This is an edit. There's an added scene and much improved description. If you enjoy the changes, thank Sandshrew777. He's betareading now. :)


Lost in the bustle of city-life, an apartment building lay half-abandoned, empty but for a handful of temporary travelers, there for whatever reason. Among them, a woman leaned awkwardly over a stack of bills, wearily penciling in possibilities for her meager acting salary. Beside her apartment, a young couple cradled a child between them, faces soft with adoration for their baby. In contrast, a gang leader threatened one of his clumsier men just across the hall. Such were their lives, in various states of disrepair and filled different dreams of healing and thriving. All so different.

One apartment, a rather small, tattered one with paint chipped walls, a creaking floor, an unnaturally creaky ceiling despite the absence of anyone in the overhead apartment, and a heavy scent of mold, housed just one traveler: a youth called Zane.

Even alone in his apartment, he seemed smaller than he should be at fourteen; his thin form curled half-asleep in a tangle of blankets, dark hair hanging in his eyes, his entire body shivering faintly as if haunted by a ghost lurking in the shadows of his room.

He lay dazedly on the cot serving as a bed, staring at the TV on the other side of the trashed, aged apartment as the roar of static filled the air. Though the rest of the building's inhabitants weren't quite in hearing range, Zane flinched subconsciously, half-blaming the cold as somewhere in the area, someone complained about excessive noise.

Without bothering to explain his actions, especially to himself, he shifted, glancing through the mess of papers and clothes cluttered around him before snatching the remote buried in the clutter and flicking the TV off.

"Guess the cable died again," he sighed softly. "I need to fix that wiring…" His voice trailed off for a moment, his blue eyes drifting to the window before he continued, "And, oh, the joy of climbing roofs at midnight!"

With a sarcastic laugh, Zane flopped back on his bed. "Well, it's either that or it s just me. I think I'd drive myself crazy." He paused. "Crazier, maybe."

He suppressed a shudder running through his gangly form before shifting his attention elsewhere.

Uneasily, he examined his threadbare, yet messy apartment, eying the abundance of trash littering the floor and clothes draped over furniture to dry after his half-hearted attempts to clean them. The mess almost managed to cover the stains of life left by the apartment's former inhabitants. Zane couldn't see the wear on the floor where someone once paced incessantly. Zane couldn't see the gouges in the walls from a broken bottle. Zane couldn't see the remnants of a mirror on the bathroom floor, though he had to step cautiously to avoid the glass. Throughout the room, debris coated everything that once belonged to someone else.

And, yet, he shivered. Seeking a source, he glanced to the window, blaming a draft through the long cracks running through its center.

"I really need to sleep." He laid back on his cot, tangled in a mess of blankets and clothing, nestled between that cocoon and the wall.

"Maybe things will make more sense tomorrow."

But sleep only brought him such strange things, the likes of which he'd never thought of until they began.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Light? Already? Yes, there's a blue jay singing on my windowsill.

How sweet.

Don't you love how easy it is to kill a bird? Move quiet, act fast, and snap the window down on its pretty little neck.

If only it weren't morning. Someone'd notice if I did that in the morning, and then I'd end up in a therapist' s office, talking about my feelings!

The horror.

I'll catch it tonight. Blue feathers are so 'pretty' to play with. I think I'll give them to the little girl downstairs and let her parents find the body.

Tonight, though, not now. Now, I have to get dressed. Unless I want to get fired, I should be on time, primped and pretty as an oh-so-lovely cashier at a half-bankrupt store with a paycheck to match.

Joy.

Run a brush through my hair, grab a 'lovely' uniform, and-

Is that blue? All over my arm? Blue scales on my arms and my hands and my feet and...and...and my body… Why am I blue?

The mirror. Walk to the bathroom mirror, look at myself, see whatever' s going on here-

More blue. Blue scales on my face. They look just like the ones on the rest of me. How is this happening?

Wait-what happened?

Blue skin. Red hair...Not brown. And yellow eyes...Not blue.

And I could swear I' m staring at a girl in the mirror.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

With a start, Zane jolted away from the wall he had fallen asleep against, almost falling off his bed to gape, shell-shocked, at his perfectly ordinary, perfectly safe, perfectly normally-in-shambles apartment.

"What was that?" he whispered, half-expecting the girl from his trance to answer. When she didn't, he shook his head.

"Wow, I am going insane."

For a moment longer, he stared at the chipping paint. "Or maybe whoever had this place last kept acid."

Another silence. Nothing happened.

"I need to sleep."

Uneasy, he slipped off to the other side of his bedroom/living room that inhabited his rough flat. A bare light bulb overhead flickered off when Zane aimed a stray shoe at the light switch. With a sigh, he stretched, twisting on his cot until he couldn't see anything but his pillow.

Then, he could sleep.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

Off in Bayville, a computer beeped incessantly, displaying an image of a tattered, dark-haired youth. Lists of data zipped onto the screen, flashing through Zane's name, age, location, and any available public records. Crowning this shifting conglomeration, a string of words remained steady:

New Mutant - Adding Data.