I had made a comment once, about how I would rather be blind than be unable
to see colors. I know how strange that may sound, but it felt like the
truth when I said it. I love colors. I always have and always will. I've
never had a favorite color, I could never choose just one. But if I had to
pick one at random, the first color to enter my mind would be blue. Any
shade of blue. I don't know exactly why, but blue has always made me feel
calm, serene. I remember saying to my mom how I'd rather be blind than live
in a world without color.
"Tongue by tongue! " She replied sharply. "Everything you say come back to you!" I just laughed at that, because she ALWAYS said that. It was her answer to Everything.
I'm not laughing now.
I haven't laughed for a long time now. I can't remember the last time I did. I have problems even remembering how other people's laughs sound, how my laugh sounds. I think I used to love that sound. Laughter. I can't remember much of anything anymore. I still try. I haven't given up on my memories just yet. At least, not what I have left of my memories. If they really are memories.
They come back to me in flashes, fragmented bursts of times past that fade before I can focus on them. Sometimes I am young, sometimes I am ,.. not. I had a father, raised alone due to my mother's death. He said I looked like her, an Asian beauty. I had both, the same father and a mother who ruled my life. She said I was almost pretty, hopefully one day I could match her. Father is silent in those memories. Death, mine. I had a childhood of chains and muzzles, another father who hates me. I can't see a mother in those memories. I think I am a boy then, long blonde hair and talon-like hands. Deaths, not mine this time. Blood on my hands. Older, taller, no more talon- hands. Metal blades between my fingers. Glass cages and liquid pain.
HE keeps trying to convince me that they are not true memories. HE says that they are not real, that what I remember does not exist. Sometimes HE gets frustrated and tried to convince me that they don't matter. Whether they are true or not.
But I KNOW. Even if the memories I have are disjointed and don't make any sense. Even if I finally break and forget what little I remember, I will always KNOW. HE can never take that away from me, no matter how hard HE tries. I refuse to believe that it was all just an elaborate fantasy. A complex dream.
It can't be a dream, it can't.
Because if it was only a dream, then,.. then this is the only reality. I refuse to believe that this is reality. This endless cycle of torment can't be right. It can't. I don't know how long I've been here, but I KNOW there was a before.
Before the silence. I KNOW.
I don't know how to explain how I know things. As long as I've been here and sometimes in my memories I have had the ability. It is an instinctive thing, barely registering in my mind before I find myself acting on it.
I couldn't do that before. In my strongest, clearest memories, the two- parent memories, I couldn't...
There are lights in the hallway near my cage. They are a good distance away. From inside my cage they are dim, appearing even more distant. A sort of man-made twilight. Sometimes I can remember not being able to see, the light was so dim. Even then my memories were disjointed. Two-parent memories and Father memories. Both as a girl. And Asian. Now I watch the shadows move. Ever single shadow. Shadows are important. They can mean food, or pain or ... others. I can see inside my cage. I can make out the plastic dish where I sometimes get food. Scraps of meat fill my plate now. There used to be less meat and more plants, vegetables. I can see the deep bowl where I can usually expect water. It used to taste clean. Now I can taste the dirt, the blood and the others. Rats. I can see well enough to catch them. They cast shadows when they move. They don't taste that bad. I can remember worse.
My lips are dry. I haven't had water for a while.
Sometimes I can clearly remember a time before now. Before the sound of my heartbeat was my only comfort. My calm heartbeat. I don't mean the racing heartbeat that threatens to climb your throat and leap out of your chest in fear. The sound of footsteps is my greatest fear now. HIS footsteps. No one else comes to my cage anymore. They're not allowed. HE said so. I've learned to count the seconds between the first sounds of footsteps and the first movement of shadows. I can hear every whisper of HIS clothing when HE moves. I can hear HIM breath, the soft sounds of his heart. The scurrying rats around us. I can smell things now. I mean really smell things.
It terrifies me every time. Every time something inside me changes.
I always end up passing out in the lab. From drugs or pain or both in excess. HE moves me while I am unconscious and I almost always wake up in my cage. Once I woke up in the room with the others. Some of them wore the same face as me, shared a similar scent. Some had the blonde hair. Some, the blue eyes. Some attacked me, some tried to hide. The blonde ones always got attacked first. I remember hating the ones with the blonde hair. The others still do. There is one, he always attacks first. The rest follow him. Those that don't get attacked next. He has blue eyes. The leader never lets us speak, it angers him. Those who speak get attacked. Those that eat or drink before him get attacked. It is best to follow and smell calm. He has not attacked me yet. When the fights last too long, or HE wants it, the Outsider comes in and fights the leader with blue eyes. He always wins and always leaves the leader alive.
I think that is why the leader attacks the blonde ones first. He doesn't seem to remember much of anything anymore.
The last time HE took me to the lab it didn't feel the same. I can't describe it to you, how it felt. I feel heavier now. It is harder to move my body, as if each of my limbs are carrying extra weight. I had bulky gloves on my hands when I woke up in my cage. It is impossible for me to use them now. I can't catch rats anymore. I am hungrier.
I wonder if I can hurt HIM with them.
While I sleep the Outsider comes. I've never seen him when he does, he's never around when I'm awake. Sometimes I dream of them, the others that go to the lab. Other victims, familiar scents with different faces. Strangers with my faces. I know about them, I could smell them on me still. The Outsider has been kind to me. A few times I woke up to find something new in my cage. Once it was more rags to sleep on, each covered with a strange scent. Scents of him and the outside. The last thing was a piece of earth with its rich scent of outside and the sweet smell of death, a flimsy piece of sod with a little flower in it. I was a flimsy, wilted little blue thing. It is beautiful.
That is why I haven't given up yet. So many of the others have. But I won't.
The continuous silence is getting to me. More than the lack of noise in my cage, or the lack of speech. The silence in my head. HE hasn't been trying to reach into my head for a while now. It is unnerving. It was once as regular as HIS footsteps, the sounds of his approach, the time with the others and the agony of the lab. During the early time I screamed for days, just to hear the sound of a voice. My voice is gone now. My throat feels like sandpaper. Not like anyone here cares enough to hear me anyway.
The hallway smells of death. I can't catch a whiff of the outsider. I haven't since the last bowl of water. The others are being killed. Some are allowed to kill the weaker ones, the useless ones. The stronger ones are left with the leader.
One way or another, death always comes from HIM.
Footsteps. HE's coming. I can feel my heartbeat speed up. My ears are filled with its sound and the sounds of HIS approach. Wait... The sounds are wrong. These footsteps, they sound different. The clothing is making a different sound. More mmffly and less of a swoosh. The scent is wrong too. I don't recognize this one. The other must have caught the scent, the weaker ones have fallen silent and the stronger are beginning to growl. The footsteps are followed by a deep male voice. The growls grow more aggressive and the weak begin to whimper.
A movement in the shadows. Food, death or pain? The voice asks something, the scent of a question travels further than the words. Cage doors open and some of the growls grow louder before the sound of snapping restraints is heard. The sounds stop suddenly. So, it is death then. Cage doors open again and the weaker ones scents grow aggressive. They die too. The footsteps are coming closer, each time stopping before a cage. Sometimes the weaker ones stay back and there is no smell of death following the opening of the cage door.
If he opens my cage door, I will not attack him.
The footsteps have reached my cage. And it is my turn to hear his question. What will it be?
"You are not like the others-are you?" His voice sounds amused and threatening at the same time. I remember another voice that sounded like that. I thought it was mine once. He smells of coffee and death and metal. He is tall, quite taller than me. His hair is grey, tinted gold by the light that flashed from his left eye. As if someone snatched out his eyeball and replaced it with a fiery light-bulb. His right eye is marked with old scars, three above and three below. His left arm is made of metal and is carrying a big gun.
Something inside me wakes up and takes a good look at him. In the space between two heartbeats I perceive a sea of images, sounds, scents and raw knowledge. Nathan Dayspring Askani'son Summers. Telepath. Telekinetic. Lost- found child of the X-men. Leader of X-Factor. Scent of mate-Domino lingering in an expanse filled with enraged cries. Scent of coffee, home and family. Lots of coffee.
I back away from him as he draws nearer, not stopping until my back is to a wall. But I am not afraid, the knowledge is part of me now. Each of my senses triggers the instinctive knowing. I am not afraid of him and he knows it. My hands itch inside their metal casings, I wish I could take them off.
He gives me a neutral stare as he opens the cage door. He stands there, blocking my escape, testing me. For a moment I want to attack him, force him away and claw my way out to freedom. Claw my way... I look down at my hands. Then I look back at Nathan and wait, relaxing in a way I haven't for a long time. I let the knowing fade and wait. The worst will be if he kills me. The best will be if he will kill me quickly.
He must have heard that thought, he curses in a language that I don't know and don't recognize. He runs a hand through his hair, the movement catching my eye for a moment. He clenches his jaw and looks me in the eye. Then I feel a presence in my head, a kind of mental knock. I relax further and let him in. I can feel him reassuring me that he means no harm. It is a strangely gentle, guiding force; a polar opposite to the person standing before me. The thought amuses him and I am treated to a small grin. Skepticism hits me hard for a moment and I reach for the knowing. I have to see if this is truth. Unthinkingly I take his mind with me into the silence/sound that lies between past and present.
I don't like pulling myself outside of time. There is no color here and the silence changes into something else that I can't describe. It grows, mutates and presses down on me. When I used this ability before, or so I seem to remember, no one else existed with me. I was alone in all the universe and surrounded my more knowledge than I would process.
I am not alone now. Nathan is here and if he is not let back into time soon, I will not be. As oppressive as the silence (lack of sound) is to me, the silence of the mind is a thousand times worse for a telepath. It is like having one of your senses completely compromised. Like the proverbial wall of wet paint, you can't help but touch. A telepath can't help but reach out and grasp the nearest minds it can reach. Mind it can reach.
This happened before with me and Elizabeth, I was the stronger so she was forced to fade. Now Nathan is the stronger and I can feel myself losing hold. Or not.
I put myself back into time, this time noting Nathan's presence. We stare at each other for a moment, still feeling the shock of the almost merging of our minds. I can see the future behind him more clearly now that I have a better understanding of him. And that newly acquired Nathan-echo I seem to have in my mind.
I have the feeling that Echo-Nathan is going to be inconvenient later.
"Hn... you ready to leave now?" he asks, a protective nudge from his mind grows into a working telepathic link. He lets me out by backing up a few steps and waiting.
I move slowly out of the cage, more out of deference to him than to fear. A quiet part of my mind notes how easily he removed the leader with the blue eyes from the place of trust in my mind and replaced him.
We walk down the hall, as silent as shadows. Well, as silent as shadows wearing loud clothes. I'm slowing him down, but I am uncomfortable with the new changes in my body and am unwilling to make anymore noise. The weaker ones Nathan set free are still wandering around the hallway between the cages. I sniff the air, but the only scent worth noticing is Nathan's. The outsider has not been here for many days, his scent is completely faded. Nathan motions me to stop, sending wariness-caution over the link. I sniff the air again, more attentive. One of the weaker ones stands in our path, a rat between his claws. It is one of the blondes. I walk around Nathan, despite his protests, and stop a few feet away from the blonde one and growl. I doubt that I would be able to kill him with my hands sheathed in metal like they are, but I will be able to convince him to back off.
The other stares at me a moment before diverting his attentions to Nathan. Before he can react I run up to him begin beating him with my hands. He startles and almost drops his rat. He runs a few steps back and turns again, unsure of what I will do. I stalk slowly, hands raised and growling softly to get my point across. He leaves.
I turn back to Nathan, waiting for him to continue leading, or at least keep following me. He stares at me for a moment and then shrugs his shoulders. As we continue on I can't help but feel the strangeness of this place. It feels abandoned. I can not smell any trace of HIM, as if HE has not been here for a very long time. Many of the unopened cages hold others that have died of starvation. They are several days dead.
As we near the exit Nathan stops me and asks, "Can you stay calm long enough for us to fly back to the mansion?" He is fully prepared to knock me out to prevent me destroying the aircraft in midair. He sends me a telepathic glimpse of where we are going. I wonder if I really want to go there before shrugging, it's not like it matters much. My hands itch again and I look down at them, in their shiny metal casings. I lift them for Nathan to see and ask a question of my own.
"C-can you get these off?" My voice sounds like sandpaper. It hurts my ears to hear it almost as much as is hurts my throat to speak.
Nathan is nodding, a mental grin passes through the link.
Silly man, that is all you had to say.
"Tongue by tongue! " She replied sharply. "Everything you say come back to you!" I just laughed at that, because she ALWAYS said that. It was her answer to Everything.
I'm not laughing now.
I haven't laughed for a long time now. I can't remember the last time I did. I have problems even remembering how other people's laughs sound, how my laugh sounds. I think I used to love that sound. Laughter. I can't remember much of anything anymore. I still try. I haven't given up on my memories just yet. At least, not what I have left of my memories. If they really are memories.
They come back to me in flashes, fragmented bursts of times past that fade before I can focus on them. Sometimes I am young, sometimes I am ,.. not. I had a father, raised alone due to my mother's death. He said I looked like her, an Asian beauty. I had both, the same father and a mother who ruled my life. She said I was almost pretty, hopefully one day I could match her. Father is silent in those memories. Death, mine. I had a childhood of chains and muzzles, another father who hates me. I can't see a mother in those memories. I think I am a boy then, long blonde hair and talon-like hands. Deaths, not mine this time. Blood on my hands. Older, taller, no more talon- hands. Metal blades between my fingers. Glass cages and liquid pain.
HE keeps trying to convince me that they are not true memories. HE says that they are not real, that what I remember does not exist. Sometimes HE gets frustrated and tried to convince me that they don't matter. Whether they are true or not.
But I KNOW. Even if the memories I have are disjointed and don't make any sense. Even if I finally break and forget what little I remember, I will always KNOW. HE can never take that away from me, no matter how hard HE tries. I refuse to believe that it was all just an elaborate fantasy. A complex dream.
It can't be a dream, it can't.
Because if it was only a dream, then,.. then this is the only reality. I refuse to believe that this is reality. This endless cycle of torment can't be right. It can't. I don't know how long I've been here, but I KNOW there was a before.
Before the silence. I KNOW.
I don't know how to explain how I know things. As long as I've been here and sometimes in my memories I have had the ability. It is an instinctive thing, barely registering in my mind before I find myself acting on it.
I couldn't do that before. In my strongest, clearest memories, the two- parent memories, I couldn't...
There are lights in the hallway near my cage. They are a good distance away. From inside my cage they are dim, appearing even more distant. A sort of man-made twilight. Sometimes I can remember not being able to see, the light was so dim. Even then my memories were disjointed. Two-parent memories and Father memories. Both as a girl. And Asian. Now I watch the shadows move. Ever single shadow. Shadows are important. They can mean food, or pain or ... others. I can see inside my cage. I can make out the plastic dish where I sometimes get food. Scraps of meat fill my plate now. There used to be less meat and more plants, vegetables. I can see the deep bowl where I can usually expect water. It used to taste clean. Now I can taste the dirt, the blood and the others. Rats. I can see well enough to catch them. They cast shadows when they move. They don't taste that bad. I can remember worse.
My lips are dry. I haven't had water for a while.
Sometimes I can clearly remember a time before now. Before the sound of my heartbeat was my only comfort. My calm heartbeat. I don't mean the racing heartbeat that threatens to climb your throat and leap out of your chest in fear. The sound of footsteps is my greatest fear now. HIS footsteps. No one else comes to my cage anymore. They're not allowed. HE said so. I've learned to count the seconds between the first sounds of footsteps and the first movement of shadows. I can hear every whisper of HIS clothing when HE moves. I can hear HIM breath, the soft sounds of his heart. The scurrying rats around us. I can smell things now. I mean really smell things.
It terrifies me every time. Every time something inside me changes.
I always end up passing out in the lab. From drugs or pain or both in excess. HE moves me while I am unconscious and I almost always wake up in my cage. Once I woke up in the room with the others. Some of them wore the same face as me, shared a similar scent. Some had the blonde hair. Some, the blue eyes. Some attacked me, some tried to hide. The blonde ones always got attacked first. I remember hating the ones with the blonde hair. The others still do. There is one, he always attacks first. The rest follow him. Those that don't get attacked next. He has blue eyes. The leader never lets us speak, it angers him. Those who speak get attacked. Those that eat or drink before him get attacked. It is best to follow and smell calm. He has not attacked me yet. When the fights last too long, or HE wants it, the Outsider comes in and fights the leader with blue eyes. He always wins and always leaves the leader alive.
I think that is why the leader attacks the blonde ones first. He doesn't seem to remember much of anything anymore.
The last time HE took me to the lab it didn't feel the same. I can't describe it to you, how it felt. I feel heavier now. It is harder to move my body, as if each of my limbs are carrying extra weight. I had bulky gloves on my hands when I woke up in my cage. It is impossible for me to use them now. I can't catch rats anymore. I am hungrier.
I wonder if I can hurt HIM with them.
While I sleep the Outsider comes. I've never seen him when he does, he's never around when I'm awake. Sometimes I dream of them, the others that go to the lab. Other victims, familiar scents with different faces. Strangers with my faces. I know about them, I could smell them on me still. The Outsider has been kind to me. A few times I woke up to find something new in my cage. Once it was more rags to sleep on, each covered with a strange scent. Scents of him and the outside. The last thing was a piece of earth with its rich scent of outside and the sweet smell of death, a flimsy piece of sod with a little flower in it. I was a flimsy, wilted little blue thing. It is beautiful.
That is why I haven't given up yet. So many of the others have. But I won't.
The continuous silence is getting to me. More than the lack of noise in my cage, or the lack of speech. The silence in my head. HE hasn't been trying to reach into my head for a while now. It is unnerving. It was once as regular as HIS footsteps, the sounds of his approach, the time with the others and the agony of the lab. During the early time I screamed for days, just to hear the sound of a voice. My voice is gone now. My throat feels like sandpaper. Not like anyone here cares enough to hear me anyway.
The hallway smells of death. I can't catch a whiff of the outsider. I haven't since the last bowl of water. The others are being killed. Some are allowed to kill the weaker ones, the useless ones. The stronger ones are left with the leader.
One way or another, death always comes from HIM.
Footsteps. HE's coming. I can feel my heartbeat speed up. My ears are filled with its sound and the sounds of HIS approach. Wait... The sounds are wrong. These footsteps, they sound different. The clothing is making a different sound. More mmffly and less of a swoosh. The scent is wrong too. I don't recognize this one. The other must have caught the scent, the weaker ones have fallen silent and the stronger are beginning to growl. The footsteps are followed by a deep male voice. The growls grow more aggressive and the weak begin to whimper.
A movement in the shadows. Food, death or pain? The voice asks something, the scent of a question travels further than the words. Cage doors open and some of the growls grow louder before the sound of snapping restraints is heard. The sounds stop suddenly. So, it is death then. Cage doors open again and the weaker ones scents grow aggressive. They die too. The footsteps are coming closer, each time stopping before a cage. Sometimes the weaker ones stay back and there is no smell of death following the opening of the cage door.
If he opens my cage door, I will not attack him.
The footsteps have reached my cage. And it is my turn to hear his question. What will it be?
"You are not like the others-are you?" His voice sounds amused and threatening at the same time. I remember another voice that sounded like that. I thought it was mine once. He smells of coffee and death and metal. He is tall, quite taller than me. His hair is grey, tinted gold by the light that flashed from his left eye. As if someone snatched out his eyeball and replaced it with a fiery light-bulb. His right eye is marked with old scars, three above and three below. His left arm is made of metal and is carrying a big gun.
Something inside me wakes up and takes a good look at him. In the space between two heartbeats I perceive a sea of images, sounds, scents and raw knowledge. Nathan Dayspring Askani'son Summers. Telepath. Telekinetic. Lost- found child of the X-men. Leader of X-Factor. Scent of mate-Domino lingering in an expanse filled with enraged cries. Scent of coffee, home and family. Lots of coffee.
I back away from him as he draws nearer, not stopping until my back is to a wall. But I am not afraid, the knowledge is part of me now. Each of my senses triggers the instinctive knowing. I am not afraid of him and he knows it. My hands itch inside their metal casings, I wish I could take them off.
He gives me a neutral stare as he opens the cage door. He stands there, blocking my escape, testing me. For a moment I want to attack him, force him away and claw my way out to freedom. Claw my way... I look down at my hands. Then I look back at Nathan and wait, relaxing in a way I haven't for a long time. I let the knowing fade and wait. The worst will be if he kills me. The best will be if he will kill me quickly.
He must have heard that thought, he curses in a language that I don't know and don't recognize. He runs a hand through his hair, the movement catching my eye for a moment. He clenches his jaw and looks me in the eye. Then I feel a presence in my head, a kind of mental knock. I relax further and let him in. I can feel him reassuring me that he means no harm. It is a strangely gentle, guiding force; a polar opposite to the person standing before me. The thought amuses him and I am treated to a small grin. Skepticism hits me hard for a moment and I reach for the knowing. I have to see if this is truth. Unthinkingly I take his mind with me into the silence/sound that lies between past and present.
I don't like pulling myself outside of time. There is no color here and the silence changes into something else that I can't describe. It grows, mutates and presses down on me. When I used this ability before, or so I seem to remember, no one else existed with me. I was alone in all the universe and surrounded my more knowledge than I would process.
I am not alone now. Nathan is here and if he is not let back into time soon, I will not be. As oppressive as the silence (lack of sound) is to me, the silence of the mind is a thousand times worse for a telepath. It is like having one of your senses completely compromised. Like the proverbial wall of wet paint, you can't help but touch. A telepath can't help but reach out and grasp the nearest minds it can reach. Mind it can reach.
This happened before with me and Elizabeth, I was the stronger so she was forced to fade. Now Nathan is the stronger and I can feel myself losing hold. Or not.
I put myself back into time, this time noting Nathan's presence. We stare at each other for a moment, still feeling the shock of the almost merging of our minds. I can see the future behind him more clearly now that I have a better understanding of him. And that newly acquired Nathan-echo I seem to have in my mind.
I have the feeling that Echo-Nathan is going to be inconvenient later.
"Hn... you ready to leave now?" he asks, a protective nudge from his mind grows into a working telepathic link. He lets me out by backing up a few steps and waiting.
I move slowly out of the cage, more out of deference to him than to fear. A quiet part of my mind notes how easily he removed the leader with the blue eyes from the place of trust in my mind and replaced him.
We walk down the hall, as silent as shadows. Well, as silent as shadows wearing loud clothes. I'm slowing him down, but I am uncomfortable with the new changes in my body and am unwilling to make anymore noise. The weaker ones Nathan set free are still wandering around the hallway between the cages. I sniff the air, but the only scent worth noticing is Nathan's. The outsider has not been here for many days, his scent is completely faded. Nathan motions me to stop, sending wariness-caution over the link. I sniff the air again, more attentive. One of the weaker ones stands in our path, a rat between his claws. It is one of the blondes. I walk around Nathan, despite his protests, and stop a few feet away from the blonde one and growl. I doubt that I would be able to kill him with my hands sheathed in metal like they are, but I will be able to convince him to back off.
The other stares at me a moment before diverting his attentions to Nathan. Before he can react I run up to him begin beating him with my hands. He startles and almost drops his rat. He runs a few steps back and turns again, unsure of what I will do. I stalk slowly, hands raised and growling softly to get my point across. He leaves.
I turn back to Nathan, waiting for him to continue leading, or at least keep following me. He stares at me for a moment and then shrugs his shoulders. As we continue on I can't help but feel the strangeness of this place. It feels abandoned. I can not smell any trace of HIM, as if HE has not been here for a very long time. Many of the unopened cages hold others that have died of starvation. They are several days dead.
As we near the exit Nathan stops me and asks, "Can you stay calm long enough for us to fly back to the mansion?" He is fully prepared to knock me out to prevent me destroying the aircraft in midair. He sends me a telepathic glimpse of where we are going. I wonder if I really want to go there before shrugging, it's not like it matters much. My hands itch again and I look down at them, in their shiny metal casings. I lift them for Nathan to see and ask a question of my own.
"C-can you get these off?" My voice sounds like sandpaper. It hurts my ears to hear it almost as much as is hurts my throat to speak.
Nathan is nodding, a mental grin passes through the link.
Silly man, that is all you had to say.