The other side of this life: chapter 1.
A story stuck inside my head for ages. Hope you'll enjoy.
Her eyes were closed. She didn't need them, not now.
She knew without looking that she was somewhere unfamiliar, the smells were strange. It smelled like hospital and metal, she caught a hint of a women's perfume, a little bit of blood…
Her eyes stayed closed. She didn't feel like opening them. Somehow she felt more tired than she had felt for a long time, intensely tired.
She wasn't comfortable though. She was lying on metal, probably an iron bed. It was cold. There was not much covering her body.
She opened her eyes, though it was hard. She looked down her body; only covered by black shorts and a black tank top. Covered with plasters and wires. Next to her were machines, monitoring her heart rate and other stuff she didn't know about.
She shivered.
What was she doing here? How the hell did she end up here?
She tried to retrieve her memory, but the last thing she could remember was the Polish truck driver, Pavlov, who agreed to drive her to some small city, somewhere she would go by unnoticed.
Then a flash.
And now she was lying on an iron table, being monitored by machines, but not bound, not caught.
Wait, maybe the doors were locked. Maybe people stilled caught her, caged her like an animal.
She stood up, ripped the wires of her body, which made the machines beep immediately.
She stood there, quietly, until the machines stopped. She stood there a minute longer, listened carefully, until she was sure it was absolutely quiet in her surroundings.
No one was alarmed by the beeping sounds.
She walked around a little. The room was cleaner than any place she had ever been before. Her senses weren't as overwhelmed here as in the underground bars and clubs she had been to, where a mixture of beer, sweat and vomit made it almost impossible for her to concentrate on anything else. It smelled like sterile, like hospital, she could smell the metal of the machinery. A little of perfume, vanilla and citrus.
The white, clear floor was cold on her bare feet. She walked towards a big oval in the wall, which looked like a door. It opened when she was in front of it.
She looked behind her, suspicious about this whole thing, but decided to walk through it. She didn't want to wait around until someone showed up and would do god-knows-what on her.
At least the doors weren't locked, so maybe she could just go.
Or maybe it was all a trick.
What the hell did she get herself into this time.
The door led to a wooden hallway, which was a lot warmer than the cold hospital-like room.
She turned right, keeping her senses up, concentrating on every little noise she heard or every little thing she could smell. But there was nothing, hallway was empty except for a few paintings on the walls. Abstract paintings, no faces or landscapes. The hall led her to a stairs, an upward stairs.
She stopped in front of it, hesitated.
"It's okay, you can come up here," someone said to her.
"What, where are you?" she turned around quickly, checked the room with her eyes, her nose, her ears, but nothing was there. No one was there.
"It's okay, trust me. We can meet if you come up here."
She stood still, turned her head slowly around a few times. "Who are you? Where the fuck are you hiding?"
"I'm not hiding. I'm waiting for you, I want to meet you. I won't harm you, no one will harm you here."
She realized the voice was more inside her head than outside of it.
She knew some telepaths, they were always fucking with her mind. She hated all of them.
"Get the fuck out of my head, you retard," she hissed. She was really pissed now.
"I will never be inside your head if you don't me to," the man said, "but I'd like to talk to you. In person."
She sighed deeply.
She didn't really have choice here, if she would talk to the man, she would be done with all this bullshit and she could leave again, minding her own business. Hopefully.
She climbed the stairs, until she reached a similar hallway, only much bigger and with much more doors leading to other rooms.
Where the fuck was that guy.
Why was such a big house so empty?
"Take the last door on your right, I will be there."
"Hate telepaths," she mumbled to herself while rolling her eyes.
The last door on her right wasn't much different from every other door. It had a name tag on the side though, it read Charles Xavier.
Didn't ring a bell with her.
She knocked on the door. She wasn't really keen on talking to strangers, especially not when she was almost naked.
The door opened itself a little bit.
She hesitated for less than a second and then pushed the door and walked in.
The room was not that big.
There were a few tables, a big window and a fireplace. There was an old wooden desk.
Behind it was a bold man in a wheelchair. He looked at her and smiled friendly.
"Welcome Talyn."
She closed the door and crossed her arms in front of her, trying to cover up her body a little bit.
She looked at the man suspiciously, but didn't say a word. She really didn't like talking to people, or strangers. In fact, she didn't really like people in general.
"My name is Charles Xavier, right now we're at my school for gifted youngsters."
She still remained quiet.
"I know you don't trust me," he smiled, "but I assure you that you can. If you walk to that window you can see that this is not a prison or a mutant research center."
She looked at the window, back at this Xavier again and back at the window.
Slowly she walked towards it, without losing the man out of her sight. He was in wheelchair, but that didn't say a thing, he could still be dangerous.
She was now in the far most corner of the room, as far away from Xavier as possible. She looked outside.
It was a beautiful weather; the sun was shining on the grass and trees, the lake further away was glittering in the sunlight. There were no fences or any other visible barriers.
She looked at the man again.
"My team found you when you and a certain man named Pavlov got in an accident," he told. "They brought you here for some medical care."
"I don't need medical care," she snapped.
The man smiled. "I know."
Then he continued; "My school is a school for people with gifts, people like you Talyn."
She raised her eyebrows. "I don't have any gifts."
"You do, you do," he said, "it is not a disease Talyn, like many people want you to believe. It is a gift. A mutation. A step forward in evolution of mankind. Not everybody realizes it yet."
"I don't care. I wanna leave."
"You can leave any time you want," he smiled. "I hoped you would stay around here a little longer. I can give you a place to sleep, I can give you food, I can learn you how to use your mutation, how to control it."
"I'm not a fucking guinea-pig. I know stories like this. All bullshit."
"There are so much more people like you, Talyn. There are a lot of young, gifted students at my school. All with different mutations. All banned from society, but not by me. Not by each other."
"I don't fucking care, just let…" She stopped in the middle of her sentence. Someone was approaching the room, she could hear the footsteps become louder.
"What is wrong Talyn?"
She didn't answer him. She froze when someone opened the door.
It was a man, she could smell it.
She didn't trust people, she didn't trust anyone, especially not men. This man smelled rough, like he might hurt her.
"Prof, I got the sweater you…" before the deep, growling voice could finish his sentence, a sharp metal sound went through the room.
The man, who had entered the room entirely now, looked at the corner she was standing in, was silent for a moment and then raised his eyebrows.
"What the fuck."
He didn't seem much impressed though.
She had drew out her claws. Her adamantium claws. She hadn't done that in a long time, mostly because she avoided every possible situation she might need them in, but partly because they hurt her. It was a pain every time they came out.
She hold the claws in front of her, forgetting about her half naked body. Her eyes were angry, but empty as well.
The man looked at her for a moment, then at Xavier. He just smiled briefly.
"Logan, meet Talyn. Talyn, this is Logan, he won't harm you."
She doubted it.
"Where'd you get those, kid?" this Logan asked her.
"None of your business," she snarled.
"I think it is," he said. Sounded sarcastic.
What the fuck was this all about. She looked nervously at both the men in the room, felt uncomfortable when she remembered she wasn't wearing a lot of clothes, but she didn't want to withdraw her defense.
"Talyn," Xavier said in his calming voice, "it is okay. We won't hurt you. Please trust us."
"I won't hurt you," the other confirmed, sounding quite casual.
"Logan, the sweater…"
"Oh, yeah."
He remembered the sweater he had taken and extended his arm to gave it to the girl. He could smell she was scared, so he didn't walk towards her to gave it. He knew that could go wrong with claws like that. Experience and stuff…
She seemed to hesitate and pressed her body nervously against the wall behind her. Then, she withdrew her claws, took a few steps towards him and quickly grabbed the sweater out of his hands. Immediately, she went back to the most far corner of the room, pulled the sweater over her head and leaned against the wall. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and stared at both of them.
"I wanna leave," she said. Her voice sounded confident, though she was still scared.
"You can leave anytime you want, Talyn," Xavier said, "I only think there is something you might find interesting."
"I doubt it."
Xavier now looked at Logan, who was in his turn looking intensely at Talyn.
"Logan," Xavier said shortly. Logan turned his head.
"What? You want me to…?" He pointed at himself. Xavier nodded.
"I think it will interest Talyn."
"Stop talking all this crap," Talyn said annoyed, "just fuck off with this school, I don't need a fucking school."
She started to walk towards the door. She was really sick of all this bullshit now and wanted to leave.
She didn't need this stranger to give her a place to sleep, or to eat, she could figure things out on her own. She knew she didn't have that much of a great life, but she would manage to get around, she always did.
She didn't need those idiots, who claimed…
Before she had reached the door, she heard the sound of metal cutting through flesh, she could smell a little bit of blood, but that quickly vanished.
She looked down at her hands, but it were not her claws that had come out. She looked up.
It was Logan.
He had the exact same claws as hers.
He grinned when he saw her face. Xavier remained silent.
"What kid, surprised I got the same set of claws in here?"
Well, at least things were getting interesting now.