A/N: This is the first in a series of fics I'm planning to write. The series is called Dark World, and it's an alternate universe. This story is an introduction piece to Dark World, and it portrays one man's fate in this AU.

Hope's End

"Hope," he croaked, his voice faltering from a lack of use. He couldn't remember the last time he talked out loud, it was probably weeks ago, but it was hard to tell. In this damp and dark dungeon days turned into nights and faded away into weeks and months, without him being able to tell them apart. He knew that when he had been brought in here the sun and been hiding behind a veil of clouds. That was the last time he had seen light, and he yearned for that now. To be outside, to see the sky, feel the wind and live. He didn't live now, he existed, and there was a big difference. All his days were spent in this absolute darkness, alone and cold and miserable.

"Hope," he said again, his voice feeble and hoarse. Hope had been his reason to live before he was sent here. Hope that one day humans would stop killing his kind and just let them be alone. Hope that the world would become a peaceful place again. Hope that he would survive.

But the days, weeks, months down in this hole in the ground had destroyed hope, turning him from a man set to love and prevail to a man who just endured. Endured because that was all he could do. He no longer dreamed of being set free, no longer dreamed of peace, he no longer dreamed at all. He just endured, because why not? He ate the food that was sent to him through a hole in the roof, drank the water that came from a tap set in one stone wall, and crawled up in a ball and slept when he was exhausted. But that was all he did. He didn't plot how he was going to escape or fantasise about who would come and save him. He sat in the darkness, stared into the void and just existed.

Hope was a meaningless word now, a faint memory from a past he could barely remember. Back, before he came here, he had still had hope. But that was when he was out in the sun, not down here in the dark. The world up there was a dark place again, but not literary. The human's hearts were dark, but at least there were light and people and life—enough to give him a small hint of hope, enough to keep him going, keep him fighting.

And fight he did. Fight for survival and an acceptance that the humans seemed so reluctant to grant him and mutants like him. Humans were weak beings filled with hate and fear. A fear of anything unknown, anything that could destroy them. Their fear turned them into what they truly were, the ultimate predator. They were resourceful, there were billions of them and they could be truly merciless. They'd exterminated wolves, sharks, tigers—the predators of the wild. And when those threats were gone they turned to the new threat that was appearing on their beloved Earth: Mutants. So similar to themselves, with only a small glitch in the genetics separating the two from each other. Maybe that was what scared them the most, the fact that mutants were almost the same as them, only with special power, frightening powers.

Humans seemed to think that mutants would take over the world and destroy it if they got the opportunity, so it seemed like they just decided to do the thing they did best and roared up and destroyed the mutants.

One time, years and years ago, the Holocaust had been the very image of the evil that lay in humans, but compared to the methodical disposal of mutants now? It was a good contender. No one kept track of how many mutants were killed, but the number was growing by the day counting tens of thousands, hundred thousands. And as more and more mutants were discovered more and more were killed. It didn't seem like there would be an end to it. Back when the first mutants showed themselves a law soon came, meant to protect humans. The law made sure that the police had freer hands and could kill mutants that posed a threat, with no repercussions or blame or trial. After a while a new law came, and now the same applied to everyone. Mutants that posed a threat were fair game.

It was never official, but everyone seemed to think that even if a mutant hadn't done anything wrong he or she was prone to do so, just because of what they were. So people stopped hiring mutants for work, kept their distance to them and shunned them.

But with the large number of mutants not sporting an actual physical mutation to make them recognisable humans had to come up with new ways of identifying them. To "secure establishments from the possibility of mutant threats." In other words, make sure that there were no mutants around. Machines that tested blood for the mutant X gene became mandatory on job interviews, making sure that they didn't get the job. After a while the machines became mandatory in schools as well, effectively shutting mutants out of society. One politician had said it quite rudely but to the point, "We do not let vermin attend schools, schools made by humans for humans."

Things escalated quickly. Youth gangs spent their time hunting down mutants and killing them for the fun of it, and no one said anything about it. Special "prisons" were constructed, eerily similar to the concentration camps of the Second World War. Officially they were created to hold mutants whose powers were dangerous or made it too easy to escape from regular prisons. In reality, it was a stop on the way to extinction.

The end result of all of this; anyone identified as a mutant was either disposed of on the spot, or sent to prison. And it was common knowledge that no one survived there for long. Mutant testing was daily business, those few mutants not killed being used, their powers harnessed for humans' use. This way they could identify mutants easier or they could just use them to do their own dirty work. None of those mutants survived for long either.

The only way for mutants to survive was to hide. A few communities of mutants came to life, but most of those were crushed almost instantly. Some mutants hid with family and friends, but those were few and far between, most families didn't support family members who turned out to be mutants. Some because they hated the idea of mutants, some because they were terrified what would happen to them. There were laws against hiding and helping mutants. The majority of surviving mutants found their hiding place on the shadow side of the law. They became thieves, beggars, prostitutes. No one asked for blood samples from prostitutes before hiring them, and it didn't seem like people cared much who the person sitting on the street corner begging for money was. They didn't seem like a threat.

He himself had, before being brought here, been a part of The Resistance. Humans saw them as terrorists, mutants saw them as a myth, and they themselves saw them as liberators. For a few years they actually managed to stay alive and do what they could to save the mutants. But their numbers were dwindling, every mission snatching another of their members.

His powers had been a great asset for The Resistance though. Being a telepath was the best way of hiding, being able to cloud peoples' mind without them noticing.

But in the end it just hadn't been enough. They were all caught, most of them disposed of instantly. But for some reason they let him live. Maybe they thought they could break him and use him and his powers. Or maybe they just wanted to torture him.

The first they would never manage, he would never betray or help catch his fellow mutants. But the latter? The latter they were well on the way of accomplishing.

He could practically feel his sanity slipping away from him. It was like he was trying to hold water with his bare hands and it was trickling out through his fingers, vanishing from his grasp. He didn't believe he could do this for long, to live in this hole in the ground that they called his cell. Or had called that one time they brought him here. He hadn't seen them since.

He, who was used to the constant chatter of other's mind in his own, was isolated, too far from anyone to hear them, with ear or mind.

One day he would snap and bang his head into the wall until he died. Or maybe it wouldn't be violent, maybe he'd just slip into a world of hallucinations. Either way, he knew his life was trickling to its end. He would keep on existing in this cell until he simply didn't anymore. There was no reason to fight, no reason to hold on, no reasons to do anything.

Charles Xavier had become a man without hope.

A/N: So, as I said, this is the first in a series of one-shots I'm planning. Other stories will feature Angel, Rogue, Jubilee, Kitty and a variety of other X-Men characters, and they will be posted as soon as I finish them. They are all pretty dark and set in this alternate universe. All stories will be marked with "Dark World", so they should be easy to find if you would like to read more of them. They are all stand-alone, but by being set in the same universe they are of course connected to a certain degree. Thanks goes to Liave Ekeli for reading through and giving me the title.