was this?

[color=CD853F]"I know you have more left in you. So get up. Are you really going to let these little girls win?"[/color]

She could hear the girls stepping back from her now. An opportunity to let her stand. The hand in her hair loosened as her other leaned back on her heels. It was obvious that the simulation was toying with her now. Haven hung her head and took a breath through her nose. She tasted the metallic tang of blood on her split lip. Every place the girls bruised her ached, filling her with that same pain and anger as it had long ago. She took that anguish and once again put it in her muscles.

Haven once again laid her palms flat beside her head, and slowly began to push herself off of the floor. The efforts had her shaking as she propped herself up on her knees, hissing through her teeth as she put weight on her right side. Blood dripped onto the floor and Haven ignored it's warning. She ignored the hateful eyes that bore down upon her as she fought to stand. The green and gold set watched her with no sympathy within them. Yet the moment Haven found herself standing on her feet, swaying as she tried to gain her balance, those eyes lit up as her other smiled.

[color=CD853F]"Atta girl. Now, run!"[/color] She exclaimed, bolting to her feet as she ran towards the door at the end of the room. She was fast and nimble, and her feet didn't make a sound on the creaky flooring. Nor did the larger, tawny wings that graced her back leave any trail of wind behind her.

Haven put all of her strength into her legs as she took off after her. Her battered body aching with each movement. She stumbled, nearly catching against an outstretched foot from the tallest girl as she passed. Hateful cries erupted from behind her as they began to chase. Haven didn't look back at them, eyes fixed on the door that would provide her escape from this horrible room where she'd been subject to their youthful hate. Desperation evident in her features as the girls followed her with vicious intent, her heartbeat racing once again. She reached the doorway and hastily pushed herself through it.

Wooden floors abruptly eroded into dark soil and detritus where Haven placed her foot next. Tall trees loomed around her, their lichen covered bark dark against the lush browns and greens of the forest. She recognized these trees and the path that lead through them. Her feet did not falter as she continued running. Her eyes searched the tree line for her other, and for the cabin she knew awaited at the end of the path.

A loud pop of power erupted in the forest to her right. Her stray hairs catching in the wind from the object that whizzed by her head. Just as she registered what that noise meant, the bark of the tree to her left erupted, splintering into chunks that flung themselves at her face. Haven ducked as her steps faltered, wincing against the thick splinters of wood that pelted her.

[i]"Found you, little bird!"[/i] A gruff, commanding voice sounded from where the crack originated. The clicks of a shotgun reloading carried through the quiet woods in its wake.

The words set Haven's feet into motion again. She knew who that voice belonged to. She knew that if he caught her this time, he wouldn't allow her to live. Her feet dug into the forest floor as she ran, a trail of blood left among the leaves and dirt. Her lungs burned as she gasped for air.

[i]"Aren't you tired of runnin'?"[/i] He called before another boom shook the forest. This time Haven felt the shot zip by her left leg, the pellets embedding themselves into the earth with small thunks.

She pressed onwards despite the heart ache that his words caused her. As desperately as she wanted to live, to escape this trial and it's horrors, she [i]was[/i] tired of running. She'd been running her whole life. Even as a child, she was running from her mother's past. As a teenager, she ran from whatever system wanted to control her life. She was running from the fear of being different. She was running from whoever would claim her as a hyperhuman. Her time at PRCU seemed like a small period in which she'd stayed in one place. Yet even now as things were changing, Haven felt the urge to run from it. The instinctual need to place some distance between her soul and anything that challenged it. Whether that challenge came from a new person of power that threatened her safety, or from the growing love she had for her teammates. One particular teammate came to mind, and Haven felt tears blurring her vision.

Then between the treeline just ahead, there it stood. A beacon of hope made of wood and glass revealed itself at the end of the path. She was no longer running from her fears. Now she was running towards her hope. She blinked those tears back and dug her heels into the dirt. She heard the gun reloading again and knew it was only a matter of time before his aim fired true. She had to make it back for her team. For Rory. She had to tell him that she didn't want to run anymore. That she would unpack that bag and throw it out. Even if the Foundation, [i]anything[/i], threatened her happiness, she wanted to stay and fight for it.

She reached the steps of the porch and nearly tripped on them in her haste.

[i]"I've got you, little bird."[/i] The voice sounded from the edge of the tree line. She heard the gun cock, and the whoosh of his breath as he leveled the barrel at her.

Haven grasped the knob and pulled, hurling herself through the door just as she heard him fire. The pellets imbedded themselves in the door where her head would have been seconds ago. She shoved off of the porch and into the darkness inside the cabin, and found herself falling.

The darkness transformed into branches covered in green. Light filtered through them from a source above. They scratched at her skin and tugged at her hair and feathers. She reached out around her, trying to catch onto one of them to stop her fall, but her hands continued to slip and tear where she couldn't find purchase. She cried out as she tumbled through the canopy. She fell through empty space until she landed on the soft dirt of the forest floor with a thud.

Haven laid still for a moment until her body twitched. She wheezed as her head tried to wrap itself around what happened. She hadn't fallen far. If she had, she knew that she would have felt the crack of bones breaking upon impact. Where she laid the new forest, rich with dark green pine and large, old trees spun around her. Two sets of legs, arms, golden brown heads, and large tawny wings melded together into one form as her other flew in from between the cedars and firs before her other silently landed beside her. The forest stopped spinning just as Haven looked up to see her disappointed gaze.

[color=CD853F]"You could have been so much more than this, you know."[/color] Her other spoke, but the words didn't make any sense. [color=CD853F]"If you had only chosen a different path four years ago, you would be as powerful as this."[/color]

Her other extended her wings behind her, showing off the grand size of them. They had to be at least two feet longer in diameter than her own. [color=CD853F]"[i]He[/i] could have showed them more love than our human sister ever had. He could have blessed you, and you would have become the strongest in his cause."[/color]

[color=CD853F]"Well, besides Katja."[/color] She shrugged as she allowed her wings to fold again behind her.

Haven's brows knitted together as she closed her eyes, trying to process what her other was telling her. She shifted her body on the dirt, knowing that she had to get up again but unable to muster the strength to do so. She already knew who her other meant by [i]he[/i], and yet she wanted to deny it.

[color=CD853F]"If only you had let him in, in that meeting long ago. He would have offered you more comfort than Pacific Royal or Blackjack ever has. He could have been the father you never had."[/color]

Haven grit her teeth and spat hoarse words into the dirt. [color=tan]"Hyperion could never be like a father. He hurt the innocent. He deserved the fate that came to him."[/color]

Her other's face contorted with fury. She stepped forwards to press her foot against Haven's bloody side. [color=CD853F]"You cling to the hope that the world will accept you, and you are blinded by it. Even some of your own kind, those that dirty his name in search of their own cause, think of you as weak. Hyperion would have never called you a [i]sub-class[/i]."[/color]

Haven could only respond with a whine as the boot pressed further into her. She grasped her other's ankle, nails digging into the cotton that separated keratin from flesh. The pressure only increased, and Haven allowed it to roll her onto her back only to rid herself of the pain. She panted where she laid, each breath eliciting agony from her side.

[color=CD853F]"The Foundation will clip your wings, and you will wish that you had placed your hope in his cause."[/color] Her other placed each foot on other side of Haven, looking down at her with an expression similar to pity. Haven looked up at her with what little defiance she had left. That fire within her feeling more like burning embers now. [color=CD853F]"But it's too late, now."[/color]

Her other bent down to her knees, straddling Haven's waist. She was careful not to kneel on Haven's wings where they laid. Even in the simulation, her other respected the preciousness of their existence. [color=CD853F]"The Foundation is here, and I don't think I can let them have you."[/color]

Haven recognized the threat hidden beneath her other's words. She knitted her brows together, baring her teeth as she tried to look like a force to be reckoned with. [color=tan]"They won't take me. I won't let them. My [i]team[/i] won't let them."[/color] She lifted her arms and reached for her other, hoping to push her off of her.

[color=CD853F]"Your team? You precious Blackjack? They spat in his face."[/color] Her other said as she grabbed her by the wrists. The two wrestled with their arms as Haven struggled to free herself. [color=CD853F]"They deserve the fate that is coming to them now. They're going to die, and the Foundation will claim that it was in Hyperion's name. Even though one among you joined his cause."[/color]

Haven continued to struggle beneath her, and yet her other's words hit her right in the chest. [color=tan]"That's not true. This isn't [i]real[/i]. You just want me to fear it."[/color]

Her other shoved Haven's arms to her side and released them, but just as quickly she placed her hands on Haven's throat. Haven uttered an angry cry, and her own hands grabbed onto the fingers that threatened to squeeze the life out of her. The fear of death overwhelmed her, sending adrenaline rushing into her arms and fingertips. Her heart beat faster, and she felt strength returning as she began to pry those hands away.

[color=CD853F]"This [i]is[/i] real, little bird. This is a message to Pacific Royal, to your precious Blackjack. And if you won't die for the cause, whether it’s on that table or by my hands, I will make sure your soul doesn't leave this trial."[/color]

Haven gasped for air as those hands released her throat, her own hands moving too slowly to catch her other's wrists as they extended past her chin. They moved towards her crown, where they grabbed onto the neural uplink on her temples. Haven's eyes widened, terror evident on her face, as she realized what her other was going to do.

[color=CD853F]"Goodbye, Haven."[/color] Her other whispered before she tore the uplinks from her skin, and disconnected the winged girl from the simulation.
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