The Somewhat Short Life of Experiment 15

Out of the Cocoon

June 20th 

Losing consciousness is a weird sensation. It was like falling asleep, but you knew it was coming and couldn’t avoid it. I could still hear Taran’s voice though. It was like slipping into a bubble, and everything else didn’t matter. Not even when Taran and I crashed into the water.

“May, wake up!” Taran shouted between mouthfuls of water. His arms were keeping me from sinking, my wings too wet to fly. “May, please!”

The water was swallowing us up, the warm chill of it touching my bones and sending shivers up my spine.

I wanted to open my eyes, help Taran, but my body wouldn’t let me.

“Dad, look!” I heard a voice, not Taran’s, shout in the distance.

I heard a motor roar towards us, the water pushing aside to let it through. There were more voices and then something crashed into the water, looped its arms around me and hauled me from the water.

Was I dead? I knew I’d used too much strength and power flying, but had the atmosphere become too much for me? Was I being lifted from this life to another? Was I being taken from the world?

“Not yet.”

I opened my eyes, coughing.

Taran was at my side, his hand clutching mine desperately. “May.” 

He wasn’t wearing the black attire he’d worn when we’d escaped, and looking down, I was also changed into other clothes, but not the ones we’d brought. This halter neck summer dress wasn’t one of mine, but hung loosely on me as did the shirt and jeans Taran was wearing.

Where were we?

“We’re on that boat we saw,” Taran told me as if he’d read my thoughts. Looking around I realised we were in the boat’s cabin, pictures hanging from the walls. One was a picture of five people, three children, two boys and a girl, and two adults.  “It belongs to a European family. They’re from somewhere in the UK, Yorkshire I think?”

As if on cue, a small brown haired woman appeared at the door of the cabin dressed in a t-shirt and shorts. She was the adult from the picture on the wall, but she looked a little older. She smiled when she saw me awake.

“How are you dear?” she asked me kindly, coming a little closer to us. I could tell by the way she moved that she was a little afraid to come near me, but Taran only brushed it off, telling her I was fine. “Oh, that’s very good then,” she added.

Taran and I got up and we were lead out of the cabin to the deck of the boat where the rest of the family were. The other adult from the picture who I assumed was the brown haired woman’s husband smiled at us while he stood over what looked like a BBQ basin thing. I could smell food, the kind Fay had loved, but something I only wrinkled my nose at.

Sitting on some fold out chairs were the three children from the photo, except they weren’t really children. The girl from the photo had her eyes closed as she lounged on the chair in her bikini, earphones in her ear with her blonde hair crowded around her face. She was a lot taller than me, so I assumed the dress I was wearing belonged to her. A boy the same age sat next to her in swimming shorts, copying the girl by having his eyes closed and ear phones in. He was probably the same height as Taran but a lot more muscular. He had the same hair as the adult woman.

The other boy from the photo sat reading a comic, and beamed when he saw me, jumping from his chair.

“You’re the girl with the wings who fell from the sky aren’t you!” He gasped, looking at the adult man for reassurance. The man nodded. “You’re so cool!”