La Morte

by The Sylver Lining

Toad is dead. Forge has completely shut down, haunted by ghastly hallucinations. He can do nothing to rid himself of the awful memories or the madness he feels taking over... and the worst part is - he doesn't know if he wants to. Forgexdead!Toad.

Prelude: La Morte

The last thing he taught me was that

There are no beautiful corpses, lying spattered across the muck of battlefield

Bones bent all wrong and light crushed out

That every small and precious thing finds itself fractured in the end.

I cannot fix this broken doll.

I cannot thread a needle with life and connect the severed thread.

I can't make these flesh-and-blood mechanical parts move again, make this wondrous human machine come to life, sit up

And blink himself wide awake, and say he loves me.

I cannot conjure a half-life back into my arms, that unlikely,

Strange beauty

From a small, crawling thing from the mud and murky water that gleamed bright in my hands.

So tell me that I'm steel, a prophet

Or that I'm human and fallible and weak.

Say that I'm the conduit through which the power to save a life flowed

And that I wasn't lying when I said I would always find you.

Say I'm a fool.

Say anything.

Please.

Just stop this emptiness, this nothing

Because this isn't funny anymore and I don't know where it begins or ends

Or why I'm still thinking

About the things

I can't

Fix.

Haunted

"You're crazy, man. You know that, right?" Mortimer was grinning at him again, wide and toothy.

Forge turned away, gritting his teeth and staring out the window. He wasn't going to listen to this, not again. He set his mouth in a firm, straight line and said nothing, teeth clenched so hard his jaw was beginning to shake.

"And believe me, I know crazy. Dealing with Wanda alone, not to mention her old man? And the rest of the Maximoffs, Jesus, there is some dysfunction there."

A moment of quiet, and Forge almost breathed again – maybe he'd turn around and Mortimer would be gone. Maybe he'd disappear and finally let him get some sleep. So he did. Slowly, slowly looked over his shoulder…

At an empty room.

Forge let out his breath in a slow hiss. Dust on the floorboards interrupted by his own footprints; motes quietly drifting down in columns of pale light from the open window. White sheets crumpled on the floor, spattered with unidentified stains – some of them, anyway. Others he knew full well what they were, but just didn't care.

But that was okay now, because he was alone again, everything was all right. The room was quiet and he was alone –

"But you?"

Forge whirled around, stifling a shout of horror – because there he was, behind him, grinning and sticking his finger right in his face. "You are really something else."

And Forge almost gagged, because that finger was nothing more than a cracked and bloodstained bone. The skin flayed off it and hanging in ragged strips, it was a crooked and warped thing without a shape. A bent paper clip made of bone and putrefying flesh. Like the rest of him.

The horrible grin was that of a skull, skin rotting and peeling off, sockets empty of the glittering, buggy eyes he knew. Dark paths of blackened blood covered the bone and lingering green, the joints bent the wrong way and caved-in and gouged skull, smashed from endless impacts and lacerated from something like a bear's claws.

And the skeleton with Mortimer's voice was laughing at him.

"You've really gone off the deep end, huh?" The skull tilted sideways and rested on one bent-backward hand. "Wow. This is just… weird. I mean, you always seemed so solid, Forge. You were always the sane one. I just figured I'd be the first one to snap."

"Shut up." Forge whispered through clenched teeth. He closed his eyes, squeezed them tightly shut. He wasn't there, there was nothing there, he was all alone in this house like he'd been for the past month, there was nothing, nothing –

"You know how I know you're nuts?"

But he could still hear. So he clapped his hands over his ears and slumped down on his bed, doubling over and holding his head between his knees. "Shut up!"

But nothing could silence that voice, it echoed in his head and all around him, it danced and spun him around and around on a mad carousel, and it laughed with his voice. He felt a familiar stab in his gut – nausea – no, no, he wasn't going to lose it this time, he wasn't going to vomit or end up punching another hole through the wall… with his flesh and blood hand. He wasn't going to break any more bones because of this stupid, stupid –

"Okay, I'll tell you how I know-"

"Shut up!"

"Because you're still talking to me!"

Once more, the silent room echoed with the thing's laughter, and Forge's screams.

# # #

All it took was willpower. He knew how to do that, he could quiet his mind and make his conscious brain stop its chatter.

Sometimes it worked with focusing on something autonomous and mundane, like getting dressed. Actually caring that none of his clothes were even remotely clean, or blood-free. Deciding it might be a good day to try shaving again, before realizing there were no sharp objects in the place. He'd made sure of that when he decided to stay here – just in case it got that bad.

And it had gotten bad – but not quite that bad. Granted, it was no fun living here day to day, this low-income hovel he'd taken over, figuring that nobody would think to look for him somewhere so crappy. Of course that was ridiculous, if anyone really wanted to find him he'd be found – any decent telepath probably already knew. But so far, they were leaving him alone.

"You gotta eat something, you know." And the thing was back, skulking alongside Forge as he stalked into the kitchen, foot bones clacking on the hideous yellow linoleum. "Hey, maybe all this is just a hunger hallucination or something! Like my low bloodsugar, you know how crazy I can get when there ain't no flies around? No food – I'm batshit, even more than usual. Feed me – I'm good, I'm a real cool guy. Maybe you're the same way! Maybe I'll disappear if you have a sandwich or something."

"No, it's not the same at all." Forge said, focusing on keeping his voice level and calm – as calm as he could be while talking to a ghost, anyway.

"Aw, c'mon. Never know unless you tryyyyy…"

"A sandwich is not going to help me now. Because you're dead." Forge concentrated all his attention on studying the piss-poor contents of the fridge, refusing to look up or acknowledge the undead thing shambling happily behind him. "Grizzly killed you. You're dead, and nothing is bringing you back. I just need a little time to get my head back together."

Was that milk still good? Oh, God, no, it wasn't even milk anymore. No, fuck it, there was nothing even remotely edible here, not even any dried food or a single can of soup. Great. He'd have to risk going back into town again… with his bony friend tagging along with him, of course.

But that wasn't the foremost problem on his mind right now.

"Go away. I have a life to get back to, and you're not a part of it anymore, Mortimer, because you're dead."

"Well, yeah, I know that." The skeleton hopped up on the counter and swung its legs back and forth. Forge's stomach twisted at the clattering noise they made, rattling against each other and the counter. With a soft growl he slammed the fridge door - he wasn't hungry anymore.

"But I guess you don't, otherwise I wouldn't be here."

"Well, maybe you really are here." Forge said quietly, turning and looking at the specter with something like hopeful suspicion. "Maybe my mutation somehow… mutated, and let me see into another dimension – like the afterlife. Maybe souls are really measurable functions of energy and substance and they're just transubstantiated into something else in another plane, a parallel universe that we call 'heaven,' an alternate world that's physical and attainable and this is really you and I'm not -"

"Here we go with the technobabble again. Glad you still got that, that's a good sign." The Mortimer-thing shook its awful head, grinning its death's-head grin. "But nope. Think about it. If I were really your little green sweetie-pie… I wouldn't be here scaring the bejeezus out of you lookin' all like I did when I died. Or how you think I look, all buried in the backyard."

It hopped off the counter with a nauseating clatter of bones and spread its hands in an exaggerated shrug. Since it didn't really have any facial expressions besides its horrible grin, all its movements were very deliberate and clear, like a performance in mime.

"If it was really Mortimer here with you, he wouldn't be fucking with your head like I am right now. He'd be looking like a freakin' angel or something, whispering sweet nothings in your ear… and doing this…"

And then in a beautiful rush there were lips against Forge's, warm and soft, and the smell of him that flooded through Forge and made his head spin. He could feel the familiar wiry strength and desperation in the arms around him, clinging to the small of his back, the dreadlocks that clumped over his shoulders, the rough, bumpy skin against his face and even the tongue, long and serpentine and here and alive. And Forge shut his eyes and breathed him in, clutched at the familiar warmth and let himself collapse into relief and joy, yes, yes, this was real, this was safe, he was –

Gone.

Forge was left standing alone in the kitchen, gasping for breath. He turned in a slow, bewildered circle, and shut his mouth. Then shut his eyes, clenched them shut against the hot tears that threatened to spill over and make him do something stupid again.

"Damn you!" he hissed in a whisper so rough it hurt his throat. "You're actually – enjoying this, aren't you?" He gasped. "No – no, of course you're not… because you're not real." He opened his eyes again, and let out a breath of relief. Nothing.

"Because… you're dead."

The kitchen was still and empty as it had been a moment ago. Thank God.

"…Well, yeah."

Forge rolled his eyes, didn't even turn around.

"I thought we'd figured that out by now."

# # #

"All it takes is willpower." Forge took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He let his head sink down until his chin almost touched his chest. Breathe in, breathe out. Find your center, connect with the inner –

"If you say so."

"Shhh!"

"What? I'm bored."

Forge opened one eye and glared, irritated. He sat cross-legged on the floor, trying for the millionth time to shut off his tormented brain… and across from him in a mirror-image position, sat the Mortimer-thing. Its shattered, warped middle fingers meeting the thumbs in a mockery of the classic meditation position.

It raised its dislocated shoulders and let them drop. "Come on. You're not liking this any more than I am, admit it. At least when you're talking to me it's kinda exciting. I mean, how often do you get to talk to a ghost?"

"I'm not talking to a ghost." Forge said levelly, almost smiling at the absurdity of this – he was trying so hard to stay calm and the adult in this situation. Why? "I'm talking to a part of my subconscious that was… very traumatized by recent events. A combination of stressful factors, manifesting in a form that represents everything that contributed to my breakdown. Probably made worse by a head injury I sustained during that last fight. And I am not," he said, closing his eyes again, firmly. "Even talking to that anymore."

"Mm-hmm. Okay. Fine, whatever." The not-Mortimer nodded and rocked back on his haunches. "You go ahead and be all quiet and Indian-y and crap… I'll be here when you're done."

"No you won't. Because I am the master of my thoughts. I am in control here, not my subconscious mind. I am actively deciding now to focus only on reality, the here and now, the real. And when I am finished… I will be alone with my thoughts… sane and whole."

A moment of precious silence. Forge breathed.

Then-

"…Bullshit."

"SHUT UP!"

# # #

"God, Mort. Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why – any of this? You dying, me killing, everything going to hell… this. Me, living with your ghost. Why?"

"What, you think now that I'm dead I have all the answers? I only know what you know. I'm just a stupid little part of your subconscious, right?"

"Don't do that. Okay? Just for a minute."

"Don't do what?"

"Don't pick at me, be such a sarcastic asshole, and make talking to you like pulling teeth. It was always so easy to talk to you, Mort."

"But I'm not me. I'm you. You must be feeling like a sarcastic asshole."

"And I must still be sane enough to know it."

"Yep. I gotta say though, I wish you weren't. Shit, Forge. You keep psychoanalyzing the crap out of all this, you don't let yourself have any fun."

"No. Because -"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm dead, I get it. But I'm also here. I'm right here with you – you think people get that chance all the time? I can stay with you forever, and it'll be beautiful if you let it. Our only limit is your own head. We can be transcendent, Forge, you and me. Forever."

"Now I know you're not Mort. He'd never use a word like 'transcendent.'"

"Maybe not. But I'm close enough."

"Maybe… so just for a little, maybe you could…" Forge took a deep breath. "Fine, I take it back. Let's just pretend maybe that it is you… just for a minute. Tell me it's okay. Or – jeez, you're the one who died, I bet you're upset too. Maybe you can be the frazzled one again, and I can tell you it's okay… we used to do that a lot."

"Yeah. Didn't you ever get bored or pissed off, putting up with my insecure crap?"

"Only when you didn't recognize how strong you could be."

"Aww, that's real nice."

"Yeah… so just this once, you could maybe… tell me it's really you, and I'm not alone anymore."

"It's me, Forge." And God, was that a change in the death's-head grin for the first time? Was it really a smile, really a flesh and blood face, was it really –

"There is a heaven, a nirvana or whatever you want to call it, and I'm there right now. My death wasn't in vain, it was for a reason, and that reason was to become your guardian-angel-slash-spirit-guide, so I could always be with you. It's really, really me, and I promise I will never leave you ever again. I'm here for you, the way you were always here for me. I love you. Nothing can change that, not even death."

Forge didn't even realize his shoulders were shaking, until he found it hard to speak. His voice came out in a faint whisper, barely more than a fevered, ragged breath. "Stay with me…"

"I promise. I'm here."

"Now kiss me again."

"You don't care it's not real anymore? Is it just me, or are you getting crazier?"

"Just for a minute… let me pretend."

# # #

He took a deep breath and gave it one last desperate try.

"I am the master of my thoughts. I am in control… when I open my eyes and count backwards from three, my mind will be clear and healthy. I will be whole and complete… and ready to move on. Three… two… one!"

Forge opened his eyes and looked around hopefully.

Then he shook his head sadly, sighing. "No good. I can see you hiding back there behind the couch. Come on out."

The Mortimer-thing gave a rueful shrug, emerging from its obvious hiding place. "Sorry, man. I tried."

"I know. So did I."

# # #

"So what, you think all of this is 'cause of you being sad, and a bump on the head?"

"That's my best guess. It's the only thing I can think of."

"Then why don't ya go see a doctor or something about it? I bet they can give you some pills to make me go away for good. Maybe even some happy-drugs so you're not so up-fucked all the time, and the nightmares stop. Just go get some help for this, Forge. It's not that hard to figure out, smart guy like you."

Forge didn't say anything, looking down at his hands.

"Come on. Is this what I would've wanted? You all alone and miserable, nobody to talk to but a hallucination of your dead, rotting lover? You chased 'em all away, Forge. Everyone who ever cared about you. Once I was gone you just shoved them away, spat venom at 'em until they threw up their hands and went 'fuck it, there's no talking to him anymore,' and gave up. They all did, eventually - and I guess you gave up too. 'Cause now here you are!"

The corpse spread its arms in a theatrical motion, taking in the miserable surroundings.

"Good job, Forge. Real nice. Is this what you wanted? Is this what you think I would have wanted?"

"No."

"Then fix it. That's what you do, you fix things. You fixed me."

"Yeah, and look how well that turned out." Forge glared. "Quit trying to mess with my head - it's messed up enough already!"

"Blah, blah, blah, you're deflecting." The skeleton tented its exposed finger-bones in a position of deep, scholastic thought. "I'm not the one messing with your head. And you never answered me about going to see a doctor and fixing yourself. Come on, dude, it's just in the DUH category..."
Forge was silent.

"Unless..." The Mortimer-thing gave an awful cackle, a mockery of his living voice. "Yeah, that's what I thought. You like me here. You don't want me to disappear, because then... you'll really be alone. God, you're sicker than I thought."

Forge didn't have an answer for that, so he just buried his head in his hands.

# # #

Sometimes in the middle of the night, he would look over and he wouldn't see a skull. He'd see Mortimer's face the way he remembered, head on the pillow next to him. The sharp lines and angles made softer by the sleepy darkness. The dark green mottled spots, the huge, bizarrely expressive eyes.

And those times, when the thing looked like Mortimer and not a battered corpse, were the most dangerous. Because that was when he felt himself getting sucked back in.

"Remember the trampoline?"

Forge didn't answer, but he didn't look away either.

"Remember how crazy high I could go? Crap, it was so stupid, we were such idiots - but so much fun! Closest I could ever get to flying, I swear, higher than the Institute's roof, seemed like up to the moon. But then that last time-"

Forge felt his lips curling into a smile without his permission. "The freak crossbreeze…"

"Yeah – Storm swore it wasn't her, but it still made me even more scared of her the next couple weeks."

"Oh, come on – I told you, the only time you'd have to be afraid of her is if you messed with her flowers. And you never did that, so."

"It still freaked me out, being one of the good guys, seeing them every day. But that was the scariest it ever got! A hundred feet in the air, blown way to the side and falling fast…" Mortimer laughed. "I'm just about pissing my pants and I look down and see this little black dot running around in circles underneath me and it's getting bigger and bigger and then – wham!"

Forge couldn't help himself, he laughed too. "Oh, jeez, that was the best catch I ever made. I still can't believe it."

"Yep. You got pretty banged up but you did it, man! I sat up and didn't know how in the hell I was alive or what was going on or who I was sitting on until I look down and saw… that you were always there to catch me."

Forge's smile froze, and slipped off his face. He slowly closed his eyes. "Not always. Now let me sleep."

"Hey! At least now I'm not all bony and bloody, right? You're seeing me the way I was… or maybe the way you wanted me to be."

"I don't care. It's still a nightmare, no matter how good a dream it is." Forge buried his face in his pillow. "Go away." he said, muffled.

"You really think you can just go to sleep and forget me? I tossed a fire into your heart like a Molotov cocktail. That's not going out that easy."

"It's not real!" Forge almost shouted, but he turned his head and looked up with one eye. "You might not look dead right now, but -"

"Hey. Look at it this way. Now that I'm dead, I can be anything you want me to be." He smiled, one of those rare smiles that wasn't a toothy grimace-grin or smirk. One of the most beautiful things Forge had ever seen – but now it just made his stomach twist. He gripped the pillow so tight his hands began to shake.

"I don't need to be a toad anymore, you know." Mortimer said softly. "I can be your prince. I can be well-adjusted and level and not need your protection. I can go a night without waking up screaming. I can have all the beauty you ever saw buried deep in me, and make it real. I can be the one to protect you, hold you when you start to scream. And best of all…"

Something soft ran through his hair. "Now I can never leave you." A soft hand stroked his ear along with the whisper, then something soft and warm pressed against his cheek. Forge gasped and flinched away like it had burned.

"You already left me!" Forge shouted, throwing the covers off and jumping out of bed, striding to the other side of the room until the wall stopped him. He braced himself against that wall, needing to feel connected to something solid and real. "You're the one who left me! I'm the one who should be mad at you!"

"You are! What the hell do you think made you punch that wall? The only reason you did is 'cause you're pissed at me for dying, and I'm not here to yell at!"

"But you are here. How the hell can I move on if you won't leave me alone?!"

"I wouldn't still be here if you didn't want me here!"

"But I don't -" Forge stopped, mouth hanging open. Then he slowly closed it, and sat back down on the bed.

"I do…" he whispered. "I do want you to stay with me, even if it's not real…"

"You're just now figuring this out? I used to think you were a genius." The thing that looked like Mortimer leaned in closer, stared straight into Forge's eyes. "This is your mess, Forge. You clean it up."

"I'm trying! I can't -"

"It's all right there in your brain." The thing said flatly, and now there was no warmth at all in its voice. "It's under your control, like it always has been."

"I know. That's what I keep telling myself -"

"Even before I died, it was always in your control."

That made Forge stop and think. "Wait. What?"

"You were supposed to look out for me and protect me, the way you promised to." And now those protruding yellow eyes were narrowing to slits. "You got me to leave the Brotherhood, you got the X-Men to accept me, you gave me a home. And then when you led the Outcasts, you had a special place for me – why'd you even bother? You told me I was worth something, and for what? To leave me at the end, just -"

"No! I didn't leave you, I didn't -"

"Yes you did!" The thing with Mortimer's face shrieked. "This is all your fault! Where were you, Forge? Off doing something more important?!"

"I tried, I tried so hard-"

"He killed me, Forge, and you let him! He smashed my bones to powder and slashed through my guts with his claws!" Now the skin was peeling off again and the blood was back, pouring out of horrible lacerations and tears. "He ripped and crushed and hurt me until there was nothing left to hurt!"

The yellow eyes went dark and vacant and opaque in their sockets, the bones snapped to impossible angles, and all the while that skull was screaming, mouth open so unnaturally, horribly wide and Forge couldn't look away.

"He tore me apart, and where were you?!"

"I killed Grizzly!" Forge roared, hands balled into fists. "God damn it, Mortimer, I killed him for what he did to you! I'd never hurt anyone before, I didn't know what it was like, but I did it for you, I killed him with my bare hands! I got blood on them and I can never get it off, I can never get that back - all for you!"

"Yeeeeeah. Just a faaaan-tastic job you did there, Forge, thank you so much!" The corpse slapped its rigor-mortis stiffened hands together in a round of exaggerated applause. "Bra-fucking-VO! Did it help anything? Did it bring me back? Did getting your revenge kiss your fucking boo-boo and make it all better!?"

"NO!" Forge screamed, clutching his head in his hands as if it might split in two.

"Grizzly didn't kill me, Forge – YOU DID!"

"NO NO NO NO -"

He made as much noise as he could, shut his eyes and yelled and banged on walls and stomped his feet, anything to fill his head and drown out the shrieks and laughter of that horrible voice.

And when he stopped shouting, when he was too exhausted to hit the walls or throw things or crawl around the room on his hands and knees anymore, when he finally collapsed to the ground and sucked in labored breaths… the voice had stopped.

He was alone. Finally. The room was silent and still, the only sound his own ragged breathing and sobs. And he just lay there, staring at a point on the ceiling, forcing himself to keep his eyes open. He was so tired, every muscle in his body ached, he hurt in ways he hadn't imagined possible… but he wouldn't let himself sleep. Couldn't.

Because he knew, the moment he let his eyes slip shut, what he would see.

So for the next night in a blurred string he'd lost count of, he didn't sleep.

# # #

"Hey – where you going, Forge?"

"I know what I have to do."

"What?"

Forge grimly marched out the gap in the dilapidated, paint-peeling fence, not once looking behind him. He'd stalked determinedly out the door and shut it behind him, through the weeds that grew waist-high, not letting himself think about mounds of earth surrounded by a circle of stones. Or what lay below them.

He didn't look at the spectre that skipped along beside him.

"It starts by not talking to you anymore. Or listening."

"That's fine, you don't gotta tell me. I know everything you do, remember?"

Forge reached up and pulled his goggles down over his eyes to protect them from the whip-backs of some low-hanging branches. Adjusted the strap of his backpack full of materials, and said nothing.

"You think you know how to get rid of me once and for all, don't you? And make yourself sane again."

No reply. Forge stopped and studied a bluish sprouting plant, and decided it might come in handy. He picked it and stuck it in a pocket in his bag.

"Ooh, you're going all spooky witch doctor on me, aren't ya? You never really liked to talk about that," the cadaver leaned casually against a tree while Forge searched the surrounding ground for anything else of interest. "Guess you felt like leaving that part of your history behind with your arm and leg. You never told me much about what you can do… but now I know."

"Of course you do, you are me."

"Thought you weren't talking to me anymore."

Forge bit his lip and kicked himself on the inside. Letting himself be baited by his own subconscious – that's always a good sign.

"So what, you're gonna exorcise me?"

He rolled his eyes. This just wasn't going to work – if ignoring him hadn't worked the past few weeks, it wasn't going to work now.

"That's the plan. I figure that if you really are Mortimer – which I doubt… he'd never make my life hell like this… well, this might help your spirit find peace. And if it's really all in my head, this will hopefully be enough of a wake-up call to my subconscious to stop messing around with me, and start the healing already. At the very least, I'll feel better, knowing I've done… something."

"Eh, whatever." A bouncy shrug. "You have fun with that. I'm glad you're taking a positive step, even if it won't do shit. Hey – what if I start all turning my head around backwards and spitting ectoplasm and crap all over?"

"I'm already used to you spitting slimy gunk all over. And you won't. You can't, because you're not real." Forge stood up resolutely. "And after this, you won't be in my head either."

"Hmm." The corpse nodded slowly. "You really think that a hallucination can be exorcised like a ghost?"

"For all I know, you really are a ghost. I'm not ruling anything out."

"Ha, okay. It's not the craziest thing you've said today, I'll give you that."

"Anyway, it doesn't matter." Forge said slowly. "If you're Mortimer's wandering spirit, this might make it so you can finally rest in peace. And so can I. If you're not, and it's all me… at least I'll know for sure. And maybe by then I will have convinced myself that you really are dead and gone."

"That's weird. You keep telling me I am… but you still haven't convinced yourself?"

"I guess not, or else you wouldn't still be here."

The awful green face grinned, exposing the stained white beneath the dead skin. "Now we're speaking the same language."

# # #

Stack the wood lengthwise and across, an interlocking tower of branches and brush and shrugged-off shame

Move slowly and reverently, like you're building a funeral pyre

But this burnt offering is a sacrificial rite for your own sanity.

Ignore the thing laughing at you from the corner, close your eyes against the pain and concentrate on steps one, two, three

Pull yourself up

By both your bootstraps

Take a breath

And strike the match.

Throw in the powder and the natural leafy bits and pieces, watch the flame turn from orange to blue and violet and finally green

Stand too close to the fire, feel the hair rise on your arm and tingle until it feels like a burn from a day lying in the sun

Breathe in the smoke, taste the sacred air and feel your head float somewhere above the clouds

Feel it sting at your eyes until they roll back in your head and you don't know where you are anymore or why you started

All you know is that you're part of it all now

The hot air, the fire, the ground that's tilting under your feet, the tears streaming down your face,

The blood pounding in your ears and the frenzy of your steps that tear the earth apart, the spinning, flailing, Dervish-dancing shakes that consume you

And the words spilling from your mouth you couldn't stop if you tried

Praying for deliverance and cleansing

Asking whoever might be listening to keep an eye on you as you dance on the razor's edge, always in the back of your mind that no one hears

But now that doesn't matter

Because the demons and ghosts trapped inside your head are escaping in your screams, the chains around your wrists are coming apart and now you're free

Something has given you wings

And all you can hear is your own whispers;

"Please let it be all right now, please let it be over, please let it just be okay, please…"

And soon

You don't hear anything

At all.

# # #

Forge awoke to blinding sunlight, and a pounding ache in his head.

Slowly, painfully, he opened his eyes, feeling like he'd just been bitchslapped by the mother of all hangovers. He was cold and stiff and not quite sure what he was doing lying on the ground in the middle of the woods, instead of a bed or even the bare floor.

The world was sideways, trees stretched like desperate fingers out into empty oblivion, and he was so dizzy, he might slip up and fall into the sky and just keep falling forever –

He couldn't stand that thought, so he lurched upright – and nearly fell over again, the disorientation overwhelming his senses and making his head spin. Reeling, he groaned and buried his face in his hands, rubbing his throbbing eyes and trying to remember. Trying to fill the blank space in his memory that was last night – it was absurd, like he'd been out on a bender and had a drunken adventure… but no, that wasn't it, he knew that wasn't right…

The pungent scent of incense smoke, acrid and sharp, burned his nostrils, but told him exactly what he wanted to know. Then he remembered.

Night. The woods. Smoke devouring the moon. The ritual.

Mortimer.

Gasping, Forge clambered to his unsteady feet, clawing his way up a tree and gripping it for support. His eyes darted around the small clearing, from the smoldering remains of the bonfire to the treeline's edge. He looked at the trees behind, the branches and sky above, the ashes and footprints below – finding nothing.

He was alone.

"…Mortimer?" he called hesitantly, voice cracking.

There was no sound but the soft breeze whispering through branches, and the quiet chatter of squirrels or other small unseen creatures.

"Mort? Are you… still here?" he tried again, licking at dry, painfully chapped lips. "Come on out."

Nothing. Just the faint, sweet songs of birds and his own pounding heart. Forge was silent and still for a full minute, letting go of the tree and slowly walking to the center of the clearing, stepping carefully through the still-smoldering ash. Turning in a gradual circle, eyes and ears and mind straining, searching.

"You're really gone…" he whispered, a smile slowly creeping across his face.

And for once, nobody answered him. Just silence, sweet as the most beautiful music… that he didn't know what to make of. He hadn't quite thought about how quiet it would be, having his head to himself. How isolated and naked he suddenly felt in these woods, far from anyone or anything familiar.

Where did he go from here? Rejoin mutant society, pick up where he'd left off? Try to get ahold of the others again – 'Sorry guys, I was temporarily insane, but I'm cool now?' Or forget all about it and try to slip into a life of relative normalcy – pass for a human, get a job in a mechanic's shop or something, use a fake name and forget any of this ever happened? Scrape himself back to life, and now try again to move on – now that he actually had a chance?

It wasn't cold, but Forge shivered. Wrapped his arms around his upper body, because now it was all so big, so overwhelming. The one thing he'd counted on this entire war was that when it was over, he would have someone to disappear with. And now even that comforting thought was gone, disappeared like Mortimer's specter that had danced in his head.

He had never been so alone.

Something rustled behind him and he whirled – no, no, it was just some animal, it couldn't hurt him. But the world was spinning again and he couldn't see straight. Some rodent in its death throes shrieked in the distance and he was suddenly so small and exposed and vulnerable. The silence was oppressive, it was crushing him and the branches between him and the sky were growing so thin and frail, he might come off the earth anyway and slip up and fall forever–

Instead, he fell to his knees.

"Mortimer…" he whispered. "Come back…."

Even bloodied and broken. Even dead and rotting and grinning and laughing at him. Even blaming him, screaming to wake the dead and rattling his chains. Even a hallucination, a phantasm brought on by trauma or injury or madness. Anything was better than this silence, that a moment ago had been so sweet.

"Please come back…"

Forge sank down to the ground and let his head drop and the tears come. He stayed that way, sitting in the ashes of his ritual fire, until he didn't have any more to cry, and his throat ached from dehydration. The woods seemed to sink in on him, the branches arcing over his head and swallowing him up.

Then something touched his hand – he started, a giant full-body twitch. Something crawled across his knuckle and stayed on the back of his hand, despite his jerk.

He gave a wracking, ragged gasp, and looked down in wonder.

Sitting very, very still on his hand, slowly blinking its beady black eyes at him, was a small brown toad. Covered in ashes, but alive – somehow it had survived the fire.

His mouth fell open and all he could do was stare down at this tiny, precious creature with bumpy skin and webbed feet and spots and a beauty all its own. The kind that he'd seen glints of long ago, the kind that had grown to shine all around him and light his way home.

He couldn't speak. Couldn't move or even breathe, for what seemed like a century. He lived an entire life there in the ashes with the little thing sitting on his hand… while the toad just sat and looked up at him, unblinking and unafraid.

When one lifetime had passed and another one begun, it shifted its tiny, rough-skinned body and shuffled off his hand; Forge was too numb and exhausted and paralyzed to make any attempt to stop it. It hopped down onto the ground, crawling across the ashes and finally onto moist, living moss.

Another moment and it had disappeared into the damp umbrage of the forest.

Forge didn't move for a long time.

Then he picked himself up, retrieved his backpack, and turned back the way he'd come. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Something sweet and faint that might have been a smile ghosted across his face – even he couldn't be sure. It was gone as soon as it began, following the toad somewhere under a log or over cool moss or dancing through a bright and shining place where eternity came every day.

He started walking.