I don't really know why I wrote this fic. It just came to me one day, and it's been one of the hardest to write, to really find the words to express what I'm trying to say. It makes me sad, but in a good way. Please R & R and tell me how depressing it is.

Disclaimer: I do not own the flock or anything about the School. If I did, I would blow it up. (The School, not the flock)

Dedicated to:

Everyone who went through the two years with Phantom-

you know who you are-

we will always live with those memories.

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You won't see it. Not in the book, hardly ever in the blog. No, they won't betray it to you. That would be considered a weak thing to do.

But the Flock suffered more physically, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically than we could ever imagine. No one today, NO ONE, could relate to what they've been through. To grow up, being treated as less than nothing and subjected to experiments every hellish day of your life? Never truly knowing love or kindness? Inconceivable.

The only thing that could possibly come close would be existence in a Nazi concentration camp. But that only lasted a few years.

The School was their life.

Now, despite their four years of freedom, the experience lives on with them. Time hasn't, and won't, soften the memory.

Of course, during those years they didn't actually forget. But it receded to the backs of their minds like a dormant virus, waiting to be triggered to reawaken.

Seeing Erasers again was the trigger.

Although they all dealt with basically the same pain, the same torture, they each live with the painfulness of the memories in different ways.

Max dreams it. Almost every night she is haunted by those fourteen years, played through her mind like horrific motion pictures.

Fang remembers it. Oh, they all do. But he remembers every single excruciating detail of their imprisonment. That is why he is silent.

Iggy sees it. In his world of utter darkness, his only memories of sight are from the School. That is all he sees.

Nudge thinks about it. The reason she talks everything to death is from habit- a habit that formed to push the memories away.

Gazzy tries to destroy it. His fascination from bombs came from an early wish to have the School blown up. He doesn't know how to deal with the memories, so he attempts to extinguish them.

And Angel? She remembers the least. But every day, due to her telepathic abilities, she is constantly aware of how much pain her family is in. She tries, tries oh so hard to obliterate the memories, to make them go away under her influence.

But the memories are too deeply engraved on their minds.

Despite her endeavors, they will always live with those memories.

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See? Told you it was depressing. Now review.