A.N.: Here is just a little something I whipped up. It is set in the House of M time period, but also my little spin on a prequel before the HOUSE OF M story unfolds. Just some origins I thought would be interesting to see. Please don't forget to review!
-M-
'M' For Madness
In the early days of Magneto's rise to power, mutants benefitted greatly and thrived.
In Massachusetts, an old money legacy family by the surname of Frost, resided and in the early days of Magneto, their fortune grew immeasurable.
This was in part due to the fact that the Frost's were currently fortunate in having born three telepathic daughters.
The first was Adrienne Frost, a beautiful and striking tall girl with lush chestnut brown hair and an attitude that summed up all of the Frost's. With a taste for luxury and dominance, Adrienne was much hated by her younger sisters, and not given much care by the rest of the family.
The three sisters often competed with each other and did all they could to bring one another down.
Having always been the youngest, and most rebellious and devious child, Cordelia Frost loved anything that opposed her family name.
Cordelia dyed her hair black, wore combat boots, and caused the most trouble. It was her favorite past time to try and bother the oldest sister.
There had been a recent incident in which Cordelia, feeling especially oppressed by Adrienne, had used her amateur but still very powerful new powers to sabatoge her.
Cordelia seemed to have the earliest grip and control over her powers of being an empath.
She manipulated people's minds and psyches, causing head aches and mind control.
In other words, she could drive people crazy.
Adrienne was known for her psychometry and backstabbing, conniving ways.
Having hindered these actions from her oldest sister one too many times, Cordelia sought revenge when her sister had met a boy from a different school, and showed romantic interests.
Cordelia was intrigued, Adrienne was very picky and particular about her romances and preferred men in her young age.
Having peaked her interest, Cordelia stayed home one afternoon to discover just who this new boyfriend was.
So she spied on Adrienne who had set up an elaborate seduction in her parent's room, lavishing in the fact that she would be defying her father, whom they all hated.
Cordelia was surprised though, when she saw that this was not some stuffy older man, but a boy who was actually younger than Adrienne herself.
This boy was a treat, he was naive and handsome and well-raised but he obviously did not know what kind of family he was to become involved with.
Cordelia saw that Adrienne was actually happy, with this boy, and Cordelia could not stand to see her sister happy.
Thus, she eventually stole this boy away by using her empath powers and manipulating his brain.
As the love affairs grew heated and the girls clashed, the boy who had been caught in the middle, suffered the mass of the attacks.
Cordelia's overbearing power soon caused him some brain damange and he was not functionable in society anymore after they were through with him.
The middle of the Frost girls was possibly the most ambitious of the three. Her name was Emma Frost.
Their family was abundant in wealth and luxury, but their family lacked love and was thus very dysfunctional. Always wanting her father's affections or pride, Emma often sought it in school.
Having been only a B-average student, Emma still could not win her father's approval, but later in her high school years at Snow Valley School for Girls, her powers began to manifest, often frequenting in nightmares, strange voices in her head, and head aches.
With the manifestation of her powers, Emma began to be able to succeed in school, using the strange gifts to her advantage.
While achieving the top rank in her school, her relationship with her professor grew more intimate and slightly romantic.
In these ways, Emma was most rebellious.
Rebellious little Emma was what her father called her.
Her father found out her ways and kept a close watch on her, and eventually framed the teacher Emma was involved with and caused him to lose his job and everything he had.
After these series of events, Emma's rebellion against her father grew worse and self-destructive, and after many incidents, she was diagnosed and sent to a mental hospital.
"Institute, clinic, rehab, asylum, whatever you want to call it."
Emma was sitting in her twin bed, tangled in the sheets, with her back against the all-white walls of the tiny room she was to inhabit in her psyche ward.
She felt lethargic and hated her father and everyone else.
She hated the school teacher and her sisters and her horrible father and her apathetic mother and the whole world.
She hated the crazy psychopaths and nuts she was living with and the calm nurses and tedious doctors and therapists.
There was a boy outside her room, causing a ruckus and slamming things and people around, raising hell in his white cotton shirt, white pants, and soft-soled, white canvas shoes.
He was screaming obscene things and defaming the female species and the entire mutant race and calling his nurses 'fucking fascist lesbians.'.
Emma, despite herself, curiously peeked out her now unattended door.
She did not hate this sociopath boy next door.
When the fight died down, and the boy refused, or more like rejected a sedative injection and calmed himself down, the exasperated staff picked up the other wounded members and scuttled off to write down reports and leave the patient alone.
He stood, breathing hard for a few seconds to catch his breath.
He rumpled his brown hair, fixed a canvas sneaker, and turned his head in the hallway to look at the cracked open door to his left.
Emma's eyes widened in the crack as he made eye contact with her, or so she thought.
He was wearing dark sunglasses indoors, but Emma did not question the crazy people around her, if she was supposedly one of them.
The boy stared at her and smiled lopsidedly to one side, "Hullo there, whatcha looking at? These things are a weekly event. Tune in next week, I have some crazy stunts planned."
Emma cautiously cracked the door open a little. Normally, she would have been cold or said something sassy but this was not an ordinary situation and she was in a mental ward.
"You plan these things out? You're crazy."
The boy shrugged, "I'm working on it. Be outta here soon, I hope. I just have to keep up appearances and keep myself entertained until then. This place can be a drag. So why are you insane? Too privileged and bored with life? That it? Daddy's trust fund sheltered you too much to deal with reality?"
Emma narrowed her eyes and tried to hold herself as dignified as possible in her white hospital shirt and pants.
In truth she didn't wholly know why she was there, she just was, one day her parents decided to send her there and that was that. The communication in the Frost family was nonexistant.
The boy walked closer to her and for some reason, even in the stillness of the empty white hallway, Emma was not afraid.
He peered into her face and muttered, "You look like someone I know."
Emma felt resentment at this strange crazy boy who was inferior to her and crazy in this nuthouse she didn't belong in, for judging her and thinking he could assume things about her.
For some reason though, seeing this boy and sensing his mind, Emma also felt an abrupt burning hatred for her sisters, who were out there enjoying a free life.
Usually Emma didn't think much about her sisters, establishing that she did not care for them.
Emma scoffed, "I heard you defaming mutants. Will you stop talking to me if I say I am one?"
The boy snorted, "Pretty little thing like you? Nah, you can't be a mutant. Mutants are horrible, ugly, and sadistic freaks. Like me."
Emma thought about it, and thought that this boy was too handsome to be crazy. The other patients were invalids, pale, miserable, hairless, bulge-eyed creatures of the dark white walls.
Emma shrugged, "We can both be mutants. You don't have a very high self esteem of yourself do you?"
The boy smiled wryly, "Nah, self-loathing does you tons of good."
Emma smiled thinly, "So you're crazy obviously, because you curse mutantkind, yet you are one, and you think humans are superior? Ah, reversed reality, huh? You think the opposite of society these days. Mutants are celebrated and you believe otherwise. Alternate realities conflicting in your head?"
The crazy guy laughed, "What, are you like, some former psychology major or something? Get kicked out of Wellesley or something for drugs and promiscuity?"
The girl shrugged, she was a bit flattered though that he thought she was a college student, "No but I do take psychology class in an all-girl's private prep school. Where do you get off being so pompous?"
The boy merely stared at her in amusement and Emma, despite herself, added impulsively, "I had an affair with my Lit. teacher."
The boy raised a silky eye brow and smiled, "Nice. Was it romantic? Did he read you love sonnets and take you to the museum and did you seduce him against the blackboard?"
Not certain if he was mocking her, Emma looked down. Of course, she was romanticizing and exaggerating her 'affair'.
In fact, she had only shared a kiss with her teacher, but decided not to let this crazy boy know the whole truth and innocence of the affair. Let him assume what he wanted.
The boy with the rumpled brown hair laughed, "So you're in high school? My bad. You're pretty normal for a trust fund princess."
Emma impatiently said, "Why do you keep presuming I'm a trust fund princess? I haven't refuted you but I haven't said I was, have I?"
She tied her shoulder-length blonde hair back in a pony tail with an elastic and looked pointedly at him, waiting for an answer.
The boy shrugged, "You all look alike and act alike. I dunno, you just all seem the same in a way."
Two male nurses in white scrubs were coming up the hall and the boy glanced at them quickly and flashed her a smile before saying, "I'm off then, see you around brat."
Before Emma could huff indignantly, he was scurrying around the corner and into his own room next door.
For the next couple weeks, the boy would come and go, sometimes ignoring Emma and lost in his own world, and sometimes he was sane enough to talk to her and infuriate her with his odd remarks and tactics.
Once a week though, she would peek out her door and see him thrashing about and seeming to try to release this pent up energy in his body.
After an hour of this, he would calm down and the attack would reside, and he would brush it off and act like nothing happened.
Emma soon realized that though he played it off as a stunt, that this was a very real neurosis he had and the look of rage in his face would consume his being and only subside later.
Emma's own head aches, hallucinations, and telepathic intrusions frequented her in the late nights of the white room.
Some nights, the boy would sneak in to her room while she would be tossing and turning, mumbling in a nightmared sleep.
Then he would gently wake her and once in a while, she would wake up, startled, to find him holding her close to him.
Emma did not question nor resist, she figured she had no dignity left in an asylum no matter how much she tried to distance herself from patient status. Also, here, she felt free in a sense of self.
She did not have any obligations to act anyway and could do or think what her heart desired.
They would stay up late at nights, talking and chatting.
Emma, who had gone to a prestigious all girl's school, was still not used to boys and was unsure of how to act around him exactly, but didn't really care since he was different and crazy and it didn't matter.
What she did learn though, was that she liked his company and related to him in lots of ways, and admired his dark intellectual side and his strange rants and theories.
One night, as she slept, he came into her room and when she woke up, he was facing her, his face motionless and quiet.
She had an urge to see his eyes for once, to remove the strange red sunglasses blocking his face.
So she tried to remove them with her hands, but they would not budge.
Using all her strength, she pulled the glasses from his face and then screamed in horror.
A ripping noise sounded and as she pulled the glasses away, she could see thick thread and strings of blood elongating with the distance between his face and glasses.
Thick black thread had been stitched to his face, keeping the glasses sewed there.
As she removed them, blood poured out of the ripped up flesh on his face, marring his handsome features, and with a snap, the strings finally snapped off, leaving some hanging in threads down his face.
His eyes were not there.
In the perimeter of the stitched outlining of the glasses, was just plain flesh, just skin where his eyes should have been.
Blood dripped down and caused red tears where his eyes were not.
Emma screamed and screamed and screamed.
She woke with a start, a bright orb of flourescent light beamed in her eyes and she was being comforted by him.
She frantically searched his face, but he was fine, and his glasses were intact.
The screaming would not reside though, and it seemed as if all those years spent never screaming, suddenly found a reason to come out.
Scott held her face in his hands and hushed her, "Shh, hey it's gonna be fine. It's over, nothing to worry about."
Her screams were replaced by dry sobs and she pressed her nose against his shoulder and let his white shirt staunch the tears.
She felt strangely comforted as she had never been held this way or reassured before in her life.
Heavy footsteps pounded on the linoleum tiled floor and white-uniform-clad nurses rushed in, one heavy woman nurse shoved the boy away while three other men grabbed him to the floor and stabbed a shiny needle in his neck.
The boy flailed and screamed, "NO!"
Emma watched in horror, trying to scream, but she couldn't, it only came out in whispers, "No! Stop! He was helping me!"
The nurses checked her over and gave her a sedative.
Emma watched as the boy's kicking legs in the white trousers became still and his racking cries stopped and finally, the men in the white uniforms picked him and slung his limp body over their shoulder.
One man muttered, "It's isolation ward for this little shit."
The other one said, "God knows what more he would have done if we hadn't intervened. Shit, her parents are the hard type, won't hear of this kind of shit going down in a hospital they're paying for."
For the next few days, Emma felt lonelier than ever and spent the time alone.
When she did leave her room, she would check the room next door with the door ajar, and see that the little white space was untouched and unslept in.
The boy did not return.
A.N." PLEEEASE REVIEW! YOU WON'T REGRET IT!