Logan's Watcher
By: LEM
I have reworked my original posting, changed the title and added a chapter.
Standard Disclaimers: The X-Men and their Universes belongs to Marvel and not to me. I am only borrowing them for entertainment not for money. Not one penny has crossed my palm. And I do not own the wonderful music of Queensryche whose soul-searching song "Eyes of a Stranger" is the musical vocalism of what Logan appears to be and a paraphrase of the song appears as part of the story line. With all that Logan has been through it would be strange that he did not suffer to some degree of Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS). He may have a healing factor but that pertains to his body, but not his mind or soul. Otherwise he would not have the missing memories.
Rating: R for some disturbing visions and thoughts.
Type: Angst
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Chapter 1 Logan's Walk
The walls were staring to close in and the noise of all the students just being their teenaged selves was turning me into a snarling, snapping, wild thing backed into a corner without an escape route. I knew I had to get out of the mansion for a while and get this attitude toned down before someone I cared about got hurt. Pushing my way through the groups of kids, I snatched my jacket up and headed out of the front entryway, stopping only to growl and snarl at Scott when the idiot got in my way wanting to know where was I going.
He quickly took the hint, without me having to punch him and stepped out of the way. Throwing my jacket on and pulling my gloves out of a pocket I put them on as I went into the garage. There I grabbed the keys to the Harley and hopped on and away I went. Pulling out on the main road I started for my usual blowing off steam place when the animal inside started rising up, but this time I did not want to go to Harry's Hide-A-Way. The thought of being around anybody just set my teeth on edge so I turned around and headed out toward the center of the wildness park area.
Being the dead of winter with snow on the ground and as deer hunting season was long over, I knew I would be the only person, man or mutant, around for miles. Just what I needed, some time to my self without someone trying to get in my head to see what I was thinking. I needed to be alone for a while so what few memories I have of my fragmented past could perhaps come to me.
After driving for about 30 minutes, I slowed and turned on to the park road. A lot of people would be to afraid to go riding a motorcycle in the winter when it was snowing, but breathing in the cold air scented with the crisp smell of newly falling snow and with scent the evergreen pine trees mixed is one of the more pleasant smells I know of. Nothing like it to clear some of the cobwebs out of this tired old head of mine. After another 20 minutes the road ended, I parked the Harley, got off it and started hiking up the trail on the hill at the end of the road.
There was no sound except for the crunch of my boots in the snow and the almost silent hiss of the falling snow as it hit the ground and the branches. Just me and myself, alone in the snowy woods, if I knew who I was and what was hidden in my past I would be at peace with my self. The past 15 years had been an existence - not a life, just traveling from one bar fight to another until a certain teenage girl in the first bloom of womanhood had jumped into my life and had forced changes. I did not know what my feelings for Marie or Rogue as she preferred to be called were. I only knew that I cared for the girl and if with time the feelings would change to love, I honestly could not say; nor would I presume to know what she felt or what her feelings for me in the future would be. Before I could offer her any sort of affection, whether it be that of a father, brother, lover or just a good friend, I needed to know what type of person I had been. I owed her that at least.
All I knew that every morning when I looked into the mirror, I was looking into the eyes of a stranger. I knew that the mirror never lied. People always turn away from the eyes of a stranger, too scared to know what hides behind the stare. I wish I knew why I was here and what brought me to where I am now. Always afraid to go to sleep at night because of the nightmares that sleep brought to me. I am tired of the same nightmares, night after night waking me with a silent scream covered in sweat, shaking in sickness and fear. There hidden in my mind , buried so deep are the facts that not even Chuck could find the truth to what happened to me and the why.
Reaching the top of the hill I looked down at the peaceful vista of a small snow covered tree-lined valley with a small brown deer pawing at the ground attempting to uncover whatever remained of last summer's grass. Then suddenly in my mind's eye flashed a vision of another deer, a large antlered buck running away from a predator. The predator was me, nude except for a strange cumbersome electrical device strapped around my hips, hanging between my legs like an obscene penis, hitting my knees at each stride as I chase the buck through the deep snow. On my head a heavy helmet rested, whispering dark evil commands that I did not want to obey but was compelled to do so. I could smell the buck's fear, hear the rapid beat of its heart as it tried desperately to escape the animal chasing it. It wanted to live, to breathe, and to eat, to breed come next fall; to me, in my animal state, the panicked buck was my prey. It had to die to feed my need.
It ran toward a tall chain-linked fence, sharply turning around as the fence forced it to turn back the way it had traveled. It ran straight onto all six of my extended sharp claws. I howled with triumph and glee as my claws ripped the throat of the buck opened, spilling its hot, crimson blood on the white snow. The scent of blood, salt and copper filled the air as I fell upon the body and start to feed. The taste of the blood, hot and salty, overpowers my senses as I growl and lash out at my keepers as they try to forcefully pull me from my prize I had won.
As quickly as the vision came upon me, it left, causing me to fall to my knees in the cold, wet snow. I screamed out in horror, in disgust with the taste and smell of the slain buck's blood still overpowering my senses. The real and still alive, little deer in the valley startled, in fear it bounded away into the protection of the forest, leaving me completely alone with only my nightmarish memories to keep me company.
Snatches of what the doctors did to me in the long lost past, overpowered me, sending waves upon waves of sharp pain shooting through out my entire body, forcing me to vomit up what little food I had still in my stomach onto the snow. As I relieved the pain, the fear, the loss of self, I was overwhelmed with weakness, my legs would not allow me to stand. I fell completely onto my side, crying and trembling as I tried to stop the flow of those memories. I would not allow myself to be completely unmanned by the powerful fragments of memory that was coursing through my mind.
Just as I felt that I would be made mad from the intensity of the memories, they disappeared leaving a sour foul taste in my mouth. Shaky, I pushed my self into a sitting arrangement, breathing raggedly trying to regain my shattered composure. My pulse racing, I fought to stand so I could plant my feet firmly on the ground, to appear at least that I was still in charge.
Again, memories flash through my mind this time pleasant; a woman's face, not a traditional beauty but beautiful in a otherworldly way with large golden brown eyes and chestnut colored hair; the scent of a perfume, light with just a hint of flowers; the rustling of satin and lace; a soft, smooth hand caressing my fevered brow, a whisper of a soothing voice calming my fears and a haunting melody. I growl in frustration as I try to grasp more of these memories, these hints of something better. But the harder I try to hold onto these few cherished thoughts the faster they fade away leaving me with a sense of loss but also of hope. I know now there is more to me than the fear and the animal berserker with anger and pain, there now is a hope of ending all my sense of loss and self hate.
Calmer and in control, I stand and notice that the snow is now falling quite heavily. I ruefully shake my head at myself and think what an idiot, taking a motorcycle out in a snowstorm when I should have taken the jeep. At least my demons have temporally been locked back up and I now I had a few more fragments to fill in the holes and blanks in my past. I can head back to the mansion with out worrying about killing someone who had crossed me. I start back to the motorcycle to start my journey back to the only home and friends I can remember.