"Hope is the thing with feathers." That's what they told me as my only words of comfort; that's what they told the girl who had lost everything, the only way they thought they could comfort a monster like me. Well...I don't believe that at all. I don't bring hope, I bring death and fear; I didn't ask to be like this...I just wanted to escape.

Being in a brightly lit room is strange for me, after being in that awful cell so long I'd grown used to the darkness. With a contented sigh I look around the room and in the corner I see a full body mirror, a luxury I haven't had in years.

The feeling is so surreal to look in the mirror and not recognize myself at all. I am taller of course, and slender; unhealthily so, but that will change now that I'm free. My hair is black and cut short when I could have sworn it used to be shoulder length and dark brown. My eyes are lighter than they used to be and blue, perhaps because of the lack of sunlight. I think back to my eye color and I can barely remember, though I think they used to be brown. Even though I look so different, I still smile at seeing who I've become. I look beautiful, and just maybe I'll get used to myself someday, get used to the monster I've become.

When I think of the word monster, I sigh and walk over to the window to stare out; I think that maybe looking outside will distract me from pondering my fate. Outside I see people living their wonderfully mundane lives; I was like that once. Before the incident I was no different from anyone else. I was just a little girl who wanted normal things. The only thing different about me was my mother's occupation as a scientist. But at the time, that didn't make a difference to anyone. But then the incident happened, and my life would never be the same again.

I close my eyes and clench my hands into fists; my knuckles turn white as I try to stop the trembling, try to stop the flashbacks. But they still come; I fall to my knees and the last thing I see is the patch of sunlight coming through the window, and then it's just memories, memories and nightmares.

"What did they say it was again? Some sort of medicine? A potion did they say?" My mom's assistant, Mrs. Walsh, asks in concern. She is obviously referring to something the two of them are working on.

"That's what they said...but..." My mother trails off when she hears my nearly silent giggling; I am hiding around the corner of her lab and out of eyesight. I'd just come here from school.

"But what?" Mrs. Walsh asks in a vexed tone.

"It's nothing...The company wouldn't lie to us, not when there is this much at stake." She sighs and scratches her head in frustration. "Oh, Scarlett, shouldn't you be getting home to Vida and Mr. Walsh? Vida must be pretty worn out, after all they had that math test today, and I know how Vida struggles with her math."

Mrs. Walsh sighs "Yes, poor dear! Anyway, you're right. I have to be going now...But keep an eye on that...whatever it is. I don't care what you think of the company, that stuff is suspicious!" She sighs again and then continues. "Well, goodbye then. I'll see you tomorrow." She rounds the corner and jumps when she sees me, just casually sitting there, hugging my knees and grinning like a psychopath.

"Oh! Charlotte! Heavens child, you scared the wits right out of me! Well, dearie how did your math test go?" She took a deep breath and let it out again. "Never mind that now, dear I have to go home and see Charlotte, I mean Vida. Goodness, my mind has been so scattered lately! It must be the stress." She mutters to herself some more and leaves the room.

I turn the corner to see my mom, who has her hands on her hips and is giving me the 'We've talked about this a million times before, why do you still fail to understand me?' look that I have seen so many times. I just shrug in response. "What was that all about?" I ask pointing behind me to indicate the spot Mrs. Walsh just left.

"Charlotte!" my mother avoids my question and scolds me instead; she hates it when I sneak into her lab. But I just can't help it; I love watching her work. "At least put on some safety goggles, sweetie." She smiles and pulls the white goggles over my head and onto my eyes, and then she gives me a kiss on the forehead.

"I thought you were mad" I say as I adjust the goggles that are so big on my pudgy face that they cover most of my cheeks, and I push them up a little higher up on my head.

"Weeeelll..."My mom shrugs. "It's kind of hard to stay mad at you for being interested in my work." She laughs, but then her face turns serious again. "How did you do at your math test today?"

I look down at my feet with a frown and sigh dramatically in response.

"what?! But we studied so hard together!" she says dramatically waving her hands in front of her as emphasis.

I sigh dramatically again. "I know" I say with a pouty face. Then I beam at her with a triumphant grin. "And I passed!" I exclaim and we both start laughing.

"Don't do that to me!" she exclaims while still laughing. She picks me up and spins me around; a habit of hers for when we are being silly like this.

I laugh and when she puts me down we both squeal and hop up and down.

"You are SO going to pass first grade like a pro!" she squeals happily, and we high-five.

"Yeah!" I exclaim enthusiastically. "And every grade after that too!"

She smiles as I squeal and hop some more.

I stop hopping and my face becomes serious as I think of something. "Will I be a genius like you and daddy are?" I pause, and tears well up in my eyes. "Was...I mean." I'm still not used to talking about him in past tense, he may have been dead over 3 years now, but I still feel like he is alive.

Tears well up in her eyes as she kneels down and embraces me. "Of course, sweetie. You're going to make us very proud. You already have made us proud."

"I love you mommy." I say and I burry my face in her shoulder as I cry.

"We love you too. Me and daddy both." She says. And she kisses my forehead again.

I look up from her shoulder and my eyes widen in horror; whatever she was working on before is now a green liquid that bubbles and is rising to the top of the pot at a rapid pace. "Mommy!" I exclaim.

When she stands up and turns around her eyes widen and fill with tears. Immediately she dives on top of me and shields me just as the pot explodes and the green goo is exploded throughout the room. She screams when it hits her back and I can hear the hissing sound of her skin burning. When everything settles she lets me go and rolls over.

"Mommy!" I exclaim in horror; drops of blood fall out her nose and eyes. "What was that stuff?!"

"It was a deadly toxic poison...I...I was told it was something else...I have something important to tell you."

Tears well up in my eyes; I may only be six, but I know she doesn't have much time left to live.

"You have to get out of here!"

"What? Why?"

"You're father was murdered."

"What?!"

"And so will I be, in a few moments."

"But why!?" tears streamed down my face. "I don't understand."

"I don't know...but listen." She takes a few painfully sharp breaths. "No matter what happens, I will always be with you."

"But, Mommy!" She interrupts me before I can finish.

"And I will always love you." She says this, and then she chokes and her mouth starts foaming. She closes her eyes and I can feel the moment when her spirit disappears and her body becomes like unto an empty shell.

I scream in horror. But I know I have to leave, whoever did this...they are coming any moment, and if I want to escape I'll have to leave her here. I take one last look at her body "I love you!" I whisper trying to quiet my sobs. "Goodbye." I say this, and then I run out the lab's door.

I think I'm safe as I run through the hall until I run into someone and fall flat on my face. "Not so fast!" I hear the man say. I hear another voice coming from behind me; I'm surrounded...there's no way I can escape. I had just failed the last thing my mother had told me to do.

"What do we do with her?! Let's just let her go!" The voice is gruff and harsh, and I get the impression he wants to let me go because he doesn't want to deal with me, and not because he cares about my welfare at all.

"You idiot! She's a witness! We're to capture her, and then clean all this up!"

"Fine...let's get this over with." The man walks towards me, I stay sill, hoping that he might think I'm dead. I feel a sharp pain in my head as though he'd hit me with something hard and then everything goes black.

I awake from my flashback and with a cry I sit up from where I'd fallen on my back. That was all thirteen years ago, and yet I've just escaped from my captors yesterday morning. I was taken to a scientist's laboratory, and I barely remember anything else. For thirteen years the experiments they did on me messed with my memory, and the living conditions drove me insane. I went into that place as an innocent child, and thirteen years later I came out a monster. Now that everything else has been taken from me, my family, my sanity, my innocence, everything I ever had, I have nothing else to live for. But at least I've made it this far. Even if I die now, I know I'll die away from that awful place.

Behind me I hear the door slide open with a mechanical swish and a little click; mechanical doors, that is something I'm not used to. Technology has changed a lot in thirteen years, I feel as though the world is a completely different place.

"You're crying again aren't you?" my friend Vida asks worriedly as she walks towards me.

"You would too if you'd been through what I have." I sigh with the relief of knowing that I had been the only one in that retched place; I can't imagine what it would do to Vida if she'd been there with me to experience what I had.

After I escaped I ran into Vida, she helped me out and brought me to this place; it's an elite academy that is trying to stop things like my situation from happening. Vida thinks I'll be safe here, and that I'll show people just how important their cause is. I'm grateful for everything she's done, but I'm not sure what she expects. The people here claim to welcome me in, but I know what they are thinking. They know how I escaped; they know I am a monster.

"What did they do to you in that place?" When I turn around to face her, she has tears in her eyes.

"Eh...Nothing worth remembering."

"Except the..." She starts to say it, but I interrupt her.

"Except that...I don't want to talk about it." I know she is dying to know more about my 'gifts' but I just can't think about it now.

"Can I see it?" she asks, nervously tucking a strand of her reddish hair behind her.

I sigh and turn back to look out the window. The traffic of hover bikes and jet cars is slowly flying by. I was amazed to see all the new technology, amazed a little sad. The world my mother and I knew is gone, it might have been replaced with something better...but I just wish she could see it. I know she'd be far more hopeful than I am about this, she would love how beautiful I've become, and she would love my wings.

"Please let me see them." She pleads with me.

"But you've already seen them." I say with a sigh.

I didn't really 'run' into Vida, I flew into her. I have wings. No one really knows why or how, I just do. I don't remember which experiment it was, but the day I escaped, I discovered I had wings.

"I was a little preoccupied." She says sadly. By which she means the initial shock of the girl she knew back in 1st grade who had 'died in the accident', as the official report had said, was now alive and crashing into her.

I sigh, "Why do you want to see them?" I ask bitterly. "You want to see the monster inside of me too?!" I take a deep breath and then release it bitterly. "Then let me show you!"

I take a deep breath again and my muscles all clench up as I force my wings back into place. I let out my breath as I hear the swishing sound they make as they come out in all their awful glory. A few of the white feathers float off of them and I see Vida catch one, through her reflection in the window. I turn around and expect her to be in shock or horror, but instead she has a smile on her face.

"They're beautiful!" she says with a stoic grin. "Like an angel's wings!"

I frown. She's only saying that because she doesn't have them herself. Sure it's easy to say that someone else's problems are gifts, but when it's our own problems, well that's a different story. She may be able to see the beauty in my wings, but she didn't see the horror in them. She wasn't there when those guards were killed; she doesn't understand when I tell her that I am a monster. She is still innocent, and I plan on keeping it that way.

I retract my wings and with a bitter sigh look back out the window. A few of the people below are staring up at the building in shock. A few kids point up at me and start talking to each other excitedly. I am glad I can't hear what they are saying; I don't need someone else telling me what I am, I know plenty well on my own.

"If they were wings of an angel than they wouldn't be on me." I say bitterly. "These wings are for a monster. You should keep your distance from me, before you get yourself hurt."

"Where do they go when you retract them?" Vida asks curiously, completely ignoring my advice. She is still holding the feather, she strokes it gently with her other hand; she doesn't get it at all.

"I don't know. If I knew these things, I wouldn't be here."

"Can you still feel them?" she asks cocking her head to the side curiously.

"I can always feel them, I'll never get used to it." I sigh, "I'm pretty hopeless aren't I?"

She shakes her head. "Hope is the thing with feathers. Isn't that what Headmaster Owlred said?"

"Yeah, well don't believe that crap!" I retort. "Headmaster Owlred just wants me to join his cause; he'll tell me whatever he thinks we'll get me to help him out."

Vida sighs and comes closer to me. With a frown she asks "What was it like, the first time you touched the sky? What was it like flying for the first time?"

I sigh and close my eyes. I don't pass out this time though the memories are nearly too much to bear. The day I escaped I had failed another experiment. Doctor Shanefield was going to give up on me and just let me rot in my cell until I died, but my 'gifts' had other plans. Magic exploded from within me, and that's when my wings grew in. I flew right out of there and despite all the death I'd caused with my escape, when I started to fly everything else faded away, and I was perfectly at peace with my fate.

When I open my eyes I realize I am smiling and Vida is smiling right back.

"Keep that feeling." She says with a grin. "And share it with others. You can do it, I know you can. You'll find hope and you'll look back at this someday with no regrets." She seems so sure, but I don't ever think I will lose my regrets.

"The feeling was wonderful." I say as my smile fades and tears fill my eyes. "But all those guards I killed...I am a monster!" I start to sob. "I just want my life back! I wanna' be in first grade again! I wanna' go home!"

Tears fill Vida's eyes and she wraps her arms around me in a hug and lets me sob into her shoulder. I'm confused, and broken, and yes I'm a monster. But in this moment I start to see what Vida means. I need to find hope and I need to take my life back. And just maybe someday I really will spread my wings and learn to live. Until then, I'll just get through today.