It had started with the basics: running several miles for hours; climbing up jagged mountains for days; using everything she had to grow into her fullest physical potential. It ended with her standing at the edge of a cliff, staring at the vast expanse of forest below, seemingly burning in the gaze of the evening sun.

She could hear the whizzing of the drones that hovered around both her and the forest; their cameras aimed solely onto her. Despite the rustling music played by the winded trees and the endless chatter of birds on their branches, the sound of those mechanical flying cameras stood out. Their meaning was as annoying as it was clear. As much fun as she could have had, it would always be seen and disapproved. She was forever watched.

Gabrielle leaned forward. The area of forest where the ground met the rocky wall of the cliff was far below. If she failed her test, she could end up skewered by a tree. Fear triggered a shudder through her body, but she shoved it away. She took a deep breath, feeling her giant set of lungs fill to its capacity. Closing her eyes, she pictured Mommy’s face as she read her a bedtime story.

A giant red dragon stood beside her. It peered down and huffed, tentative. Its tail was raised to its face and nearly covered its eyes.

Gabrielle stepped forward and lost solid ground. 

Gravity embraced her with a tight hug, nearly squeezing the air from her lungs. She resisted, mouth shut, and kept her body straight, aimed to the ground. Her skin-tight uniform - black and white - carried slings to hold grenades and guns, and helped her slice through the air with a bullet’s speed. The dragon had dropped with her - a long streak of crimson against the black-and-grey rocks. Once the ground had risen to a disturbing degree, and the tops of the trees looked menacingly sharp, she knew it was time.

She unfurled the giant set of wings attached near her shoulder blades. Her brown-and-white speckled feathers grabbed at the air, caught the wind, and whisked her over the trees with a grace born of practice. The dragon extended its own wings and flew beside her. As they soared, Gabrielle looked down, scanning the forest. It was clear to her when she saw it: a thin yellow circle was painted onto the grass - about ten feet in diameter - nearly invisible to the human eye. The dragon shook its head and whined, but she ignored it.

Grasping a grenade in both hands, Gabrielle used her long, slender fingers to remove their pins and dropped them into the circle. The explosion was loud and jaunting, but she was used to its effects. The dragon frowned at the flames, tears welling in its eyes. Gabrielle ignored it again and used her giant shoulder muscles to beat her wings forward. There were ten more circles hidden in the forest; ten more patches of fire when she was through with them.

The drones directed their cameras onto the flames for a few moments before returning their attention to her. Gabrielle rolled her shoulders and angled her flight downwards. The dragon followed her, its tail whipping through the air, ears flat. She creased her wings, losing altitude. Her ears would have popped if they weren’t circular. The wind nipped at her scalp, where her black hair was styled into a buzz cut. Bugs joined the wind, nearly colliding with her face. She narrowed her eyes, thick lashes preventing anything from touching her eyeballs.

As her descent into the forest progressed, she extended her wings, inch by inch, until she practically hovered above the ground. Landing smoothly on the forest floor, she folded back her wings and tucked them tighter into her back. Then she dove into the bushes that layered the ground. The red dragon landed on the ground beside her, looking up. The drones above them hovered, buzzed, unable to see Gabrielle in the thick ocean of green. Gabrielle ignored them and looked around, trying to spot the telltale color of yellow.

The dragon gave a sad sigh when she found it. The target was a small yellow dot painted on the neck of a tree. She raised the modified sniper rifle that had been strapped to her back, under her wings. Eyes wide, she saw the distance being at most three thousand feet. Trees nicked the path, but left a small opening for her. Taking quick aim, she fired. The sound was muffled, per one of many modifications to her rifle. The bullet sped through the air and hit the target with complete accuracy. The dragon looked at the target with remorse as she searched for the next one. There were ten more.

A stinging sensation on the back of her neck brought Gabrielle to a halt. Swiftly, she brought her hand to her neck and slapped at her skin. Bringing her hand back, she frowned, disappointed to discover the smushed corpse of a mosquito in the palm of her hand. With disgust, she wiped the corpse onto her uniform.

The dragon started trembling, anxious, as she acknowledged that she’d have to report this later.

After she completed shooting every one of the targets - with one hundred percent accuracy - she unfurled her wings. Giving herself a running start, she moved until she felt the wind grasp at her feathers. Then she jumped high into the air and flapped her wings. She rose gradually with each flap, and heard the drones turn their gaze towards her. She nodded at them before turning around and flying back to what she called the Nest, the dragon at her side and glaring at the drones.

It was a short flight back to the military base where she lived. She didn’t know much about it other than that it was resided by an organization under DARPA called Genetics for Advanced Warfare - GAW - and that Mommy was positioned very high on its ladder. She wasn’t surprised; it was because Mommy designed her. The organization was hoping for government funding and needed her help. That wasn’t surprising either; she was the first of her kind.

The scientists and other representatives from the US Military stared at Gabrielle with wide eyes as she landed in front of them. The red dragon vanished when she became a spectacle in front of the live crowd. Her wings stayed unfolded and raised; they were victim to their fascination. She held her breathing steady as the adrenaline slowly seeped out of her system, leaving her stomach grumbling and eyelids heavy. She waited as her audience analyzed her appearance, their hands tapping fervently on their tablets. She wished they would stop and gaze into her eyes; they would realize what she was: a ten-year-old girl. But they didn’t; because she wasn’t. 

If she tried hard enough, she could imagine they could embody the caring mother bird who’d watch over her chicks as they sat and stumbled in their small nests.

That illusion was shattered as she met the mix of astonishment and bewilderment on the scientists’ faces. They were unfamiliar; as was the cycle of scientists that came to study her, based on organization and battle. Their eyes roamed over her features: her limbs, shoulders and back, packed tight and heavy with lean muscle. They skimmed over her chest, where her breasts were bundled, and climbed to the crown of her head, admiring her unusual height. They studied the long space between her eyes and the roundedness of her ears.

To the side of the small crowd stood the director of GAW and overseer of Gabrielle’s life; Conan Boyd. Satisfied with the data they collected, the audience smiled to the director and nodded. The director returned a nod. Then they left, muttering amongst themselves. Gabrielle imagined their words would’ve been muffled for a human; too low for them to give the effort of straining their ears. But with a simple tilt of her head towards their figures, their speech became clear.

“That hybrid exceeded the speed of a peregrine falcon!”

“A valuable paratrooper for sure.”

“Especially for her amazing precision. The freak had it better than most humans.”

“We could benefit with her as a sniper.”

Gabrielle would have felt pride flutter through her stomach if she wasn’t dreading her next move. Waiting until the crowd had completely left, she turned to the Director. She liked to call him the Farmer from Peter Rabbit stories. He seemed to be the man who watched over her with a sentinel’s eye. Strict and rough, he applied a harsh discipline to her schedule, with assurance that she would abide by it or he’d use corporal punishment. The Farmer wore a stoic expression to his people. To her, the staring eye of an examiner looking at their maze rat.

She forced herself to speak. “I made a mistake. A mosquito bit me.”

His eyebrows and eyelids dropped an increment, and his mouth tightened at one corner, revealing his immense disappointment at her mistake.

She was a hybrid. Because of that, he and Mommy weren’t sure of her reaction to outside influences, such as what a mosquito could infect her with. She usually caught any movement approaching her. She was trained to be more careful. But today, she slipped.

The Farmer had two men in military uniforms approach her with two pairs of handcuffs; being hybrid, she was feared. Within seconds, her wrists and ankles were restrained and she was escorted by the guards to Mommy’s Home.

Windows lined the bone-white hallways from every side, revealing labs with experiments in procession as well as conferences. With an ear tilted towards the doors, Gabrielle could eavesdrop on their conversations as easily as if they were behind a paper curtain. She imagined she was like the rabbit peering at one of the Farmer’s new rabbit traps, spying on the future.

“Subject #80 could be used as a sniper.”

“As a paratrooper, we could have the enemy running or dead.”

Gabrielle barely refrained from cringing, struggling to keep up the image of a bunny in a blue shirt with its ear against the doorframe. The bunny’s ears rose before flopping down. It turned and made its great journey to Mrs. Josephine Rabbit and his siblings to warn of the dangers of going to the Farmer’s garden. The tiled hallways grew green with grass as the bunny ran, thumping sounds echoing from the floor. The air smelled like the outside world; fresh flower perfume dancing in the wind and pollen tickling the bunny’s nose.

As Peter Rabbit arrived at Mrs. Josephine Rabbit’s shop, Gabrielle felt her back being pushed forward. Snapped out of her imagination, she stumbled into Mommy’s Home. The chemical scent that polluted the air sent the flower’s sweet scent away as the grass rotted, dying into the plain white floor.

Gabrielle saw Mommy first. Her rich, black hair bunched into a tight bun behind her head, away from a pale face whose downcast green eyes hovered over a small microscope. Her slender, creamy hand played with a dial, twisting it left and right, until her eyes widened and narrowed before she exhaled, satisfied. Then Mommy heard the light taps of her footsteps and tore her attention away to gaze at her. Her eyes widened, confused, as she scanned Gabrielle’s body from head to toe. She could see nothing wrong. “Gabrielle, what happened?”

Because it was highly discouraged to care for the hybrid, her voice was disguised as casual in front of the cameras that nestled in the corners of the room and hallways. Neither of them knew if they transmitted audio. 

Gabrielle could discern so much from those three words: the love and adoration in her name, only spoken by Mommy; the mix of fury and fright in what could have been, as Gabrielle had often been put in random drills honing her combat skills; the exhaustion in what events could precede her getting hurt.

She winced, remembering how in her younger years, she’d gotten injured with heavy blood loss. The pain still scared her.

“A mosquito bit me. In the back of my neck.” Her voice was small, barely used.

Mommy raised a finger and twirled it. Gabrielle turned around. Mommy stepped closer, examining the bite. “Well, I’ll have to take a blood sample. See if anything alien is in your bloodstream.”

She fetched a hypodermic needle and an antibacterial wipe from the counter behind her. With a professional’s swift, precise touch, she cleaned the inside of Gabrielle’s elbow. Then she sunk the needle into a protruding blue vein underneath her pale flesh. Gabrielle refrained from wincing from its bite. Aspirating her blood took a second; the vial filled with red liquid a moment before Mommy removed the needle from her vein. After cleaning her skin with another antibacterial wipe, she retrieved a bandaid with an eagle’s picture and stuck it onto the minuscule wound. “There. How do you feel?”

Gabrielle hated how monotone Mommy asked that question. It was like Mrs. Josephine Rabbit didn’t care that Peter Rabbit went into the garden and got caught by the Farmer; like the squirrels didn’t care when Nutkins lost his tail to the owl: ignore the pain, focus on the question. Reveal the answer. That’s what talking to Mommy felt like at the worst times: when others were watching.

“I don’t feel anything.” she lied. She felt what she always felt when the scientists and the military men came to gawk at her: like a freak, a specimen under a microscope that knew of its own existence living on a segment of glass.

Like a bird, she had wings. Like a bird, she had phenomenal far-sightedness. Like a bird, she could go places beyond human capability. She was strong, fast, and could heal with unprecedented speeds. The bandaid wouldn’t be necessary; the small hole made in her arm would heal in five minutes. It was only an infection that Mommy and the Farmer were worried about. But she’d be relieved. If she had an infection, that could prove she was just a little more human than was designed.

Peter Rabbit had returned again, as had the forest that now grew in Mommy’s lab. She wanted to smell the flowers that she couldn’t take the time to smell before. She wanted to lean to a bud and intake its scent. But it would only smell like lemons; the cleaner that Mommy used in her lab. She didn’t have time to smell the flowers when she was in the forest. She’d been timed then, just like every time they brought her outside.

It took several minutes for Mommy to examine the blood and conclude that she had no infection.

Mommy pointed to a bookshelf in the back of the lab. The shelves contained large science books, focusing on avians and genetics and biology and physiology - things she wasn’t sure she’d understand - with the bottom shelf solely reserved for children’s stories. “How about you go and pick one, and I’ll read it for you until Director Boyd comes back?”

Gabrielle could see the titles from where she stood: Beatrix Potter books, The Reluctant Dragon, Where the Wild Things Are, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Hansel and Gretel. They made up her bedtime stories and fueled her imagination, giving her the friends she yearned for, whom she could relate to.

In those books, the characters were unique. They either wanted differently, or were distinct, or did something peculiar. They were either fearless, or curious, or smart, or unwilling to do what others wanted. They were unique; just like she was, different from the rest of humankind. She wanted to be like them.

She didn’t want to hurt others, even though hurting others was what she was raised to do.

“I want-“

“Good news!”

Gabrielle and Mommy turned, both surprised to see The Farmer. Gabrielle inwardly chided herself for not hearing him come near the door. Her hearing was better than that. She was better than that. It was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat.

The Farmer gazed proudly at Mommy, smiling with eyes blazing excitedly. Gabrielle stared at him, eyes wide. He never showed such a face before. “They’ve accepted our proposal.”

Mommy gasped, raising a hand to cover her mouth, the corners of her lips rising. “That’s…that’s…” she glanced at Gabrielle, who caught the brief flash of regret in her eyes, “that’s wonderful! We’ll be sufficiently funded for at least ten years!”

The Farmer nodded. Then he directed his attention to Gabrielle, who straightened her back and gave him what she hoped would be interpreted as her undivided expression. In reality, she retreated back into Peter Rabbit’s woods. She heard the thumping of his small paws, how soft they were on the dirt as he ran out of Mrs. Josephine Rabbit’s shop, ready to steal more vegetables from the garden. The cracking of twigs under his feet was musical.

However, the woods did little to block out the hunger in the Farmer’s voice. “Prepare yourself, Subject #80. Tomorrow, you’ll be deployed in the jungle terrain that is part of Africa as a sniper.”

Her mind split. The scarlet dragon was beside her once more. It shook its head rigorously, tears welling in its eyes, trembling but frozen in place. She wanted to run. To hide. She didn’t want to think about what she’d have to do now. What these humans were making her do.

She balled her hands into fists, her nails biting into her palms. Bitterness stung her heart, joined with the stabbing pain. It was always humans. They wanted to hurt others, wanted her to help them hurt others. They wanted to make her hurt them worse than just pain.

She struggled to take deep breaths. They wanted to…they wanted to…

She tried to imagine herself as Max, sailing to an island teeming with fun, friendly monsters. But she couldn’t rid her mind’s eye of the hungry look that The Farmer had given her. She’d helped GAW obtain what they wanted, and now they had sold her to the highest bidder. She would be used, because she wasn’t the human that everyone else was. She wasn’t a real monster. She wasn’t a fire-breathing, ferocious dragon. She was just a ten-year-old girl. A girl who didn’t want to hurt others. A girl who didn’t seem to be human enough to hurt others.

If she wasn’t human, then what was she?

The Farmer had left the two, retreating into his business. Business that she would soon become a participant of. Mommy gazed down at Gabrielle, pleasure doing nothing to hide the sorrow in her eyes. “You did a great job with the exhibition. I’m proud of you.”

Gabrielle wanted to soak up the praise, but she knew she wasn’t the source of the pride. Mommy was proud of herself; proud to have created such a creature that could exceed expectations and could win over the curious minds of those with the money. Who she was had no part in it.

Mommy glanced at the shelf, her eyes uncertain, her hands twitching. She was hesitant, uncertain. “I think we don’t have time for a bedtime story today. You should go to sleep immediately.”

A bedtime story was the tradition Gabrielle and Mommy held since she was a baby. Gabrielle blinked, eyes wide, before swallowing the buildup of tears in her throat. This was the first step into finalizing what she was for them; a weapon that they could use to hurt others.

She thought back to the hesitant red dragon that she’d wanted to visit again. Creatures like the dragon didn’t hurt anybody. The dragon didn’t want to hurt the humans. It was the humans that wanted to hurt the dragon. Just as it was the Farmer who wanted to hurt Peter Rabbit. Why did humans have to hurt each other?

Gabrielle allowed Mommy to escort her to her room. It was dimly lit, small, and painted blue on all sides. The bed was plush, warm, and filled with the images of clouds, due to Mommy’s insistence. With careful positioning so as to not aggravate her wings, Gabrielle sunk under the blankets, soaking up the warmth, letting it drench over her and her feathers. Mommy smiled softly at her, gaze distant, before she turned around. Then she swiveled again, facing her with an expression full of uncertainty. Gabrielle watched as the corners of her eyes became moist with a thick film of tears. She blinked, and when she spoke, her voice rippled with fear. “I wasn’t supposed to name you, Gabrielle. You know that, right?”

Gabrielle nodded. Mommy shifted on her feet, her fingers twitching. “I’d always wanted a daughter. I’d chosen a name for her years ago, when I was a teen,” she gave Gabrielle a sardonic smile, “it was supposed to be Fey.”

A blink was the only external response Gabrielle gave. She rolled the name through her mind, tasting it with her tongue, silently sounding out the word with her lips.

“No one else wanted to birth the avian-human hybrid. Director Boyd told me that I had to be the one to do it. I wanted to choose a different name. One that meant something when you’d grow into…bigger responsibilities.”

“You were supposed to embody the truth and potential of what we could be, and how far science could climb.” Mommy nodded self-assuredly. “And you did. You helped us learn what potential we could reach with genetical splicing; with the limits of our imagination and what we found in nature.”

She reached out and stroked Gabrielle’s short hair. It was a soothing gesture; Gabrielle leaned her head into the touch. “Now you will be the one to decide what happens tomorrow.”

She bent down and planted a small kiss on Gabrielle’s forehead. Gabrielle closed her eyes, memorizing the sensation. She kept her eyes closed when she heard footsteps receding from her bed. She could feel the brief tendril of wind that came when the door shut. Behind her eyelids, she could see the light of the room dimming gradually until it became pitch black. She hated the darkness; she couldn’t adapt to it like normal humans, so it made her completely blind. When she was younger, it made her terrified of the dark and sobbing whenever a light was turned off. Now, she’d adapted, and her other senses made up for the lack of sight.

She took a deep breath and settled into her bed. She didn’t want to hurt other people. Despite what the Farmer said, she couldn’t do it. It went against what the red dragon said. It went against what Rabbit wanted. It went against what she wanted. Why was it always the humans that would hurt others? Why couldn’t they get along, like the Reluctant Dragon and St. George? All they wanted to do was hurt other people. She didn’t want to be like them. What could she be, then?

The answer was clear and solid as her wings.

That night, Gabrielle dreamed of her plan. It carried her into deep sleep, nursing her bravery, attempting to slice away the one rope that would anchor her to the Nest; Mommy. She was her comfort. She was Mommy’s hybrid daughter.

But if Mommy was willing to let her hurt others, then it would be bad if she stayed, despite staying with her.

In her dreams, she pictured what tomorrow would look like. She’d be deployed; freedom from the drones. She could be monitored some other way, but she’d figure a way out.

She would take one last look over her shoulder. Then she’d smile. 

They expected her to come back, like a bird returning to its nesting grounds.

But this baby bird had matured.

She’d left the nest, and would never turn around again.