Millenniums ago, when the dinosaurs still ruled the land, humans did not walk the Earth. Instead, they ruled the sky with their large, beautiful wings and superior intelligence. They were known as the Alphas.

The Alphas were not weak, flightless creatures but rather graceful and stunning. Able to soar miles into the atmosphere and possessing incredible strength, they were the ultimate hunters. The sky belonged to them alone.

It did until the Palaeolithic Period, anyway. 

For hundreds of thousands of years, the Alphas thrived, but then, they simply disappeared, leaving their legacy to the wingless humans of the present. Whether they adapted to living on land and lost their wings or they were all killed off remains uncertain. Whatever the reason for their disappearance, the Alphas were no more.

Well, they were until we were created.    

~X~

I stared blankly at the scientist. From what I could gather about genders, the scientist was female. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail with two large locks framing her face. 

She had dragged me into a plain white room filled with numerous scientific and medical instruments, all with varying purposes and uses. She walked over to a metal table and picked up a clipboard. She looked at me briefly before she began writing on the sheets the clipboard held. I found myself standing across from her silently. Once she finished writing, she put down the clipboard and looked at me.

"How are you today, Subject Number Four?" She asked cheerfully. 

I didn't bother responding. Instead, I stared into her dark brown eyes coldly and stood stiffly.

She shuddered slightly before continuing on. "Please don't make this any harder, Number Four. This lab operates on a tight schedule, and we do not have time to waste with your small acts of defiance." She took a small breath before continuing. "Now then, how are you feeling today?"

"Annoyed. Irritated. Angry." I said nonchalantly. The scientist frowned but did nothing. "Anything else you need to know?"

"Nothing that will require you to reply verbally. Now, be a good little child and stay still," she smirked as she grabbed a syringe with one hand and my right wrist with the other. 

I didn't bother to fight her as she injected a sedative into my bloodstream. I guess that you just stop caring after the first fifty times.

The sedative they had given me was strong, as in, strong enough to kill around five fully grown humans. I soon felt its effects. My thoughts were muddled, and everything was blurry and unfocused. Some more scientists and their assistants enter the white, sterile room.

They slammed me onto an examination table. The frigid metal surface pressed against my stomach an arms, but I, with my dull senses, barely noticed. 

They roughly tugged up my shirt, which was easy to do with me lying on my stomach. I shuddered as cold air hit my bare back.

Mercilessly, they poked and prodded my back, injecting the occasional substance via syringe or drawing some blood. I didn't care about that, really, but then they crossed a line.

Two of the assistants had grabbed hold of my, get this, wings and yanked outwards, forcing them out so you could see my twelve-foot wingspan. In an instant, moving solely on instinct, I had leaped off the table, fought off the scientists and assistants trying to hold me down, and  headed for the door. Before I left the room, I grabbed a large key ring (holding keys that could be the keys to the White House or the keys to Cinderella's Castle at Disney World. Hey, you never know) from the lovely female scientist from before. With one last look at the chaos, I darted out of the room.

With the sedative wearing off and adrenaline rushing through my veins, I bolted down the hallway and ran through a maze of hallways and doors before I rushed into the room where the others like me, the Alphas, were being held.  

I quickly looked over the many keys held by the key ring. Seconds later, I had found the correct ones and had begun unlocking the eight cages the others were trapped in. I had finished the job a minute later.

Together, the nine of us ran through the many hallways of the Facility, kicking down the odd door and smashing a window or two along the way. Finally, we reached the large, industrial doors that acted as the entrance and exit to this nightmarish place. Wasting no time, we forced open the doors via some punching, kicking, and pushing and sprinted out, finally free of The Facility. 

Throwing my brown wings out, I jumped and took to the sky. The other eight Alphas wasted no time in joining me. Together, after years of torture, abuse, and god knows what else, we had finally escaped. 

We were free.

~X~

"Where are we going, Fallon?" A bubbly voice asked innocently.

"Somewhere safe and far away from here," I said. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the owner of the voice, Star. 

He was a smaller child, being only seven and a half, with golden brown hair and sparkling golden eyes, and his wings were a light golden brown with light brown flecks and white tips. Out of all of us, his appearance best matched his bright, bubbly personality.

"Could we go to New York or Washington D.C.? There are so many people that we could blend in easily! There are also lots of animal shelters there. Maybe we could adopt a cat or something!" A brunette, Neko, cheered, her chocolate brown hair blowing wildly in the wind and her pale blue eyes shining as she flapped her brown and white-spotted wings excitedly. 

Beside her, Inu, a boy with sandy blond hair, tan skin, and pale yellow wings flapped steadily, his light blue eyes calm. He was incredibly mature for a nine-year-old. His personality contrasted sharply with Neko's. Even if they were biological siblings, twins, even, I still found it hard to believe that Inu was actually related to Neko. 

Inu was calm, quiet, and levelheaded, while Neko was hyper, loud, and hotheaded. They were like yin and yang. Heck, even their names were opposites. (Inu meaning dog, and Neko meaning cat.)   

I sighed. Neko sure had priorities, didn't she? "Maybe later, Neko. We need to focus on finding a place to rest for now."

"What about those mountains over there?" Feuer, a girl, twelve and a half, with blonde hair, sandy wings speckled with brown, and gray-blue eyes hidden behind black square glasses, asked, pointing towards a mountain range in the distance.

I nodded. We could use the shelter, and with how large those mountains were, they would provide good cover, not to mention plenty of space to spread out. With nine of us, we'd need all the space we could get, and that wasn't even factoring in the likely hood of us getting sick of each other after spending ten minutes together. "Sounds good. What do you think, Sage?" 

Sage thought for a moment, his grayish-green eyes narrowed in concentration. Even if he was younger than me, being only twelve, I sometimes felt like I was talking to an old man rather than a child. "Alright," he agreed, "let's go." He angled his taupe wings downwards slightly and shot ahead of us. He turned his head back, his short brown hair windswept and messy, and grinned.

I grinned back, relaxing slightly, but that moment was short-lived. A blur of black barreled by me and nearly ran into me. It took me a second, but I realized that the blur was Erde the idiot, who had just recently turned twelve but thought he was the biggest thing since sliced bread because he was now Sage's age. I glared at him silently as he slowed considerably once he neared Sage, his black wings soon flapping in sync with the other boy's. He looked at me, pride radiating from his smug face, and his curly black hair was knotted and wild.

I stuck my tongue out at him childishly. He was the only person I'd met that would somehow find something to fight with me about. Even if we rarely acted like we acknowledged each other's existences, I did care about his well being to some extent (as in, if I didn't make sure he wasn't screwing himself over, Sage and Feuer wouldn't be happy, and Neko would probably start badgering me to care about him more). 

I was getting ready to zoom past him, but a quick flash of  silver caught my attention. Stopping mere feet in front of me, a silver haired girl with wings of a slightly darker shade spun around and grinned at me. I glared at her. Even if Tsuki was older than me, being fourteen, I still acted years older than she did. She just laughed, her bright blue eyes practically glowing, and flew up to join Erde and Sage.

Glancing around, my eyes sweeping over the Alphas ahead of me. I counted them up. I only counted seven. I speedily turned around, looking around frantically for the missing Alpha.

I released a breath once I spotted a tiny red and white blob flying around a half a mile behind us. 

"Aza!" I called, waving my arm to beckon the small boy over. The blob sped up and reached me in seconds. 

"What where you doing?" I asked him, trying to sound strict and parental but failing miserably.

He looked at me sheepishly. "Sorry, I just spotted a pretty bird and got distracted," he said softly. 

Sighing, I just ruffled his bright red hair. I don't think that anyone could stay mad at Aza with his sweet, quiet, and angelic attitude. The fact that he had sparkling green eyes, extremely pale skin, and white angel-like wings didn't help. He looked closer to an angel, a five-year-old angel, mind you, but an angel none the less.

"Try to stay focused, sweetie. We're going to stay in that mountain range over there tonight, okay?" I told him as I pointed out the mountains. 

He nodded and flew up to where Feuer and Star were, leaving me behind. I didn't mind. I liked solitude, and from where I was, I could easily see every one of the Alphas.

Letting the wind blow my not-quite-dark-brown-but-not-quite-chocolate-brown hair around freely, I adjusted my brown glasses, square like Feuer's, and closed my green eyes. My brown wings, which were a darker brown than my hair at the top but faded to a lighter brown, were spread fully. I didn't have a care in the world for that brief moment. 

At Feuer's call of my name, I opened my eyes and angled my wings and glided in the direction of the large, tree-covered mountains. We totally could do this, surviving out here on our own, right?