I failed.
I failed to keep my friends safe. I was the reason why they were now imprisoned in that hell-hole that I had been trapped in for six years. I couldn't be more ashamed.
They tortured me into telling them what they wanted. They knew I had information that could be potentially vital to them, so they refused to let me go. They refused to stop, or to end it all by simply killing me. I should have let them mess up. I should have let them accidentally cut too deep, electrocute too far or beat too severely. After all, everyone makes a mistake at some point in their life.
I was free because they did mess up. The hourly injection that they gave us all to suppress our mutations was extremely time sensitive, therefore, it had to be administered at a precise time during the day every three days. If they failed to do so, we regained our mutation, or so the rumor went.
They had lined us up like objects on a factory conveyor belt, standing in silent rows with our heads bent towards the earth. I never knew if people were praying or if they were simply following the crowd and being submissive. Silence was how everything was done, even in our "free time" no one dared to say a word. Only the screams of family members or the dying served as our music that we heard.
They had missed my time by eight measly minutes and that gave me the time to realize the rumors were true. Those seven minuets I had to react, was like a hammer breaking soot-stained glass on a window, I could see shards of hope and the sun that all the black soot had covered up for so long. I had to think of a way to fake my injection. I had to control the person who was administering them and make them give me a flu vaccine instead. I kept head bent, but my heart was racing and my eyes were not still. I felt like my poor acting was a red flag to the men with their guns. But no one said a word.
You see, my mutation is like being a puppeteer: I control people like they have stings attached to every muscle in their body. It's a nice ability in practice, but the things I could do with it scared me.
So now here I was in this wasteland of a city, emaciated, though I had managed to put on some weight since I had escaped, and I was running as if my life depended on it. I should have just stopped the person that had been following me for the last two miles.
They were almost invisible to me at first, creeping like a shadow that lurked in the corners of my insane mind. I would smack the side of my head, trying to get the illusion out of it. There was no one there, there couldn't be. All mutants were locked up and all humans were on a different continent all together. But as I traveled, they got careless. I began hearing the definite snap of a twig under footfall or the crunch made by stepping on already shattered glass.
If it had been six years earlier, I would have made them put a bullet through their head or slit their own throat, but I couldn't do that... not anymore- not after what's been done to me.
I kept going on until I couldn't take it anymore. My paranoia was consuming me from the inside out. I jumped into one of the many little stores that lined the streets. I went through the shattered display case, cutting my thumb on an erect shard of glass. I put my uninjured hand over my mouth to quiet my ragged breath and pressed my back against the small strip of wall that was below the smashed window case.
Footsteps fell on the opposite side of my wall. I froze listening and trying to steady my breathing. I didn't move until I heard them pass. Removing my erratically trembling hand from my mouth, I squeezed my eyes shut and leaned my head back, repeating to myself that it was all over, that they were gone. I sucked on my thumb, the taste of the blood comforting me a bit. It proved that I do bleed and that I wasn't trapped in a dream.
Suddenly, a pair of startlingly strong hands were dragging me from my trance and from my wall. I tried to pull them off of me, but my desperate clawing and kicking only made it worse and the grip tightened around me. My back slid across the glass edge sending searing pain up my spine like a razor being dragged against my sensitive flesh.
"Who are you?" I heard a mans voice demand as he held tightly, one arm against my chest and the other trying to contain my desperately clawing hands. He sounded a familiar.
When I didn't respond he repeated himself "I said, who are you?" He asked again giving me a small shake. I let out a small noise of frustration, he had been the one following me, I should have the right to that question, not him.
All of my senses where on overload as I tried to put a name to the voice, my mind was being flooded with memories of the steel paneled room and harsh florescent light. Images of an array of knives lain out next to me like dental tools flashed in my visions making me panic even more and claw even more desperately. It was all being blurred and scrambled due to loud hum of terror in my mind. it sounded like an electrically charged static noise that bombarded my brain like a heartbeat.
Then it clicked.
I stopped struggling immediately which made him loosen his grip just enough for me to turn around, still in his loosened grip and throw arms around his neck.
"Oh my god, Peter" I breathed as tears began to pool in my eyes and my throat tightened painfully. It felt like the dam of built up emotions burst in my mind and the shock of the flashback images made me utterly break down. I couldn't take it, too many things had just gone on in my mind and it was suddenly over. I hated crying in front of others, but I truly didn't care any more. Circumstances change. Too much pain changes people.
It had been Peter following me. One of the people I had betrayed. Piotr "Peter" Nikolaievitch Rasputin, fellow mutant and X-men. The only X-men (besides myself) who wasn't currently incarcerated.
"Alice?" Peter asked, his voice shrouded in what seemed to be a disbelieving daze. I choked out what sounded to be a half sob half laugh and nodded into his shoulder. His surprised arms hesitantly wrapped around me in return, but soon engulfed me like a tiny pebble being placed in a flowing river.
"Oh my god, how did you get out?" He asked, still not letting me go.
"They messed up." I whispered. It was the only audible speech my voice allow me to create without being strangled by tears.
"Is everyone else out too?" He asked and he pulled away to search my face for an answer. I fell silent. Once he saw my reaction he must have decided against pressing me on the subject.
The sight of me must have been a slight shock. I was dirty, with riddled clothing and cuts that were still oozing blood. My usual large and innocent round eyes with their bright and uplifting moss green gaze had been beaten down to a dull grayish- green. My naturally blonde curls were a slightly messy and flat, yet it was the only thing I had managed to maintain, it reminded me of normalcy.
"Why were you following me?" I asked with more courage than I had in years.
"I thought you were Illyana" he said quietly. My heart sank, Illyana was his little sister.
"But why didn't you say anything if you thought i was her?" I asked pushing my eyebrows together.
"She lost it before she disappeared" he said in the same low tone.
"I'm sorry" I said, placing a hand on his arm.
"It's not your fault" he shrugged. I sighed. When it came down to it all, it actually was...
A/N hey guys! So I'm starting this new story. It's been swimming in my mind for a long time. Comments? Questions or feedback? Leave a review and let me know!