p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Charles stood in his room looking out the window across the yard towards the sky. He slowly looked down at his lap. He gulped slightly and sniffed, letting his head sink into his hands. /span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He clenched his hands in his hair and exhaled loudly. He let out a soft sob and stood. Slowly moving towards the side of his bed where on the dresser lay a picture a glass of water and a bottle of suppressants. Made just for his telepathy./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He sat down and picked up the picture./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Charles smiled down at the picture and sniffed as tears began to form./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He thought back. To a time before he was alone, when he had Raven, when he had Erik. He felt something inside break./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"The tears slipped down his cheeks to fall on the pictures glass. He let the photo drop to the floor. Slowly he lay back on the bed and cried silently into his hands. The school was gone, and so was every other living creature on the planet. War had destroyed it all./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He let out a scream into the silence of all. Not a whisper in his head. It unnerved him. He choked down on a loud sob and turned into the pillows. With a soft jolted sigh he opened his eyes. There sat in front of him was the bottle./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He reached out with his right hand and took the bottle. Slowly sitting up he reread the label. With a small smile and a darkness covering his eyes he opened the bottle and emptied it into his open palm. He took the glass in his other hand and took a sip of the cool clear liquid./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He froze as he lifted the pills to his mouth and looked behind him. Kneeling on the bed directly behind him was Erik, emWho had grabbed Charles hand gently./em On his back were a pair of sleek black wings. Charles gasped a sob and closed his eyes with a broken sigh. emErik's hand pushed down on Charles hand brushing the pills onto the floor./em/span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Charles dropped the glass and curled in on himself and sobbed into his knees with high broken cries. emErik's arms gently circled Charles body and pulled his hands away from his head. With a soft brush against Charles curls he lifted Charles head and pressed their foreheads together./em/span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"emThey sat like this until Charles had calmed down enough to breath properly./em He opened his eyes and stared directly into Erik's own. Erik moved back off the bed and and beckoned Charles with a soft amused smile./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Charles looked to the window, then back to Erik, with a small nod to himself he stood and moved between Erik and the window. He looked down at his hands with a soft smile on his face and looked back at the man before him./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He stepped forward to stand before Erik. emHe took Eriks hands in his./em Erik smiled at him. Charles smiled back with a sad tinge before shaking his head and moving toward the window, emletting go of Erik in the process/em./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"span style="font-size: 14.666666666666666px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He stopped before the window and turned to look back. Erik was gone. When he turned to the window he closed his eyes, and jumped./span/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"emspan style="font-size: 14.6667px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"He felt hands on his,/span/em/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;"emspan style="font-size: 14.6667px; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"and opened his eyes./span/em/p
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt; text-align: center;" /div
p style="text-align: center;"strongemspan id="docs-internal-guid-868f56a5-8f30-c9d1-13b7-684c5973195a"span style="font-size: 14.6667px; font-family: Arial; background-color: transparent; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"And he was flying./span/span/em/strong/p