Warnings: This story focuses on Erik's experiences in Auschwitz. It's not graphic, but some of those experiences include the beating of a child, the implied sexual abuse of a child, and the torture of a child. It's dark.
Rachel had heard it said that when there's an awful car wreck, it's hard to look away even when you want to. That's how she felt about reading Magneto's mind. Well, it's how she felt about exploring his memories. She had joined his Brotherhood about two months ago, and she still looked through his memories whenever she got the chance. She had to be careful. He couldn't be conscious of her presence in his mind, especially not in his memories.
"My dear, a beautiful goddess like you shouldn't need to see such horrors," he had told her.
Rachel knew the real reason was the agony those memories caused him, but she agreed on some level. She was horrified by the things she had seen in his mind. She felt sick when she looked at what had been done to him. But at the same time she was fascinated. She felt terribly guilty over this. What kind of person could be drawn to such horrors? She couldn't stop herself. She looked through his mind whenever she could. She saw everything: Auschwitz, the guards, the gas chambers, the ovens, the dead, the prisoners, everything. She looked through every detail over and over.
She saw Erik and his mother standing in line and then being separated. She saw a man tattoo a number on Erik's arm. She saw Erik running naked past the guards and being beaten when he tripped. She heard a guard tell Erik to follow him. She saw Erik standing in front of a doctor in an office. She saw the room next to the office. There was a metal table in the middle and lots of medical instruments, some of which looked more like torture devices. She saw the doctor shoot Erik's mother. She saw Erik being tied down on the table. She saw the doctor carving into Erik's young flesh. She saw the doctor torture the child in ways she couldn't describe, other than with the words "sick and twisted." She heard Erik screaming in pain and begging for the torture to stop. Rachel was both thankful and filled with regret that she had taken German in high school. Part of her liked knowing exactly what was being said, but the rest of her was disgusted even further.
She saw what happened to Erik when he wasn't with the doctor, when he was with the other prisoners. She saw him in front of the guards as they made their selections and felt Erik's terror, worrying he would be next every time. She saw him being forced to move bodies from the gas chambers to the ovens. She heard the guards bribing him with chocolate for finding things when he looted the bodies. She sensed how much he hated looting the bodies, how much it disturbed him. But she sensed that he was terrified the guards would kill him if he didn't. She saw one particularly sick guard offering Erik food in return for "pleasing" him. She felt Erik's self-loathing for giving in. He had been so hungry he had to give in.
She saw these things and felt disgusted. She couldn't comprehend how the guards could do such horrible things. Then she realized that's what fascinated her. She had been inside so many minds and seen so many horrible things. It took a lot to faze her at this point. She still hated evil things that hurt others, but she had seen almost everything before. What she saw in Erik's head was new to her. It provided a puzzle. A dark and twisted puzzle, trying to piece together what the Nazis had been thinking.
She also felt a weird sense of relief. There were still things out there that could faze her. She was still capable of being disgusted. Though she felt like a monster for looking through Erik's memories, she also felt like she was still truly human, still bothered by evil and suffering.