Disclaimer. The people in this story belong to Marvel(r) and not me. I am not smart enough to come up with villains and crap. This is in response to another piece of fanfiction called " Into the Silence Screaming" and it was good. You should read it. Please be kind, I am not very computer literate and if my format reeks of sewer water I'm sorry. I beg you don't sue me. I am a college student so milk crate furniture is probably not worth going to court for. Your ol' pal, The Bud. The Fine line Between a Memory and Hell. It was a year ago that my life was nearly ruined by that horrible excuse for a human. I am still having nightmares about him. Three days he had me tied to that filthy and louse-laden bed of sin and I never caught his name. He had reeked of unwashed pervertedness, something akin to rusted iron pouring out of his body with a wafting stench. The way that man looked at me at the restaurant, I should have known something was wrong with him. It was a pure stare of cruel intentions and putrid thoughts of undressing me slowly with his eyes. Never had I thought he would follow my cab the seventy odd miles from New York to Salem. I should have thought. I should have known! The deep scars that his worn leather belt tore into my skin have healed mostly and the chunks of hair wretched from my skull have a year's growth to it now. By looking at me, you could never tell what happened. But the worse part, the part I can not cope with is how that filthy, psychotic, stink -pot broke into my house and invaded MY home and beat me. Much in the way he violated my body and ripped my soul to shreds. No! That was not even the half of it! He beat me to near death and dragged my limp body through the woods around my home and threw me in a metal tool trunk on the back of his truck naked and in the cold. He had only left two holes to keep me breathing and used me. Like a cat that keeps the mouse alive only to play with it. Scott feels so guilty he could not even save me. He wasn't there to protect me. He feels worse he wasn't the one that even found me after that monster grew bored of his toy and left me broken and beaten in the thawing ditch. I want to comfort him because he tosses and turns at night and I "see" the horrific dreams his imagination tells him I went through. But my nightmares! I wish they would stop! After my powers surged back, Hank had to fit me with an inhibitor to sleep in because the dreams where so vivid, I released a psy bolt that would have fried the rest of the teams minds had not the Professor intervened. Hank tells me that my dreams are " a coping mechanism used by my subconscience mind to prevent me from having to deal with what happened in increments instead of all at once because you felt you should have been able to defend yourself." He was not there. I think I am actually going crazy because yesterday, I thought I saw that bastard's dirty white truck driving by the house, so I started to scream hysterically about it only to find Scott cradling my writhing body trying to wake me up. I pushed my poor husband away and ran to the bathroom retching my guts out and then I sat in a burning shower crying for an hour. Last week, Logan heard me weeping like a five -year old for mercy and he burst in the house ready to fight only to find me asleep in a fetal position in Scott's old chair. I am having another episode now. They make me feel so polluted I won't even let Scott really touch me. I don't want to make Scott filthy like ...him. I know that sounds stupid, but I can't help it. I hear that motor. That clanking piece of garbage I was imprisoned in for hours before the hell- hole I was forced into. The rusty brakes with the worn shoes screeching to a halt. You never forget that and it's all there with a loud bump like whatever that ass hit when he stopped to drag me into his dumpy house through his trashy yard and the dead maggot filled dog laying in the rocky driveway. I knew he had hit it and never even buried his own dog. This bump was a loud bump. I hear a noise akin to fighting. My mind takes me back to the blackened struggle I went through to get away from him, but he was stronger then I was. There was lumber, nails and duct tape littering his beer can- strewn living room and I remember the sound of that tape. He had managed to tie me to the bed with his belt, true, but later, the belt was not good enough. Screaming as I was through the pain, I thought he was repenting when he removed the belt. When I tried to escape, duct tape replaced that worn leather over my bleeding and torn wrists. Salt poured directly on them would have felt better. The vision progresses and it turns into my bedroom at my house. I see that depraved monster at my door thinner and with longer hair cursing me. Yelling about revenge and payback. The belt he has looks like the one I gave Scott for his birthday two years ago, I remember it because it was a gag gift with Goofy on the buckle. He is on me before I can react and I start clawing at the power band to get it off, this time I can fight back! I try again to get away hoping I haven't woken the rest of the neighborhood screaming. He has already gotten my hands tied above my head and my twisting body causes the belt to recut my old wounds. As he grasps my neck with one hand, I realize this is wrong. I never dreamt about the warm blood that oozed down my arms. I yell franticly at myself to wake up, fearing I am already awake. I start screaming for help and trying not to black out from his cold hand's pressure on my throat while trying to ignore the filthy paw reaching into my underwear and ripping them off. My throat is raw from the plea's I issue. I try not to hear him unzipping his unwashed jeans praying for a miracle and I try not to feel his unwashed self, pressing against my thigh. I'm scared and crying as my vision darkens further from the air I can't breath. He stops, and I see why. My knight has come. I see that Scott is hurt badly. My attacker gets off me and releases my neck so I can breath again. He charges at Scott and I fear what will happen. Scott looks like death gas come to claim him and is no match for the mad man. I turn my head in fear for my husband. I hear the miscreant shouting obscenities and what' he's gonna do to the bitch on the bed" I hear a "zark" a crash and nothing save the labored breathing from Scott's collapsed lung. He unties me and I can see the white paint clinging to his shirt. He was the thump I heard, I realize. He used his strength to give me a chance. As we wait for the police and the team, we partake of our first kiss in a year. His ribs are broken and his shoulder looks snapped and as we look at the comatose body of the man that almost ruined us, we cry and hold each other for our lost time. This is where we start to heal.