Cangiante

[peregrineink*]

Maddie found herself running again. She was always running, her heart beating rabbit quick like she was some sort of prey animal. How was it that every time she found a place to stay, she was running again? Always running, always.

She found herself in a big place, a familiar place. She had been here before.

The sound of applause, a girl curled up bound by red thread.

"I call her Siobhan."

Ah.

Yes.

Siobhan was probably somewhere in here, and Maddie tried in vain to think of her as a human being, she tried to take the Duncan feelings and make it about her, about any of the people she had turned into art here. Nothing. No twinge of guilt or horrible sadness. Should she? Maddie frowned. She tried to remember herself before this. She tried to remember the art room, saluting the flag, she tried to remember more than just running and pain and getting shot at and death and the Gallery.

She did not want to be nothing but the Gallery...right? She couldn't feel anything but the Gallery. She couldn't feel anything but the itchiness and the need and the twitching and the hurt when the boy with the gloves hit her.

There was no point in making her presence known, they all knew her, the announcements ruined everything no matter what she did, and regardless of who she wanted to be she would always be the person who scared everyone, even if she was just Maddie Harris, class freak. Maddie with no friends. Maddie, who only had Duncan to be nice to her.

Duncan.

She looked around the warehouse.

There was no sign of Brett Torres here.

There was no sign of anyone here.

Maybe, she thought, this was for the best. She had this beautiful plan and now that she had seen others she didn't no anymore. She wasn't so sure. She wanted to kill Brett Torres and then herself. Now...maybe not. Maybe killing herself for this game wasn't worth it. There weren't many of them left, she knew. How could there be? All of them wanted her dead more now than ever. A shiver ran down her spine. A horrible horrible shiver. They were all rude and had no sense of creativity. Maddie had tried to make all of hers beautiful. Karl Chalmers had not died beautiful.

She wasn't sure that Brett Torres could die beautiful. Not by her hands. Not anymore. Not after Kendra.

She slipped her fingers through the pin on the grenade as though trying on a ring that was much too big for her. She wasn't stupid she wanted to survive this and she had to be really super careful of she wanted to. She closed her eyes, thinking about kiss with Duncan. Thinking about her life once it's all over. Maybe she'd teach art, once she got really famous. People would line up to take her class, people would want to sit and listen to her for hours and she would be really really popular. Everyone would want to talk to her. Everyone.

Madeline Harris paced in front of her classroom, pictures of her amazing art up on the walls. Her class full of college students hung on her every word.

"Never," she said. "Ever doubt what a person would do for their art."

Applause. Applause everywhere.

Maddie giggled. Her desert eagle was in one hand. Trowel. Grenade in another. Paint brush.

She could win. She just needed to hide out and hold one.

"You watch out, bad guys!" She cried. "Maddie Harris is going to WIN." Maddie Harris is going to win and be popular and she will never ever be lonely again.

She spun around.


....she heard a click.

The grenade flew out of her hands.



The pin stayed on her finger, loose, like a ring that was far too big for her.

The grenade landed on the ground with a dull thud.

Maddie stared.

Her eyes grew wide....






BOOM

She was taller, more filled out, her hair was still long and she still kept that strange androgynous child look, but she had found a niche, she had graduated high school and went to art school, she had found likeminded people and boys who talked to her. She learned what it meant to make love, and awakened dormant parts of herself. She never killed anyone. Her art was never visceral, never so angry. The Program never existed for this Madeline Harris, and she had children, a husband.

Her art was never so beautiful, though.

In a suburb outside of Pittsburg, a man and a woman watch their daughter disappear in a horrible flash and plume of fire. For a long time they sit in silence. Then the phone calls begin. The art collectors. The critics. For a long time they sat there.

Then they turned the TV off.

The seven figures stood before the final piece in the gallery. It was a slight sculpture, very abstract, red, covered in drawers that held twisted pieces of metal andstrawberry blonde hair. Scraps of flesh and buttons.

None of them said a word.

And one by one...they walked away.

F26 MADELINE HARRIS: DEAD