Broken Wings

"And here's your room!"
My mother pushed the door open with a flourish and looked at me anxiously. I stepped inside and then made a noise of irritation. I quickly brought my hands up to my eyes and backed out of the room. It was so colourful it was blinding. The walls looked like they had colours vomited all over them, and were covered in posters and pictures and such.
"Is there something wrong? We left it the way you had it before," my mother said, distressed.
"It's bright," I answered dully.
"You always liked it like that...I thought the colours were ridiculous, but you liked having so much colour in your room. Said it made you feel happy and alive," she said tensely.
I stared at her in vague surprise before my eyebrows pulled together slightly. I must have been a really messed up child before I was sent away. I couldn't believe how anyone would want to live in a rainbow paint splattered room.
I stepped into the room again and shielded my eyes. The colour seemed to surround me, leap out at me and try and choke me. The faces on the posters leered at me and jeered at me. The walls closed in on me and I felt my muscles tightening up. There was just too much colour and too much brightness.
I reached out to the nearest wall and ripped the closest poster off, scrunched it up and chucked it away. I heard my mother make a shocked noise but I ignored it. I felt slightly better with one set of leering faces gone, but there were still more to get rid of. I reached out for the next poster and ripped it off.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
I spun around to see Frank standing horrified in my doorway, my mother must have left. I had ripped almost all my posters off. I was just reaching for the posters plastered over my ceiling. Frank scrambled in and started rustling through the scrunched up posters.
"You loved The Misfits, and The Doors, and Anthrax, Pink Floyd, Metallica, Megadeth...Why are you ripping their posters up?!" Frank cried in anguish.
"Bright," was the only thing I had to offer.
I ripped the next poster down and Frank stared at me in shock.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
"Maxine Serenity Iero," I replied and looked at him with my usual emotionless expression.
Frank just shook his head.
"You're not her...come with me," he said firmly.
I looked at him and nodded obediently. I turned and caught a flash of something white. I quickly looked back at it and saw it was a pair of sunglasses. I quickly swiped them off my desk and followed Frank. After being at the Institution you learned that whenever someone told you to do something, you did it without question.

He lead me downstairs to where Gerard and Mikey were still playing their video game.
"We're going out. We're going to take her to the movies and either watch the saddest thing they have or the funniest or the scariest," Frank said determinedly.
I looked at him and raised an eyebrow. I knew what he was trying to do immediately. He was trying to get me to feel.
"Good luck," I muttered.
Mikey looked at me curiously.
"What do you mean?" Mikey asked me.
"What?" Frank asked, looking confused between us.
"I mean, good luck with your plan Frank," I replied tonelessly.
"It will work," Frank said determinedly.
"Well, it's not going to work if we're hanging around here," Gerard said.

Frank led the way to the theatre and I walked last with my sunglasses on. It was nice because the dulled the colour of everything slightly so it wasn't as blinding.
"Were you always like this?"
I looked up from the ground and saw Mikey was walking beside me. I frowned at the question.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Were you always so...dead?" he asked.
I shrugged.
"I'm not sure," I replied.
"How can you not know?" Mikey asked confused.
"I remember a few details. A few odd flashbacks to my previous life...but not everything," I replied emotionlessly.
"What's that like?" he asked.
"I don't understand your question," I said.
"Like...what jogs your memory? What do you remember?" Mikey asked.
I paused and looked up at the sky.
"I...remember Frank. I remember his smile. I remember basic things, like my...parents. I have a few still memories of things. Mine and Frank's old tree house, Gran's orchard, school. A snapshot of each of the people I used to call friends. That's basically it at the moment," I replied.
"Do you feel?"
I was caught slightly off guard by the question. I looked at him curiously and eyed him up and down.
"Punch me and find out," I replied, purposely misunderstanding the question.
Mikey raised an eyebrow at me.
"You're not stupid. You know what I meant. Do you feel? Or are you empty inside?" he asked.
This lanky boy was certainly more attentive than the others.
"No. I don't feel," I answered finally.
Mikey gave me a sad look and then brought me into a hug. I stood there frozen with my arms laying limply at my sides.
"Um. Please stop hugging me," I said, feeling incredibly uncomfortable and awkward.
He pulled away and smiled triumphantly.
"You felt something then didn't you," he declared.
"I felt uncomfortable. If that's what you mean," I muttered.
"I promise that I will make you feel. I'll make you feel something by the end of the year," Mikey said seriously.
I looked at him flatly.
"Whatever, there's only like four or five months left of the year," I said doubtfully.
"That's sixteen to twenty weeks. Or a hundred and twelve days to a hundred and forty days. I will make you feel by the end of it," Mikey said confidently.

Once we arrived at the cinema I waited, bored out of my mind, as the boys fought over what movie they wanted to see.
"Max, what do you want to see?" Frank asked me.
Gerard and Mikey were in some heated discussion and were glaring at each other and Frank looked really stressed and tired.
I made a non-committal noise.
"I don't care. It won't work," I answered him.
"Please Max, please just humour me and pick a movie," Frank begged.
I sighed and looked at the board. There was some movie to do with zombies that looked about as scary as a baby bunny. There was a lame romance movie to do with angels or something and finally a comedy that looked like it was filled with terrible Dad jokes and a script written by a five year old on crack.
"The zombie movie, whatever," I sighed.
Frank gave me a warm smile and gave a triumphant yell in Mikey's direction.
"HAH! She chose the zombie one!" Frank declared.
Gerard and Frank high fived each other while Mikey groaned. Frank went up and bought our tickets and then Gerard went on a random spending spree, buying all this food and drink.
"You want anything Maxie?" Gerard asked me.
"'Maxie'?" I asked.
"You don't like it?" he asked.
I shrugged. It was weird, but...not that bad I guess.
"Just wasn't expecting it," I said.
"Well, get used to it. Do you want anything?" he asked again.
I looked at the bright, candy-filled bags and shook my head.
"No thank you," I answered and walked away slightly.
It was really uncomfortable around these guys. Frank because he was devastated over my change at the institution. Gerard because even though he looked like a moody, brooding vampire he was actually quite happy and he was polite to me. Mikey because he thought he was going to get me to feel. I snorted derisively at that.
"Come on! Let's go in!" Gerard sang, looping his arm through mine and dragging me into the theatre.

I ended up being situated on the end, next to Mikey. My spirits lifted slightly as the lights dimmed and everything went a flat dark colour.
"Um, please don't laugh at me during the movie," Mikey told me.
I looked at him confused.
"Why would I laugh at you?" I asked.
"Because...this has a really high review for being really, really scary and I might...jump or something," Mikey said, his voice clearly showing his embarrassment.
"Oh...if you're scared then why watch the movie?" I asked.
"Because the guys wanted to watch this one. And you picked this one too," Mikey explained.
I frowned, that seemed like a really stupid reason to watch a movie.
"That's stupid," I muttered.
"What is?" Mikey asked.
"Watching a movie because other people want to," I replied.
Mikey just shrugged because the movie was starting. I curled up in my seat and watched the movie with detached interest. Before long the darkness got to me and my eyes started to flutter closed.

"NO! NO! NO!" I screamed.
I struggled against my chains with everything I had in me. Sweat was rolling off my body, causing my hair and clothes to stick to me. A red hot poker cracked me across the skull and my head snapped forwards as pain surged through me. I cried out and went down to my knees.
"Please! Please! Please stop!" I begged.
"You need to come back to the real world. Leave this world you have created where the things you have done are normal and okay. What you have done is not okay by any sense," the same snake-like voice came to me.
Oh, how I hated that voice. I hated how it could always get to me. It infected my thoughts, my dreams, my conscience...my life.
"It was an accident! I didn't mean it!" I yelled, begging for him to understand.
"It was an accident that you were caught! That's what you believe. We must get this belief out of you. It shouldn't have happened at all!" the same voice shouted.
With that my face was kicked to the ground and pressed into the ground. I knew what was coming.
"NO! PLEASE! STOP IT!" I screamed.
The voice didn't reply this time, letting my cries echo off the stone walls. The fire popped and I heard the sound of scraping and I whimpered. My hair was parted either side of my head and my heart raced, tears streamed down my face and I gulped. Suddenly the red hot poker was resting on the back of my head, branding me. I screamed out and struggled as pain seared through my head. I tried to grab the poker but the chains held my arms away. Heat caused my skin and hair to burn and the smell filled the air.
Finally, the poker was released from my head and the foot stopped pressing my face into the ground, but I still lay there sobbing.
"Come back to the real world," the voice whispered.
The poker cracked down on my head once again.

My eyes flew open and I realised the movie was still going. My muscles were all tightened though and I was struggling to breathe properly. My heart was pounding fast and I could feel a cold sweat on my body. I put my fingers up to the back of my head and I gently rubbed the scar at the back of my head.
"Are you okay?"
I jumped at the voice and looked at the source of the voice to see that my head was on Mikey's shoulder and he was looking at me. I sat up instantly and he continued looking at me.
"Fine," I muttered.