Requiem

Requiem

By Andrea the Spiky Sithster

Erich Lehnsherr gazed out at the blanket of fog that had settled over the Atlantic during the night. It was early morning- the stars still shimmered like alien diamonds in the velveteen of the twilight sky, and within the crevices of the island's peaks the birds were silent, their heads still tucked under their mouse-gray wings.

The mutant who called himself Magneto had not slept more than two hours in the entire past week. He had lain awake in his stark chambers, listening to the hum and whine of the air purifying unit and mulling over the thoughts that roiled in his brilliant mind. Beyond the expanse of his room he heard the crickets singing, and sometimes the rustling of Sabretooth, who often roamed the island long after dark had settled over the ocean. They had always shared a common restlessness, but Magneto had never inquired about what his cohort could be thinking when sleep did not come easily. Indeed, Sabretooth himself never offered any sort of insight about his personal life, as was his entitled choice. But on the long and lonely nights when he heard the footsteps echoing softly off the metal and stone walls, Eric Lehnsherr could not help but wonder about what the members of his precious Brotherhood carried with them. What scars from memories past marred their souls? Who were the people they had loved? What they had left behind when they came to serve their leader's cause? Would they die for him?

Surely they would; he expected no less of them, and was quite sure that they were aware of that. He never had any sort of speech for them when they came, only the expectation that they knew his ways and what they had become involved in. After all, loyalty was the greatest asset. He had told them that. He had stressed upon them that the Brotherhood was exactly that: they were brothers, united as mutants in a cause far more important than a single life alone. But he still wondered, especially now, when there was nothing but his thoughts to keep him company.

He stood now in front of the window in his room, fed up with lying useless and stationary in his bed. Here he could see the ocean and the tides it bore with it, always restless just like himself. But, unlike himself, the sea held answers deep within its roiling swells- the answers of survival, of time, of fate. Magneto felt as empty as his lair, for as of now he had no great plan to seek revenge upon those who had ridiculed and tormented his kind for as long as he could remember.

Give it time, Erich, said a small Voice in his head, and the words inside echoed crazily off of the cold gray walls of his mind, for he was alone both on the outside and within.

Of course. Time. Time was the only thing he had in abundance now. So why not waste it a bit? After all, he had nothing else to do.

Because it's not the productive thing to do, the Voice within him answered. You should be thinking. Planning. Making.

Making? But what, exactly? What should he be doing, other than upholding his iron control over the members of his Brotherhood? What else but standing here, in the middle of the night and in the ungodly twilight hours that followed which he rode out like the waves he gazed out upon….?

A sigh burst forth from his thin lips, and as if answering him the night breeze wafted in from the many corridors of the lair and stirred his steel gray hair. Upon it he could smell the loam of the sea, and the musk of Sabretooth, for he must be close by. Pacing, hunting. Thinking, perhaps, of his leader, and why he seemed lately to be at such an utter loss. Toad and Mystique had no smell and made no sound- their approach was always startling, although he never showed it.

The whispers rose up also with the breeze; they were in a sense their own tide, for in the late hours of the night and in the early morning whoever happened to be stirring could always hear their breathy conversations. Although no words could be determined, it was as though they spoke in their own language and were constantly commenting about the conditions in which their mutant houseguests were living. They could not be explained, for despite the craggy and cavernous conditions of the stone that surrounded him, Magneto could not see how such noises could be produced. But the island was old…almost older than time itself, as though long ago some mythical beast who had watched the creation of the Earth with slitted, omniscient eyes dwelled on this very island and called it home. And perhaps it still dwelled here, as part of the stone, and one day a mutant who had decided to go exploring might find its reptilian visage in a dark corner, leering out from stone sockets, a granite grin welcoming any who happened into its jaws.

Far-fetched, yes. But it was more interesting then imagining exactly what the whispers truly were. Not long ago, there had been a large airline crash several miles away, and the wreck had been so bad that all was unsalvageable. Days later, Mortimer had come to him and meekly bid him follow, where he proceeded out onto the beach to show his leader several bloated corpses that had washed upon the shore during the night. It was nothing like the small whales that beached and died there in years past- Magneto counted three women, a little boy, and two young men in all. They had been nibbled upon by various sea life and were in various stages of decomposition, but he could make them out as well as if they had been alive. He remembered that one woman was missing a shoe, and for some reason that image had been the one to stay with him as though it were a Polaroid photograph that he had stored within his brain. Memories of the camp in Poland came swirling up like the spray of the waves and he fought back the nausea that engulfed him.

And all the while, as he took in this sight with muted horror, Mortimer had crouched upon the sand and with an impassive eye slowly surveyed the carnage. There was no horror upon his features, though the stark image of death was all around him, the fetid scent of it rising in the air as the noonday sun bloomed like a lotus upon the wide azure stretch of the horizon. How he had not been bothered disturbed Magneto, but of course he said nothing of it. He had mentioned the woman's lack of a shoe to Toad, who had merely nodded dispassionately as if it were nothing but a mere detail (which it was, Magneto supposed later,) and announced that if Magneto was quite finished he was going back into the lab to take care of a malfunctioning air purifying unit. The next day he had come into Magneto's office and plopped a shoe upon his leader's desk- an odd gesture, Erich had though, until he noticed the style. A brown oxford.

" Thought you might 'ave wanted it," Toad had remarked. " You seemed interested yesterday."

" Take it away," Magneto had said with a shudder, gesturing at it as if waving away a foul stench.

" Righto."

And then, both were gone, and all that was left were the few sparse grains of sand sprinkled on the surface of Magneto's desk and the whispers that had risen anew.

As efficient as you've always wished, the Voice said of Toad. No emotion to this sight, at least not on the outside, where it counts. Just like a robot, he was. Like a living, breathing machine.

Machine?

Magneto's eyes opened wide then, for he had shut them as he sank into his past. Shadows fled from the borders of his vision like great black spiders as he whirled round from the window, his hands upon the sill to steady himself, mouth open.

A machine…

Yes! Yes…a beautiful, gleaming, metal machine!

His footsteps could barely keep up with him as he left the room and hurried into the corridor. As he crossed the bridge into the main room he saw Sabretooth emerge from the brush with a quizzical look upon his craggy features.

" A machine," Magneto hissed at him. " Wake the others."

Sabretooth nodded, knowing better than to question, and within minutes he and his sleepy cohorts were assembled before him like the Jews before Moses, and they gazed at him as though they really did expect him to part the waters.

" I will build a machine," he whispered to them, " and you will help me."

Puzzled frowns were all that met his revelation, and Magneto, in his frustration and extraordinary joy, did not realize he was shouting as he turned and thrust his arms out at the walls around him.

" All these people," he said, " will pay! They will see what it's like to be in our place!" He whirled again and faced them, his eyes burning into theirs as though he had become a madman and was searching for sanity to borrow. " I will build a machine that will turn them all into us! Each and every one!" He rushed forth and seized Toad and shouted at he and his cohorts, " Each and every one…into mutants!"

And then, finally, finally… understanding and approving smiles sprouted upon their obedient faces and Erich Lehnsherr's laughter rose up and chased away the whispers that had hung like vultures in the perpetual silence of the lair for so long.

Finally, at long last, he had a plan! And what a plan it was.

The End.