Wings of Freedom

Chapter Five

I snap my pointy teeth at the lab assistant as he sets me down in my cage again and strike his glove with a nasty scratch that tears a little bit of the fabric. The man backs up quickly and warily places the lid back on my cage. He walks away and I grin as I catch sight of his scar from my third day awake.

The last five months have done nothing to ease my burning hatred for these wretched scientists.

As the scientists have learned, I'm quite the feisty little dragonet and, in turn for kidnapping me and stalking me for who knows how long, I've given each one who's dealt with me at least one deep scar.

The other dragonets always cheer and laugh when they find out. One dragonet is an ex-military soldier and he was also taken for the strength specification group. He's rather stone-faced and always gets upset with me for clawing up the scientists. I know he's just worried they'll hurt me, but I'm too valuable for them to risk my health.

He's also the one who's been guiding our search for an escape. The hottest topic in the general mindlink is how we're going to escape here. Lots of dragonets have come up with ideas, and even I've pitched in a little, but every idea is shot down as we learn more.

Alissa's twin sister, Cami, who was also taken is a pretty golden dragonet. She managed to escape her cage and ran but she got lost in the endless replicated hallways. It's more confusing than a maze. Everything looks the same.

Since then, we've all been transferred into better cages with special latches that have to be undone from the outside.

In reality, our claws and, for those of us in the strength specification group, tail scales could easily shatter the glass. We plan on keeping that a secret to be revealed when the time is right though. It just gives us another advantage over the mad scientists.

Alissa and I were relocated closer to the rest of the dragonets when we all moved cages and now we're in the dead centre of all the others. Alissa is now straight in front of my cage instead of being beside me like before.

It's a lot easier to have conversations when we can properly see each other and don't have to spend a lot of time trying to turn to face each other in our mini boxes.

There's a funny royal blue dragonet beside Alissa named Lucas who tends to get everyone laughing in the morning. It's refreshing to have an optimistic spin on things even though we're all stuck in new bodies and glass cages.

He starts off this morning with a cute story about six-year-old him. He was running around the house with his older sister's egg-smashing machine and was catapulting eggs onto his family's faces whenever he saw them. His sister was chasing him and he glanced back for a second. But that second was long enough for him to trip and face plant onto the wall in front of him.

We all laugh heartily as he explains what his family looked like as they came into the room covered in egg yolks and shells.

"They were so mad," he says, "I could practically see the smoke coming out of their ears! But eventually, we all just broke down laughing."

I chortle and smile widely. I wish I had a close family like that. My parents abandoned me at age nine and my eldest sister left me on the orphanage doorstep. Not exactly what you'd call close-knit.

A rumbling shakes the cages and I squawk in surprise. My heat lamp flickers and I glance up in worry. Without it, I'd likely die. Dragonets require intense heat to stay alive. The scientists learned that after the first few thousand subjects died from the cold.

A few panicked voices rush over the general mindlink.

"What was that?! Was that an earthquake?!"

"I don't think so. The earthquakes I'm used to feel different."

"Well, what was it?" An explosion sounds in the distance and we all turn to the door in alarm as human screaming becomes audible. The ground underneath us quakes and my cage is sent flying to the floor, the glass breaking on impact.

"Hurry up and break through the glass! The people who get out, help unlatch other's cages! Go, go, go, this is our chance!" The ex-military guy shouts through the gruesome silence.

I scramble to get to my feet and turn around to help Alissa. I rip open the lid of her cage and then move on to do the same thing for Lucas. I spin around but all the other dragonets are already out of their cages.

The ex-military dragonet is flying high above us all and shouting orders.

"Okay, everyone out! Let's go, let's go, let's go! They could be here any moment, so spread your wings and get flying!"

He takes the lead and we all follow behind him with silent wingbeats. We approach a door and I shoot forward to jump on the handle. It goes down and the door pops open. We keep doing this until we smell the fresh grass outside. I pop open the last door and we quickly fly up.

We take off for the skies. I dare a glance back and stop immediately.

"What the hell?!" The rest of the dragonets stop and stare in horror. Spaceships fire weapons and explode areas. Tanks shoot back but the spaceships repel the shots and they bounce back, blowing up the tanks who sent them.

Finally a green light comes sweeping in over all the humans and when it disappears all that's left are green puddles of goo and the echoing screams of dying people to haunt me forever.

The green light heads towards us and I panic.

"Go! It's coming!" I shriek, beating my wings rapidly. Everyone follows me and we soar through the air. I peek back. The green light is catching up and we won't be able to escape it. Then it's upon us.

I watch as it passes by us harmlessly, moving on without damaging a single scale. No one says anything, we just continue our fast pace to the forest. Behind us lies the ruins of the human world with us as the only survivors.

With a final backwards glance, I realize that this isn't our planet anymore. It's ruled by the white aliens now.