The thoughts running through his head had slowly turned more to a mush and blur of images and words instead of collective thoughts. He saw things he'd never seen before in is life and the anger that had been pressing in at his mind the past few weeks had slowly grown. And all in the space of a couple of seconds.
It left Kurt Wagner curled up on his bed, awoken from his sleep in the middle of the night, curled up and whimpering. He tried to make sense of the things going on in his head, to no avail, and the thoughts drove him closer and closer to literally losing his mind.
He could feel the twisting of his mind growing as the seconds passed until the whimpers turned to cries. He dimly heard Meggan outside the door, banging and calling inside, sounding worried. He wanted to tell her he was fine, but he couldn't say anything.
A moment more passed and he saw Kitty phase through his door, hurrying over to his bedside to calm him down. He jerked up, pulling away from her touch, feeling as if he were outside his body watching from a distance.
She looked startled at his actions, drawing back for a moment before trying again, calling Ray in there. He felt a telepath's touch on his mind and flinched, curling up into a tighter ball, his cries getting louder. It was as if the psychic touch physically hurt him, like his mind was fighting it and trying to get it to go away.
The touch on his mind flinched back for a second before coming back, stronger, and he felt something in his mind quiet, the memories and thoughts settling down as if that part of his mind went to sleep. He settled, letting out a deep sigh as he sank to the floor, and barely even felt when Kitty tried to help him back up. She lifted him onto the bed, her expression showing deep fear for what was wrong with her friend, but he was too exhausted to truly notice.
He dimly heard his door unlock and saw the others coming in, crowding through the door to make sure he was ok, but couldn't make out any definite shapes, whether from fatigue or the shadows that were cast over them from the light from behind he couldn't tell. He simply lay back onto the bed, closing his eyes and feeling as if he were drifting back into his sleep, as if nothing had happened, as if it had been a nightmare.
Meggan, always a very caring person, seemed to be the most visibly worried for him. She seemed reluctant to leave his room at the other's suggestions, as if she thought that without their presence there something bad would happen to him. Finally, she gave in to their shipsers and left him so that he could rest, but not before casting him a worried glance, waving and saying good-night, trying to sound as kind and normal about it as possible.
What seemed like only a few seconds later, he found himself dreaming of a world...his world, only decimated by warring that had gone on for years. He looked around and felt as if he should be shocked to see it that way, but instead felt a sort of angry resolve. He was used to this, he realized. It was as if he'd lived here his whole life.
He walked to a small pond, the water polluted and grungy from years of waist-full actions by the people in the area. He knelt down beside it and looked at his reflection in the water. His hair was swept back in an unruly mass, looking almost as if it hadn't been brushed in quite some time. The curl was gone and it stuck out in every direction. His costume was different as well: the gloves and boots that were normally soft cloth had armor around them instead, the same colors as the red accents on his old costume. The red accents across the breast and back were missing as well, and there weren't any pointed shoulder pad pockets, but large, bulky plates of shoulder armor.
He noticed a pair of swords sheathed across his back, the handles sticking up over his shoulders, where he could reach them easily. The most startling difference he noticed, though, was a large red stripe going across his left eye and down his cheek. He seemed almost emaciated, and more so than his normally lanky appearance seemed. And the looks in his own eyes gave him the creeps. It was as if there was no happiness in them, like all his life he'd had to fight to survive and it had worn away at his mind and body and soul.
He pulled away from the image, standing up and looking around the area in which he stood, scanning the area curiously. He saw bodies nearby, apparently from a fight, and stepped closer, cautiously. One in particular caught his attention: the head was severed from the body, and one of the fingers was missing. Blood trailed out around it in a large puddle.
Dimly, he looked down at his own three fingered hands to find them covered in bright red blood, still warm to the touch. He thought he should be horrified at the sight but only felt a resolution inside of himself. He'd killed that man, had ripped his head from his body. And the scariest part was he didn't feel any remorse for his actions.
At that moment, he awoke, slowly, sitting up in bed and looking around, as if confused again. He found himself in his room on Muir Island and sighted to himself, settling back down as if relieved. It had only been a dream. An eerily real one, but a dream none-the-less.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood, walking to the small bathroom that adjoined his bedroom, opening the door and stepping over to the mirror cautiously, as if he were afraid of what he would see.
The face that stared back at him was the normal Kurt Wagner he'd been his whole life, and yet was strangely the last face he'd expected to see. At least that version of himself. No red stripe, no unruly straight hair. Just normal Kurt Wagner. He shook his head gently and turned away, walking out of the bathroom and his bedroom, looking around curiously.
He heard voices downstairs and followed them, silently, his feet making no sound on the steps. He felt again as if he were another person watching his actions from afar. He turned the corner and found his comrades in the kitchen, all talking quietly to Moira McTaggert with worried looks in their faces.
When they sensed him coming up, they all looked over and stopped. Meggan smiled at him and walked over, asking him how he was feeling, but he just shook it away and gave them his patented Cheshire Cat grin, as if to show them that he was perfectly fine. He knew they'd been taking about him, and he didn't want to worry his friends more than he already had.
He knew it wouldn't work, either. At least not for most of them. He half wondered if Brian would worry in the least about him. He'd never seemed the type to care about anyone but himself. But at the moment, Kurt really didn't want to have anyone's sympathy.
He was perfectly fine. He'd just had...a moment. It had been stronger than all the times before, and now he knew that the others knew about them. He'd been lucky enough to be able to keep them hidden up until the night before. He'd never wanted to be a worry to his friends, and he felt a bit of regret that they knew now.
He had no doubt that Amanda would find out not long after this, and he dreaded how she'd react. He most certainly didn't want her to worry over him. But he told himself that perhaps it was just a short-term thing. He'd never done this before, or anything like it, so he figured there wasn't any reason to jump to unneeded conclusions about what was wrong, if anything.
He simply sat down in a hair at the kitchen table, reached over to grab a roll, and took a bite, smiling at the others as he ate his breakfast, trying not to notice how extremely uncomfortable they seemed around him now. It would all pass eventually. He was sure of it. And if it didn't, how bad could it possibly get?