Chapter One- From Printed Page

"The idea of being electrocuted makes me sick, and that's all there was to read about in the papers, goggle-eyed headlines staring up at me on every street corner...it had nothing to do with me, but I couldn't help wondering what it would be like, being burned alive along all your nerves," The Bell Jar By Sylvia Plath

I'd read the papers. Everyone has, of course, I just seemed to be reading them more than most. What had happened a month ago at Liberty filled me with a morbid facination with the whole subject.

My roommate was on the debate team, so having a few extra copies of the Times around didn't really arouse any suspicions. She was actually kind of proud of me, said something like...I dunno. What was it? That I was ' Blooming into an adult by taking an interest in the facinating world around me ''? Something like that.

She's in Drama, too.

I mean, I guess it's normal, right? Superheroes are popping out of the most unexpected places, little kids are shooting fire out of their eyeballs, pissed off teenagers are leveling buildings without even meaning to. I have every right to be interested...

But instead of watching in wide-eyed facination, most of us normal humans are weeding them out as fast as we possibly can. The idea of super-humans appeals to the public on a grand scale, but no one wants to step out on their porch on a Sunday afternoon and watch a bunch of freaks duking it out on their front lawn.

So I guess it was a mingling of guilt and facination that lead me to start rooting for the other team. Guilt, of course, was from the fact that I was one of those ordinary humans who would stop on the street and gawk at the man with three eyes or the purple-skinned woman. I didn't throw shit or anything, but I just couldn't seem to tear my eyes away. It wasn't a negative thing, I guess, but it was always taken that way.

So I started buying those comic books that Marvel shelled out. They took the real people-- from the X-Men, the Brotherhood, the Avengers, and put them in spandex outfits. They glorified and romanticized every single one of them, fabricating real events. Ones you could read about in the papers.

Marvel was openly pro-mutant, and they had to work underground because of this. You could hardly buy one of their comics at the corner store. Any establishment that sold them risked being blown up by their friendly neighborhood FOH squad...and posessing the books was almost as dangerous.

But I did it anyway. It filled me with a purpose, like I held some kind of important secret, like I was special or wise-- a human that could accept a mutant for who they were.

But the fact was, when it came down to it, I stared like everyone else. I thought that maybe if I studied them enough, or if I read enough of the comics, or if I scorned enough of those right-winged pshychos with their pleas that mutants were 'not even human', that they didn't deserve rights, that they were little more than animals...maybe that I could be...I dunno. Special. Maybe if I met one of them, they'd like me. That I was one exception to the Homo Sapien rule.

I was a moron.

Now, most pro-mutant humans sided with the X-Men. It made sense, because the X-Men wanted to preserve mankind as a whole, Sapien and Superior together.

But I didn't. I went for the Brotherhood. Why? Because I wanted to show myeself how truely accepting I was. Yeah, these people wanted to destroy hunans in every sense of the word, but they had their reasons, didn't they?

I'd read in-depth histories for every single one of them. I found ways to sympathize with them. Mystique, Sabretooth and Toad had all gotten the beat-down about their obvious mutations since they were children. Their leader, Magneto, had gone through the Holocaust. He was just fearful that we humans would do the same thing to mutants, out of fear...so, wasn't he justified? And the X-Men had tromped in and nearly destroyed every single one of them. Brutally. Lightning, burning through every nerve, steel blades, and peircing beams. The roles of villian and hero were switched.

Like I said, I romanticized them in my mind. And it was the most idiodic thing I could've ever done. Because I would get that chance, after all my wishing...and it wouldn't make a lick of difference what I told them or what I believed...because I'm a flat-scan human. I'm the enemy. And I'm the daughter of a man with connections...