The Art of Flying

Bands of collagen wrap tightly around my arms. Once a soft cocoon of adolescence, they now tether me to a childhood that I desperately need to let go of. The doctor watches with feigned interest from below. Her stopwatch is his only concern. I've seen the others. So praised as infants, yet when they struggled to break free, she watched them and timed their death. The only one to ever live through this part, Thalia, watches me from next to her. Her eyes plead with me to eiggle harder. I can see the loneliness she wears on her face. Bruises and scars that adorn her flesh. Cuts that have long shredded her wings. She'd barely gotten out, but couldn't fly or escape the doctor, so now she's just a test subject.

I thrash uselessly, struggling to lacerate the tendrils that hold me from freedom. The doctor looks down, then back at me. Time is ticking. I gnash at the band closest to my neck. A tiny rip emerges. My fingernails and toenails also create several microtears. Using my feet and hands, I push against the back of the cocoon and try to use my weight to get out. The doctor seems intrigued by my tactics, and Thalia begs me to keep going. I could remember her voice, month after month, whispering that I'm special, that I'm destine to be the sister she always dreamed of having. She'd sneak in and hum to me while I matured, and even kept trying despite the doctor finding out and beating her for it. I had to get to her. I had to...

Suddenly, I hear the strips all snap at once. I hold my breath as I plunge twenty-fine feet to the ground. The impact knocks the wind from my chest and I lie, heaving. Thalia and the doctor come closer. The doctor looks at my wings and sighs.

"You've become grotesquely obese in the cocoon, but it helped you muscle your way out," she remarks, writting down her findings. "Thalia, get her to the chamber at once. She won't survive the first few days of adulthood without it."

The doctor's heels echo hypnotically around the toom as she walkd away. Thalia comes over, and while her fave is still stoic, her eyes are glimmering with joy.

"Welcome home, Hope," she says softly as she drags me away from the Incubation Wall.