It means it took them three years to catch her.
Sci Fi & Fantasy / Butterfly
The girl glared out at the dingy interrogation room with emerald eyes from underneath a fringe of greasy black hair. Her face was now pale and gaunt, but he had seen her when they’d first brought her in- she had been lively and sarcastic, answering all their questions with unanswerable riddles. Now she didn’t answer to anyone at all.
It had taken them until just yesterday to figure out her name. Three years since the arrest that never happened of the girl that never was. Since last night, he’d been repeating her name over and over to himself.
Butterfly Rollins; he loved the way it rolled around on his tongue. Butterfly- that was an odd name, but a beautiful one. He mouthed it to himself as he pushed through the door into the room where she was being held. Nodding at the guard, who gave a tight smile in reply, he plopped down in one of the dented metal chairs.
He smiled at her and she blinked- they had wondered briefly whether being cooped up like this had affected her mental state, but had quickly decided that was not the case after she had attempted to escape using nothing but a broken chicken bone.
Even though she had been captured three years ago next month, it had taken them that long to get her. They had been mailed a letter from her proclaiming that they were chasing the butterfly that could not be caught- how true it was, he reflected. Sure, she was in their custody, but had they really caught her? Sometimes he got the feeling that she was only biding her time here, waiting for the right opportunity to flit away.
“So tell me, Butterfly, have you ever wondered what my name is?”
“Ah, so you figured it out. Smart one. You’re wrong, though, to think that the jig is up, that I will suddenly become more compliant. Though, it would only be fair if I knew your name,” she answered, the trace of a smile fluttering across her lips, an ember igniting in her eyes.
“I take it that the mystery of my name has bothered you.”
“Oh, yes, it keeps me awake at night.”
“Well, my name’s Joe Wallace. Tell me, how it is a fourteen year old girl can anger the entire United States to the point of her very existence denied, despite the fact her name isn’t even known?” he asked her, treading carefully. He knew she had never been told the reason for all of this, for the thumbtacks in the butterfly’s wings.
“Practice, I guess,” she responded, leaning back and grinning cockily at him. He was wrong, he now realized. That spark of life that had kept her defiant wasn’t gone; it had been hiding. He felt sick to his stomach as he thought about how he had felt for her pain.
“Are we done yet? ‘Cause my favorite TV show comes on in, like, five minutes,” she said, a knowing look in her eyes.
“You are twenty years old and worried about missing a television show?” he asked, stalling. He had to keep her talking…….
“What else is there for me to do here other than watch TV? Die?”
Finally, the moment came. A burly man in a pressed suit stomped into the room and growled a few orders at the guard, who promptly turned white and left the room.
“Well, Miss Rollins, your time has come. The President has issued a direct order that you are to be executed. Have you ever wondered why you are here? Why all this security, why we couldn’t arrest you legally?” snarled the husky man, resting his palms on the table and shoving his face into hers.
Joe watched her face with interest, as her lips first curled up in distaste, and proceeded to roll her eyes and sigh, glaring pointedly in the other direction. Briefly her eyes flickered toward him, and he felt like she was blaming him for this disgusting man invading her privacy.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Miss Rollins. You didn’t do a damn thing other than being born, and by doing that little thing, you raised us into a state of panic,” the man began, misreading her silence as curiosity. “Hey, Joe, wanna know secret about your little friend here? She can’t die.”
Joe stared at him doubtfully, until he noticed Butterfly biting her lip and wrinkling her nose.
“That’s what this is about? Well, ‘can’t die’ is a huge exaggeration-,” she began.
“The only way for you to die is for your head to get chopped off,” interrupted the man, pounding his fist on the table. “How is that a huge exaggeration?”
“Because there is a huge difference between life and death, and furthermore, if I can die somehow, how am I a threat?” she demanded, her jaw jutting forward to symbolize her rebelliousness.
“Because if any citizen finds out about you, our world goes to hell. Everyone will be searching for the goddamn fountain of youth- no one will do what they are supposed to do,” the man snarled, but he jumped back from the table as if he had been burned. “What the hell?!”
Joe started forward to help, but Butterfly turned her gaze on him, her eyes backlit with some internal light. So he kneeled and examined the man, seeing the angry red burns on his hands. In spite of himself, a soft smile touched Joe’s lips as the guards rushed in to immobilize her, but she was smirking. Something had happened, but Joe had no idea what it was.
And so, three days later, Joe was slumped on the car seat, and a white, unmarked van sped along behind them, the Butterfly encased in metal. She had laughed when they had shoved her into the van, a knowing laugh, a teasing laugh.
The laugh he couldn’t get out of his head.
Suddenly, a winged THING swooped down out of the sky, and as both the car and van braked, even Joe could hear her victorious whoop. And the THING stood, the wings sucking into its back until it was obvious that this was just a man, who looked about her age.
“Boo.”
With that one word, the winged man laughed as everyone but Joe scrambled for safety; namely, anywhere away from the immortal girl and winged boy. They would pay for it, either with their jobs or their lives.
Joe groaned. This was beginning to sound like a bad comic book.
“Damn it, Michael, stop laughing and get me the hell out of here!” Butterfly shouted, giggling all the while.
Joe just sat there, dumbfounded and wondering what the hell these people were, and why the hell he hadn’t just gone to law school instead of this.
“Why did nobody do anything?” raged Elaine Brookes, her steel colored glasses matching her steel colored hair and clothes. “Why did you let her get away?”
“Because Bird Boy came out of nowhere with retractable wings?” offered Joe, leaning back.
“Well, luckily, she forgot about her tracking device. She’s in an abandoned airplane hangar not far away. Wallace, I want a team of three dozen men hunting that damned girl. Go. Now,” she hissed, pointing towards the door.
The gang of black sedans pulled up to the hangar, the three dozen armed men creeping out and to the large, barn like doors when Joe motioned for them to stop.
The sound of a dozen people laughing and talking drifted toward them, and Joe swore under his breath.
There were more of them. Did they have th-the powers that she possessed? What if they did?
Clenching his eyes shut, Joe motioned them ahead. The screams began.
It took him a few seconds to realize it was his men screaming and shooting blindly at the kind of things that only appear in books or nightmares. There was a girl with a dozen razor sharp fangs, and a boy who seemed to be transforming into a wolf.
The banner hanging on the wall read: Welcome Back, Butterfly- the Weirdo’s Club.
And then the fighting stopped for a moment, and Joe realized what it was- there was a small girl lying on the floor, slowly bleeding to death.
A little girl, in a denim jumper, a long furry tail protruding from underneath it. They had shot a little girl. A teenage boy fell to his knees next to her, gathered her in his arms, and hissed at Joe, showing more fangs.
“She was a little girl. What did she do?” demanded the boy, his voice breaking. And the little girl stirred, reaching up a tiny hand to touch his face, and whispered a word into his ear before fading into the darkness.
The boy stood up and bared his fangs, and lunged for the nearest of Joe’s men. More blood would ensue, of that Joe was sure, but he couldn’t stick around to watch. Butterfly has slipped off down a wind tunnel, and Joe was mildly surprised. He would have thought her to stay and fight, but then he realized she was leaving a trail of blood. The little girl was gathered in her arms, moaning, and Butterfly was murmuring in her ear.
And suddenly, fifty yards ahead of her, the entire group of “weirdoes” burst from nowhere, and Joe couldn’t stifle his cry of surprise.
“Go on ahead,” she called softly to her friends, and they obeyed, disappearing from view, but their squabbling still reached his ears.
She turned to face him, the girl still bundled in her arms and weeping softly. She looked at him with a somber, bittersweet expression.
“You could kill me, you know, if you managed to shoot through my neck enough to sever it. You could kill her.”
He aimed his gun at her shakily, gazing into her fierce green eyes; they were a warrior’s eyes. The little girl stirred once again, wrapping her slender arms around Butterfly’s neck. Butterfly held the girl tighter in a protective embrace; Joe realized he couldn’t do it. Lowering his gun, he uttered one syllable: “Run.”
“You know, people say I like to start stuff. It’s not true. I just wind up finishing them,” she said quietly.
With that, she turned and walked away and was gone from him forever; the butterfly that could not be caught.
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sarcasmspecialist reviewed Version 1 -
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If it is true that you are only 13 years old, I’ve never been more impressed in my life. I was writing stuff like this when I was your age, and looking back at it, my writing was terrible. However, today alone I’ve read stuff by people twice my age who write much worse than you. You have such a phenomenal gift to be shaped that I’m going to keep reading your work.
I really enjoyed this piece for a number of reasons. It’s well written and it reminds me of a cross between X-Men and Heroes. However, the second part isn’t a good thing. It’s hard to do a “super power” story without running into those two comparison. But the winged boy and the practically immortal girl seem like an X-Men’s Angel reference and a Heroes’s Claire reference. Probably not your intention, but the kind of people who are going to read this story will draw that comparison. Something to think about.
Also, the dialogue is a little off. Sometimes it doesn’t sound real, sometimes it sounds to rigid, sometimes it sounds contrived. Work on it a bit. I find that reading dialogue driven books for a while help you hone your dialogue writing skills. Good luck and keep writing.
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ModernDayAthena reviewed Version 1 -
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planetaryexit reviewed Version 1 -
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Yes this is worth adding to. The main problem is the amount of description your giving for each of the stages in your story, after the first part, the story becomes choppy. You need to add more to what is going on, ie developing who all of the charters are, it would be great to know more about the “weardo club” and Joe. All and all its a good story, I want to work on one of my storys now. It just need more to be a well rounded story, witch is convenient for you.
dwkeys reviewed Version 1 -
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I like the story overall, but it leaves a lot of questions unanswered. I think at the very least this could be fleshed out into a longer story, perhaps even a novel or novella with the right plot.
I felt like there were some things left out, such as how did Michael spring her from transport? Did the escort simply run off or was there a battle? How did they first find out about her? According to her letter, they were already chasing her when she sent it.
Incidentally, these are just my thoughts, but I would leave the part about the letter out. The mocking tone of the letter seems to contradict her last statement about not starting stuff. Plus, given her last statement, if you leave the letter out, you could engender a little more sympathy from the reader for her plight.
A little more description about what happened to the guard’s hands would be nice also. You could also expound a little about the other members of the Weirdo’s Club that were at Butterfly’s homecoming. Let the reader know what other creatures were involved.
I think this could be the start of a very interesting story that could be expanded upon, and it left me wanting to know more. If you really are 13, then you have a talent worth shaping. Keep it up.
magusofchaos reviewed Version 1 -
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This is very interesting.
I like the interaction between Joe and Butterfly. Joe’s a good character, and you’ve done a fairly good job of showing the conflict he feels. I like that he feels some sympathy for Butterfly, even though he obviously doesn’t think he should. I really liked the part where he said he should have gone to law school instead. That was a very realistic moment, given the situation.
I’d like to know more about the world in general, and why Butterfly is so dangerous. What kinds of things did she start, or if she is to be believed, finished? Is it only because of what she can do, or have she and her friends done something specific?
Butterfly seems just a little unrealistic, personality wise. Not many people could stay that defiant after three years of captivity. It could be that she’s a really good actress, I suppose. I’d like to see more of the interaction between her and Joe.
I think there’s plenty of room for expansion, especially in the background of this story. I’d also like to know what’s going to happen to Joe. I look forward to seeing what you do with this.
writerchic reviewed Version 1 -
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This piece reminds me of the Maximum Ride books (by James Patterson) I read with my little sister, and which I actually enjoyed quite a lot. The whole idea of children with weird abilities is what made me automatically think of those books.
In the beginning I was a bit confused by the timeline of events, with the whole unofficial arrest. Did they actually have her in custody and no one knew, or did she escape from them before she could be arrested? Perhaps I didn’t read it clearly enough. I would have also liked a bit more detail in certain parts, like, when she is escaping with the other boy, and when they raid the warehouse in the end.
I believe it would be very easy for you to expand this into an actual story. The idea of children needing to be strong to survive, because they are different, is always a very powerful story to write (if done in the right way). These outward differences are often symbolic of inward inadequacies, or differences; at least they can be viewed that way. You might want to extend the opening a little, take your time, and throw in more description for the different parts, but I can see this as a longer story, definitely :)
unusualgirl0 reviewed Version 1 -
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Okay, I’ll talk abotu the little details first, then the larger things.
attempted to escape using
Maybe “Almost escaped”? If you’re trying to show she’s smart, attempted to escape sounds like she was scratching at the wall with it or somethign equally unproductive.
Okay, I think it has amazing potential, especially the first bit. But keep the suspense going longer before you tell me why, just by being born, she was a threat. Also, the sudden rapid-fire scene changes are confusing, especialyl at this early stage. I don’t yet have a character to latch onto, so switching it up so quickly isn’t good. Plus, I don’t yet have a sense of time or place, so because I’m still so adrift, I wouldn’t recomend it.
That said, this has amazing potential. Keep writing!
shigemitsubaki reviewed Version 1 -
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the main story is very interesting and highly amusing, but there are a few parts that could probably use a little cleaning, like
“It took him a few seconds to realize it was his men screaming and shooting
blindly at the kind of things that only appear in books or nightmares.”
maybe it would sound better if it were shortened a bit like so:
”...and shooting blindly at things out of a nightmare.”
While it makes a good short story, I think you might have difficulty stretching this out since she has left no clues as to where she is going, and Joe seems unwilling to chase her further. But if you choose to fix those, it should be fine.
good luck and hope to see more from you.
hellbunny reviewed Version 1 -
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It could be a short story, but if you change the last sentence, it seems more like the start of a fascinating adventure. You have created an intriguing world, but you have only given us a glimpse. Butterfly is a mysterious character, but she’s fiercely intelligent and shows a great deal of compassion.
“Even though she had been captured three years ago next month, it had taken them that long to get her.”- This part’s confusing. They have her, but they don’t have her?
stephanloy reviewed Version 1 -
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I think you’re right; this should be a longer piece. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a novel, but maybe a long short story, twice the length it is, maybe longer. As written, you jump from scene and timeframe to scene and timeframe too rapidly and too often, a difficulty born from trying to fit too much into too small a space. However, regardless of whether or not you lengthen the story, pay attention to the story structure. As well as you have written this, and it’s very well written excepting a few concerns about the last several paragraphs, as well as you have written this, it doesn’t seem to have much structure. It doesn’t seem to be about anything, just some stuff that happened. determine WHY you are writing this story. What message or theme do you wish to communicate? Then center everything around that message. Tell us what the point is, through the actions, thoughts and words of the characters. You may find you don’t need as much space as you think. You might be able to tell the whole story from inside that interrogation room where the story begins.
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