Disclaimer: I don't own X-men or affiliated characters.
………………
Maddy spun around in fear, no, I couldn't be, they were back there, back in that place.
Noooooooooooo.
The gray walls encased them and the sterile white corridors confused them, why were they bothering? They seemed to say. Why didn't they just give up? There was no point in running--- all paths led but to the grave. Yes, all paths led to the grave, the House of Bones. They all led to the Minotaur, and he was in his Lair was waiting for them.
Suddenly everything tilted and spun and they were in another time, another place. They had just completed Training. It was only given to those They thought could pass, those that may become – but it wasn't meant to be. They remembered the shock as They had read out the final scores; they had Failed, and failed miserably, like those before they were now nothing but an experiment, now only a number. Three digits among many. There would be no hope for them now, they could do nothing, they had already proved their true worth. And that was as a failure. Sphinx had won; she was better, fitter, worthy. Their surrounds changed again. All was dark except for -
Noise.
Fire.
Pain.
There had been and explosion. Running. Everywhere. The cages and rooms had opened automatically, and the horrors that were their Family had been released upon the unknowing world like a plague of starving rats.
Pain.
Just.
Pain.
……………
She woke with a start. Where were they? They tried to do a basic recon of the environment, but it was almost impossible to turn their head. The fever must have gotten worse while they'd slept. Their limbs felt like stone, how apt they reflected bitterly. The Turner was now being Turned. There must have been something in the bullets--- Maddy tried to shake off the mind numbing fog that seemed to be drifting across their sight. They couldn't give up now. Not yet. They were still in enemy territory. They had to get away. Had to escape. Maddy slowly pulled herself to their feet, and began to run.
……………….
They shivered in the frigid Canadian air. It had snowed last night, and the drifts to their left were almost half a meter high. Pulling the stolen coat tighter around them was difficult with their hands bound up, but the bindings were necessary. It wouldn't do to unintentionally… damage some wandering civilian. Shuffling forward they missed the pothole and stumbled, almost falling. Wincing as the road tilted and spun. The fever was getting worse by the hour.
Their teeth chattering from cold and their shoulder burning with heat, they pushed on.
They stuck out their thumb as soon as they felt the first rays of the headlights sweep over their back. Praying that the driver could see them in the tenuous false dawn light they stepped closer to the road. The car continued for a couple of meters and Maddy had a sudden fear that it would keep going, not that they blamed it. What civilian would pick up a hitchhiker at two am? They answered their own question immediately.
They, would.